Montreal’s Wellington St. has seen a serious spike in popularity in recent years. Long-time vendors and renters say the real estate market is heating up, and some say that’s bad news for the spirit of the street.
“This is nothing new. I saw this in the 1990’s on Saint-Laurent Blvd.,” said Sterling Downey, Verdun’s city councillor.
And just like in the 90’s, it’s possible the smaller businesses will need to move to find more affordable digs elsewhere, he says.
“The big players can pay for the real estate, but it’s the small entrepreneurs that have built the character and the back-bone of this community and this street. … They’re the ones who have to go somewhere else and find another place to run their business.”
“Throw in a tuk-tuk service and a sandy beach smack in the middle, and you’ve arrived on Rue Wellington in Montreal,” read the article, published on Aug. 25, 2022.
But what is the price of “cool?” Restaurant Well, a narrow brunch spot steps from the Metro, was one of the casualties.
Opened in 2017, it closed a few weeks ago when the landlord demanded an almost 100 per cent increase in the rent, according to the restaurant’s owner.
“(It was) practically double the rent compared to last year,” said owner Peter Simard. He says he moved to Verdun to capitalize on the location, and understands rates are rising.
“Mortgages go up for them too, and interest rates go up for everyone,” he said. Still, he feels some property owners are taking advantage of the buzz to ask their tenants for more money.
Verdun’s Quebec Solidaire MNA says her party wants changes in the law.
“First, to have a registry for all the leases,” Alejandra Zaga Mendez told CTV, outlining her party’s plan to protect small businesses in the area. “The second thing that we are proposing is to standardize the leases, because at this point, each type of business has their own type of lease.”
The borough is working with local business groups on solutions, and Downey says the Plante administration is working on a solution of its own – and time is of the essence.
“We’re not at the disaster point yet, but, and the ‘but’ is what scares the hell out of me, it has started,” he said. “When something starts, it’s very hard to reverse it.”
“It needs to be addressed immediately before our cities turn into ghost towns,” he added.
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.
