A major Canadian office landlord says about 30 per cent of downtown Toronto’s buildings are obsolete as tenants reduced their office footprint to deal with the shift to remote work, writes Rachelle Younglai. Michael Cooper, chief executive of Dream Office REIT, says a wide swath of downtown office towers are becoming obsolete due to high operating costs, and prospective tenants have a lot more decision power in this market.
Influx of new buyers driving older renters from Calgary city centre
Owners of Kensington Gate, a mixed-use, multifamily building in Calgary are planning to transform it into a luxury condo building, and existing tenants say they’re being pushed out, writes Ximena Gonzalez. Sable Gate, the company that owns and operates the building, submitted a development application to transform Kensington Gate into the Kenten, a luxury condo building with units starting at $1-million. They say the decision was influenced by the aging building’s rising costs, and the demand for high-end units in the area. Current tenants will have to leave by next July.
This week’s lowest available mortgage rates
Predicting mortgage rates can be a hard and messy process – you’d have a better chance predicting the weather, writes Robert McLister in his weekly column. But there are two notable exceptions: short-term trends and rate cycle predictions. A popular indicator for the short-term direction of mortgage rates is the five-year Government of Canada bond yield. Usually, when the five-year yield moves 20-plus basis points and stays there, most fixed mortgage rates will follow.
Residents of historic Toronto building at centre of acclaimed documentary fear development will prompt renovictions
The documentary Charlotte’s Castle made its debut on Sunday, featuring an eclectic cast of tenants in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood and their successful fight to defend their nearly 120-year-old boutique rental building from a property developer with plans to renovate away the heritage charm. But now, just a few years later, the tenants worry a redevelopment could prompt renovictions, writes Shane Dingman. While existing policies enshrine rights of return for tenants evicted for construction and renovations, the practical reality is that such disruption means many tenants will never get their apartments back.
Home of the week: Prince Edward County retreat pays its way with summer rentals
Home of the Week, 3286 County Road 8, Prince Edward County, Ont.ONELOOK PHOTOGRAPHY
The 33-acre beachfront cottage compound in Ontario’s Prince Edward County features a main building with a peaked barn-like structure, a massive six-door garage, a large open-concept kitchen overlooking the lake, and a two-bedroom winterized beach house on the lake.
But the standout feature of the property is the eponymous Two Sisters Beach. The wide sandy strip stretches across the mouth of the inlet, and the previous owner built a huge covered outdoor kitchen and dining area. For those looking to spend time in Prince Edward County, it’s both private and well-appointed. There’s even a tiki-themed lounge area with thatched shade.
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TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
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