Search Here

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Demolition Commences at E CONDOS.


E condos demolition commencing at Yonge and Eglinton. The highly anticipated building by Bazis and Metropia is getting underway and UrbanToronto.ca has the scoop; here it is:
The Yonge and Eglinton area is seeing a great deal of intensification in advance of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT's 2020 opening, with a number of residential developments under construction as well as several more in the planning, approvals and marketing stages. The largest development coming to the neighbourhood is Bazis Metropia and RioCan's E Condos, and construction will soon commence on the Rosario Varacalli-designed 58 and 38-storey condominium towers, which will rise to heights of 642 and 403 feet respectively.
E Condos, Bazis, Metropia, Riocan, Rosario Varacalli, TorontoE Condos site viewed from the west side of Yonge Street north of Eglinton, image by Jack Landau
The site is currently being prepped for construction, the first step of which will be the removal of the existing buildings located on the site of the future complex. Commercial and retail properties fronting onto Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue have already begun to vacate the block, and the only remaining storefront on site still open for business is the TD Bank branch occupying the northeast corner of Yonge and Eglinton.
E Condos, Bazis, Metropia, Riocan, Rosario Varacalli, TorontoE Condos site viewed from the southwest corner of Yonge and Eglinton, image by Jack Landau

To the east and the north, storefront windows are now covered in paper and awaiting demolition while businesses located north of the Kitchen Stuff Plus location remain open and are not included in the soon-to-be-redeveloped land parcel. 
E Condos, Bazis, Metropia, Riocan, Rosario Varacalli, TorontoSign in the window of Kitchen Stuff Plus on Yonge Street, image by Jack Landau
E Condos, Bazis, Metropia, Riocan, Rosario Varacalli, TorontoClosed retail properties fronting onto Yonge Street, image by Jack Landau

On the north side of the site, a 7-storey, 30-unit rental apartment building at 25 Roehampton Avenue has also been cleared of tenants. This section of the land parcel seems closer to demolition than the storefronts on Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue, and a demolition sign in front of the building hints of imminent action.
E Condos, Bazis, Metropia, Riocan, Rosario Varacalli, Toronto7-storey rental apartment building soon to be demolished, image by Jack Landau
Once construction of the project wraps up in 2017, E Condos will add 854 residential units to one of Toronto's most liveable neighbourhoods, with ample restaurants, shops and entertainment options nearby. 
E Condos, Bazis, Metropia, Riocan, Rosario Varacalli, TorontoRendering of E Condos, image courtesy of Bazis
In the meantime, additional information and renderings can be found in our E Condos dataBase file, linked below. Want to get involved in the discussion? Check out the associated Forum threads, or voice your opinion in the comments section provided at the bottom of this page.

Looking to purchase a condo at E CONDOS? Don't hesitate to click here and get stated. 

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Canada Real Estate Market Ends 2013 in Soft Landing Mode

Canadian existing home sales fell in December for a third month as the real estate market ended the year on a soft note after surging for much of 2013.
Sales fell 1.8 percent in December from the previous month, the Canadian Real Estate Association said today in a statement. In 2013, realtors sold 457,893 units through the Multiple-Listing Service, up 0.8 percent from a year ago with the average sales price in 2013 rising 5.2 percent to C$382,466 ($349,300).

Blackberry sells off Real Estate positions

BlackBerry Ltd. plans to divest the majority of its Canadian real estate holdings in a bid to raise cash, with properties on the block comprising more than three million square feet of commercial space.
The money-losing device maker said it will pursue a combination of sale-leasebacks and vacant asset sales, but remains committed to maintaining its headquarters in Waterloo.
The company will continue to have “a strong presence in Canada along with other global hubs,” said BlackBerry CEO John Chen in a statement.
“This initiative will further enhance BlackBerry’s financial flexibility, and will provide additional resources to support our operations as our business continues to evolve,” he added.

What this west-end bidding war says about Toronto’s housing market



It’s a simple semi, not that much different from all the others lined up along Perth Ave. in the up-and-coming Junction Triangle, except that now it’s got all the neighbours — and Toronto real estate watchers — talking.

It was considered one of the first “good listings” of 2014 in a shockingly tight market for lowrise houses where, since the recession, demand has far outstripped supply: A tastefully renovated house in an up-and-coming neighbourhood, priced under the magic threshold of $800,000.

More than 400 people, some of them battle-scarred bidding war veterans, lined up during open houses last weekend to dutifully check off all the boxes that now drive the decision to buy in the highly sought-after 416: Renovated kitchen and bathroom, stainless steel appliances, close to schools, transit, the city core.

By the 7 p.m. deadline for offers Tuesday night there were 32 of them. The house, which had been listed at $639,900 sold for $848,625 — almost $210,000 more.

“Overwhelmed” Keller Williams co-listing agent Mike Gryspeerdt — who actually owns the house and has raised his family there over the last 12 years — is still apologizing for the bidding frenzy.

“I’m genuinely, 100 per cent shocked by this. I did not expect this to happen — nor did I want this to happen. I’m not comfortable with this at all,” said Gryspeerdt in an interview Wednesday.

He’s now being, he believes, unfairly “vilified” by frustrated house hunters and real-estate watchers.

But even fellow realtors — who are prohibited by the Real Estate Council of Ontario’s own code of ethics from speaking out publicly against a competitor — are outraged by how low Perth Ave. was priced, given similar properties nearby went for well over $700,000.

Maggie Lind, the realtor for the buyers, who declined to talk to the Star, acknowledged that the house was priced low considering a similar one on Perth Avenue sold for $730,000 last spring.

Gryspeerdt points out it had a designer kitchen, a basement music studio and “high-efficiency everything.”

“I don’t think it was about price. It was about winning,” Gryspeerdt says of the bids, believed to be a record number for Toronto. “Also, the Junction Triangle is a great neighbourhood.”

In fact, realtors say, Perth Avenue is a perfect example of problems plaguing a market that just won’t cool down, despite Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s best efforts.

Most pressing is the lack of inventory: The Toronto Real Estate Board has seen a dramatic drop in the number of homes listed for sale, especially since the 2008 recession.

Listing that used to average about 16,000 even in the slow December period were down to 13,241 in 2012 and dropped a further 14 per cent just from 2012 to 2013, says TREB.

“A lot of it is about where do you go next — (moving up) is drastic,” says Lind. “A lot of people are getting discouraged by that next step up and how high it is and they are staying put and renovating. It can easily cost $100,000 just to make the move.”

TREB cites Toronto’s double land transfer tax, but realtors may be at least partly to blame as well: Most have fought hard to keep commissions at five per cent as house prices have skyrocketed, pushing fees sky-high right along with house prices.

Flaherty’s own moves to tighten mortgage lending rules may also be contributing to the frenzy: It’s now so much harder to buy a $1 million-plus home with anything below a 20 per cent down payment, it’s now boosting competition for lower-priced homes, says mortgage broker Steve Garganis.

Add on top of that all those buyers who’ve been waiting for prices to drop the last two years and now realize they aren’t. (Condos are another matter, that market has more supply than demand.)

Sales may have slipped in the latter part of 2013, but prices haven’t: The average transaction price for a detached house in the City of Toronto hit $894,654 in mid-January, up 21.1 per cent year-over year, according to TREB figures.

Semis were up almost 14 per cent, to an average of $581,475.

The sheer number of realtors — some 37,000 in the Toronto board, many with less than five years’ experience — may also be an issue. They tend to have less sense of the market or strength to rein in would-buyers.

Veteran realtors stress that every bid contributes to escalating house prices overall: That Perth Avenue home will now become the new high-water benchmark comparable for realtors looking to price new listings in the area.

“The public wants to blame agents for underlisting, but I blame some of my colleagues for not always doing a good job of informing their buyers,” says outspoken realtor David Fleming.

“The first words out of any agent’s mouth walking in the door (of Perth) should have been ‘This is going to push $800,000.’”

And they were, says Lind. She refuses to discuss her clients’ winning bid at all, other than to say they are “ecstatic.”

“It’s a fabulous house. They really don’t have to do a thing.”

Check out > Toronto Condos

Article from Susan Pigg > TheStar.ca > Published Jan 22nd 2014

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Home affordability takes a hit in Canada, RBC says

OTTAWA -- Higher prices and an increase in mortgage rates have made home affordability more of a problem for the average Canadian family, says a new report from the Royal Bank of Canada.
RBC's latest research on the portion of average household income needed to maintain a home shows that affordability deteriorated over the summer, the second consecutive drop in as many quarters.

Canada's real estate market most overvalued in the world?! Really?

Article from CBC
Real estate prices in Canada are the most overvalued in the world, according to a new study from Deutsche Bank, which estimates homes in the country are valued 60 per cent too high.
Some economists here have crunched their own numbers and come up with results similar to those of the German bank.

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Rising prices, mortgages making real estate unaffordable for many: RBC



OTTAWA—Higher prices and an increase in mortgage rates have made home affordability more of a problem for the average Canadian family, says a new reportfrom the Royal Bank of Canada (TSX:RY).

RBC’s latest research on the portion of average household income needed to maintain a home shows that affordability deteriorated over the summer, the second consecutive drop in as many quarters.The level of deterioration differs from region to region and between types of homes, but for the average bungalow the affordability measure rose 0.7 of a percentage point to 43.3 per cent nationally in the third quarter, after a 0.3-percentage-point gain in the second quarter.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Why Real Estate Doomsayers Continue to be Wrong!


Canadians’ homes are getting less affordable, but we still keep buying
This article appears in the September edition of the Financial Post Magazine.
Mandy Coz needs a lead. She isn’t the first sales rep from a nearby real estate brokerage to cold call my parents’ home in the suburbs on behalf of a family that badly wants to become our neighbours. But she’s the most recent and she’s on the hunt for a new seller. Her clients “lost out” on another property on our street.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

No. 6 Wexford-Maryvale

From: Toronto Life
The Best Places to Live in the City: A (mostly) scientific ranking of all 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto: Wexford-Maryvale
At Al Premium, the gleaming new 75,000- square-foot grocery store at Eglinton and Warden, bags of Filipino jute leaves share the aisles with sacks of Vietnamese glutinous rice flour, Caribbean spices and Halal meats. The cafeteria counter transitions seamlessly from shawarma to mutter paneer to pho to dim sum, and the bubble tea station, staffed by a teenager in a hijab, abuts the espresso machine. The store caters to the mind-boggling diversity of the westernmost bit of Scarborough, which fulfills Toronto’s promise as a multi­cultural city in a way that no downtown neighbourhood has in decades—nearly half of the residents here are visible minorities. The diversity is vividly realized at the annual three-day Taste of Lawrence festival, for which the local BIA manages to close off a six-lane suburban arterial to traffic (downtowners would be surprised at how many people opt to walk).
The Best Places to Live in the City: A (mostly) scientific ranking of all 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto: Wexford-Maryvale
In contrast to the hectic excitement of the main streets, all is placid on the inner residential lanes, where pretty post-war bungalows on perfectly kempt lots go for less than $500,000. There are even a few reminders of the mid-1850s village that used to stand here, like the old Anglican Church of St. Jude in Wexford and a copse of gnarled, hundred-year-old oaks and sugar maples that somehow survived clear-cutting at the top of Wexford Park. Further north on Pharmacy Avenue is Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts, the east end’s magnet for budding singers, actors and artists, whose alumni include sculptor Shary Boyle, Canada’s representative at this year’s Venice Biennale; and Degrassi’s Nina Dobrev—and yes, the school’s “Gleeks” recently sang an earth-to-orbit duet with Chris Hadfield.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

#7. Mount Pleasant East

From Toronto Life
The Best Places to Live in the City: A (mostly) scientific ranking of all 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto: Mount Pleasant East
The snaking paths that connect the remains of the great and good in Mount Pleasant Cemetery are also some of the city’s most picturesque running routes, passing by fountains, gardens and hundreds of rare trees from around the world. It’s because of those trees that the midtown neighbourhood in which the cemetery sits has the city’s densest, plushest canopy. Unlike renter-dominated Mount Pleasant West next door, Mount Pleasant East feels like a small town full of professionals drawn by the quiet, leafy streets and central location. Housing stock here is a mix of brick semis and detached homes from the 1920s, with the occasional mansion and modern glass and brick stunner thrown in. One of the most attractive streets is Belsize Drive, which is split in two by a linear park, beloved by dog walkers, called Glebe Manor.
The Best Places to Live in the City: A (mostly) scientific ranking of all 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto: Mount Pleasant East
Homes don’t often come on the market, and when they do, bidding wars are the norm: one old semi recently went for $760,000—$80,000 over asking—after 200 visitors and seven bids. Of the two retail strips that flank the neighbourhood, Davisville Village, on the west side, is more interesting and varied than Bayview. Up the street is Mabel’s Fables, one of the city’s best children’s bookstores. The strip is also home to a 125-year-old camera club; two of the last small-time neighbourhood cinemas, the Regent and the Mount Pleasant; and three surprisingly good bistros, Célestin, Jules and Mogette, that fill up each weekend with families out for brunch.

Friday, August 23, 2013

#8 The Beaches!

From: Toronto Life
The Best Places to Live in the City: A (mostly) scientific ranking of all 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto: The Beach
The Beach is the only segment of Toronto’s waterfront that lives up to its enormous potential as a place to live and play. That’s why the 3.5-kilometre boardwalk is invaded every weekend by pleasure-seekers and why a detached home on one of the picturesque streets by the water seldom goes for less than a million dollars. It’s also why the word “Beach” has been climbing steadily uphill from the lake, first transforming the gracious homes north of Kingston Road into the Upper Beach and then spawning Beach Hill just south of the train tracks, the latter’s dubious connection to sand and spit notwithstanding. Residents of the actual area tend to stay away from the crush of beach volleyball and kitesurfing at Ashbridge’s Bay Park, sticking to the quieter eastern stretches or relaxing over a pint at the Balmy Beach Club, a relic of the days when the shoreline was filled with amusement parks.
The Best Places to Live in the City: A (mostly) scientific ranking of all 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto: The Beach
The styles of the houses here are more eclectic than in just about any other old Toronto neighbourhood. By the water, tiny Victorian summer cottages mingle with low-slung apartment buildings and larger houses from the ’20s and ’30s, some featuring kitschy lakeside resort details like porthole windows. In the 1990s, Greenwood Raceway was torn down and replaced with Woodbine Park, which gets taken over by a different festival every summer weekend (Ribfest, the Muhtadi International Drumming Festival, the jubilant Beaches International Jazz Festival). To the east, there’s a dense New Urbanist development laid out on six streets, bringing new waterfront housing to hundreds of families in the area for the first time in decades (even if the trees have yet to fully grow in). Beach residents are famously averse to new development, and the first modern mid-rise condos are only now appearing along the fiercely protected Queen East retail strip.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

#9 Mimico

From: Toronto Life
The Best Places to Live in the City: A (mostly) scientific ranking of all 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto: Mimico
Ask Mimico residents about their neighbourhood, and they’ll get a starry, faraway look in their eyes as they rhapsodize about their little commuter village by the lake. It’s easy to get swept up by the small-town feel of neighbours looking out for each other’s kids, or by the tiny waterside parkettes at the end of the streets, some with chess tables. Or, for that matter, by the bucolic cottages and bungalows on generous plots that go for about the same as a condo downtown. Every weekend, cyclists take to the lakeside trails and dog walkers brush by joggers in Mimico Waterfront Park, a new kilometre-long green space with pockets of wetland habitats, and boardwalks along the shore that connect to the waterfront trail. The Humber Bay Shores area just to the east is quickly filling up with 38- to 66-storey towers whose meretricious names evoke Miami Beach—Ocean Club, Jade, Eau du Soleil—but Mimico itself has so far resisted that kind of intensification.
The Best Places to Live in the City: A (mostly) scientific ranking of all 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto: Mimico
A revitalization plan recently approved by city council caps off new Mimico buildings at 25 storeys while sprouting parkland and increasing access to the lake (it also allows developers to replace the crumbling apartment blocks from the ’50s and ’60s). After years of planning, GO trains are now running every half hour to Union Station (it’s a mere 15-minute jaunt for Bay Street–bound commuters), and new businesses are slowly creeping in, like FBI Pizza, a delivery outfit run by Queen Margherita Pizza alumni. Whatever real estate agents might say, the area is a long way from becoming the western Beach. The pace is less harried here, there’s not nearly the density of cutesy restaurants and shops, and Starbucks has yet to invade. And that’s precisely how Mimico residents like it.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

#10. Casa Loma


From Toronto Life
The Best Places to Live in the City: A (mostly) scientific ranking of all 140 neighbourhoods in Toronto: Casa Loma

Toronto Neighbourhood Rankings

From Toronto Life

In a city with so many great pockets, and many more improving faster than you can say gentrification, the competition for the title of Number One Neighbourhood is cutthroat.

Monday, August 19, 2013

In a hot Toronto market, should I price my house high or low?


Question: I'm planning to sell my house soon. From what I've seen in the news, the summer market was unexpectedly strong - should I be "aggressive" in pricing my home?
Answer: The summer market in Toronto was indeed unexpectedly strong – the number of resale homes and condos sold in July 2013 was up 16.4 per cent over the same period last year. Many experts are predicting this momentum will continue into the fall market despite steadily rising interest rates.
In terms of pricing your home “aggressively,” that could mean aggressively low or aggressively high. The decision to go with a higher list price versus a lower one (the latter is usually intended to create a bidding war) depends on several factors. One of the biggest, as is usually the case in real estate, is location.
Last fall, homes in high-demand areas like the Beaches, Riverdale, East York, High Park and Leaside had sale price to list price ratios of 100 to 102 per cent. That means they sold for asking or more than asking in the majority of cases.
In contrast, some areas located in the outskirts of the GTA like Durham, York and Peel had a slightly lower ratio for sale price to list price. That said, the percentages were only slightly lower, ranging from 95 to 98 per cent of asking. In real dollars, that could equate anywhere from a few to several thousand less than the list price, depending on the price point of the home.
When advising my clients about how to price their own homes, I always emphasize the importance of not overpricing. Overpricing your home can discourage prospective buyers from even visiting, limiting the exposure that you really need. The more people viewing your home the better!
If you are worried about underpricing and leaving money on the table… don’t worry. In my experience, the market itself always works in dictating fair market value. If you’re in a hot area, a fair and even lower than expected price may even drive a bidding war to your benefit.
It’s the basic principle of supply and demand. If supply is low in your area and demand is high, then it will drive the price up. The opposite holds true as well.
Much depends on timing, and you have to get granular with your timing strategy within your community. Weekly changes to available inventory will have a significant impact on your outcome in an active market.
For example, if there are three houses listed for sale on your street at the same time, you may want to wait and see what happens with them. If you list alongside them, you’ll be competing with all those homes, and odds are that will affect the value others put on your home – usually negatively unless you have a truly star property.
Conversely, if there are no homes listed on your street, but the last home that sold went over asking, it’s a good indication of pent-up demand in your area. With that demand and no or minimal competition, it’s the optimal time to list.
While there are no guarantees in real estate, diligent planning and research can give you an accurate picture of historic trends in your neighbourhood, and an edge in determining your own strategy.
One final piece of advice on pricing: Always take a big step back from the personal attachment you have to your home when determining price. It’s human nature to put more value on your home than may be realistic because of all of the work, money and memories you have vested in it. But prospective buyers and real estate professionals don’t see it that way – they’re looking at it with an objective frame of mind. Any subjectivity they factor in to the perceived value applies to their wants and needs, not yours.
When you’re pricing your home, think like a buyer. Be realistic, do your research and be ready to list at the right time.

As City of Toronto sells off its homes, buyers see $$$


The houses are the very definition of “as is.” Most are dilapidated and untidy – some are downright squalid.
And almost all of them have sold well above the asking price with a handful of bidders competing for the chance to rip up the tile floors and tear out the old bathtubs.
The properties are in the portion of the Toronto Community Housing Corp. portfolio designated for sale, two at a time. TCH plans to sell 68 vacant properties in 2013 and 2014.
Last week, for example, a rowhouse on Booth Street in Leslieville drew 11 offers. The house – listed at $499,000 – has crumbling plaster and a sagging porch, but it offers a coveted location, a private backyard and parking. The winning bid was about $580,000.
Most of the buyers are renovators and flippers who undertake a thorough overhaul, then resell the property, says real estate agent Leonard Fridman of ReMax Hallmark Realty Ltd., who has taken on the task of selling more than 40 of the houses.
Mr. Fridman and his team of agents are listing two properties each Monday, with an offer night scheduled to follow a flurry of open houses and appointments.
This week’s houses are in the east end, at 176 Eastwood Rd. and 93 Empire Ave. Potential buyers are expected to swarm through at the open houses this weekend.
“They tend to be in urban pockets that are gentrifying and continue to gentrify,” says Mr. Fridman of the houses in such neighbourhoods as the Beach, Riverdale and High Park.
Mr. Fridman, who specializes in buying and selling investment properties, has a large database of more than 2,000 potential buyers. He sends out an e-mail each week to let them know which houses are coming onto the block. He also lists them on the multiple listing service of the Toronto Real Estate Board.
TCH spokeswoman Sara Goldvine says Toronto’s social housing agency has all of the properties appraised to ensure that they are sold for fair market value or above. TCH is using the proceeds to offset a repair backlog on its remaining properties that stood at $750-million in 2012 but is expected to swell to $1-billion by 2015 without new sources of funding.
Ms. Goldvine confirms that the six deals that have closed so far in this batch – with approximately 10 more slated to close in the coming weeks – have produced bounteous selling prices.
“The sales are going better than expected,” Ms. Goldvine said.
Real estate agent Nicholas Bohr, who is working with Mr. Fridman on the sales, says the builders and renovators who are buying them like the fact that they’re not paying anything extra for embellishments.
“They tell us the more that’s wrong with the project the better because they have more opportunity to make money from it.”
Mr. Bohr, like everyone on the Fridman Elkind team at ReMax, is an investor himself.
Mr. Bohr says some potential buyers are young couples and other people looking to get into a single-family dwelling. In many cases they find the scope of the renovation just too daunting.
“They’ve been vacant for two to three years,” he says of the shabby condition of most of the houses. “That has taken its toll as well.”
But he thinks some buyers could end up with a desirable house in a sought-after area if they are willing to put in some time and effort.
“These are all great opportunities for a young couple to save some money on their first home,” he says. “But they get scared of the scope of what they’re getting themselves into.”

Toronto Condos - Toronto Lofts


"Shocking" number of luxury condos for sale on MLS


The number of $1 million-plus condos for sale in Toronto has reached such “shocking” levels, it would take about 20 months to sell them all given current demand, more than four times what it would take to clear the current inventory of more conventional condos.
What’s even more worrisome is those numbers don’t include “shadow inventory,” which could easily exceed the number of high-end condos that were listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service as of the end of June, says Toronto realtor Andrew la Fleur who did the math recently on behalf of an investor.
That shadow inventory includes units that have yet to sell in five-star hotel projects like the Trump International Hotel & Tower, Ritz-Carlton, Shangri-La and Four Seasons, all of which have hit the market in the last two years.
Also part of that great unknown are pricey penthouses still sitting empty in dozens of newer condo projects, especially in the downtown core: Developers don’t like to dump too many of their unsold units on the publicly accessible MLS system all at once, for fear it can make the project look bad and undercut prices.
In the first six months of this year, there were 145 condos listed on MLS for $1 million or more, says la Fleur, who was shocked by the numbers when he started delving into the high-end market recently on behalf of an investor who wanted to know if they stood to make more money buying one pricey property or two or three cheaper condos.
Only 42 of those $1-million plus units actually sold, an average of seven per month, says la Fleur. That equates, in key real estate market terms, into a 20-month supply. It was even higher, 25 months, in tony Yorkville, much to la Fleur’s surprise.
That’s more than four times the three to five-month supply of more conventional condos that were for sale in the first six months of 2013.
“It’s very crowded out there,” says la Fleur, who found prices have remained flat, or even slumped, for folks who bought into many of the five-star hotel projects before they were built.
He believes it could be at least three years, and perhaps as much as a decade, before investors in that sector really start to see gains.
While prices have indeed been flat, there hasn’t been the slump many had expected now that all those five-star offerings are up and open, says Shaun Hildebrand, senior vice president of condo research firm Urbanation.
“When you look at the numbers and relate them to the rest of the market, it would suggest that there is a glut, a drastic oversupply,” of $1 million-plus condos, says Hildebrand. “But this is a very niche segment of the market. It really needs to be looked at in isolation.”
In fact, months of supply in Yorkville has always run about twice that of the conventional condo market and it’s just going to take time for all these new units to find buyers, he added.
“This is a new market to Toronto, it’s still in its infancy.”
Wealthy buyers are still looking at Toronto, says Ross McCredie, chief executive officer of luxury realtor Sotheby’s International who sold his $2 million condo in the Four Seasons last spring to a Hong Kong buyer.
“There are a lot of people actually purchasing higher-end condos with cash as investment vehicles that they can rent out because the vacancy rate is so low in Toronto,” says McCredie. “That’s a key indicator. It shows that on a long-term basis, those condos are going to prove out.”
In fact, dozens of condos in the Ritz, Shangri-La and Four Seasons are already being rented out, either by choice or because investors couldn’t find buyers. Rents are running more than $3 to more than $5 per square foot.
That translates into a mere $6,000 a month for a 1,600 square foot unit at the Ritz.

Toronto Condos - Toronto Lofts


Toronto, Hamilton lead real estate recovery


Canadian home resale prices increased in July, boosted by strong gains in Hamilton and Toronto.
According to the Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index, which is a weighted index of 11 cities across Canada, prices increased 1.9 per cent last month from a year earlier.
Toronto saw gains of 3.4 per cent, while Hamilton was up 6.7 per cent.
“Hamilton is an up market by any respect,” said National Bank senior economist Marc Pinsonneault. “The only weakness we see in Toronto is that there many unsold new condos, including those on pre-sale and under construction.
“That’s the only part of the Toronto market that you can say is weak,” he said.
On a monthly basis, the Teranet-National Bank House Price Index rose only 0.7 per cent in July, weaker than the average increase of 1 per cent seen over the last 12 years.
On a nation-wide basis, home prices have only increased by 1.9 per cent, in part because of a price correction that began in September 2012 and only ended a few months ago, Pinsonneault said.
Although home resale prices are higher than the current rate of inflation, Pinsonneault describes it as “subdued.”
Even if sale prices are lower than usual in August and September, based on the last year’s drop, home price inflation will still rise due to base effects.
However, Pinsonneault anticipates sales are likely to cool in the latter of the half of the year because Canadian banks began to raise interest rates on new mortgages in June, which will have an effect on affordability.
“It will be the worst since the start of the last recession,” he said.
The federal government also instituted new mortgage rules, which went into effect last July, making it tougher for home buyers, but affordability questions were mitigated by low interest rates.
Buyers holding pre-approved mortgages will able to take advantage of better mortgage rates, so the impact on home sales figures may not be felt until later in the year.

Toronto Condos - Toronto Lofts