Canadian real estate agents may have recorded the first year-over-year sales drop in 11 months in March, regional data suggest, as the Vancouver market plunged.
The value of purchases reported by 11 regional real estate boards fell 1.1 percent from a year earlier to C$12.4 billion ($12.4 billion), as the number of homes sold fell 1.4 percent, according to real estate board data compiled by Bloomberg News. Those markets had a 9.1 percent annual rise in value during the prior month.
Policy makers, including Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, have said parts of Canada's housing market have become overvalued as households add to record debt levels, encouraged by historically low mortgage rates. Canadian builders began work in March on the most housing units since 2008, led by condominium construction in Toronto, the country's biggest city, Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. reported Friday.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust Announces April 2012 Distribution
ORONTO, ONTARIO, Apr 13, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust ("RioCan") today announced a distribution of 11.5 cents per unit for the month of April. The distribution will be payable on May 7, 2012 to unitholders of record as at April 30, 2012.
About RioCan
RioCan is Canada's largest real estate investment trust with a total capitalization of approximately $12.5 billion as at December 31, 2011. It owns and manages Canada's largest portfolio of shopping centres with ownership interests in a portfolio of 331 retail properties containing an aggregate of 79 million square feet, including 45 grocery anchored and new format retail centres containing 12 million square feet in the United States through various joint venture arrangements. RioCan's portfolio also includes 10 properties under development in Canada.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Big debt the downside of loading up on real estate
As I burn the midnight oil filing my usual 150 income tax returns this spring, a number of changing trends are emerging.
When I started preparing returns for the public more than a decade ago, perhaps 10 per cent of my client families owned rental property. Now, nearly 40 per cent have at least one rental property, or rent out part of their own home.
One reason is that interest rates have been near all-time lows for an extremely prolonged period. That has made mortgages attractive for home buyers, and financial institutions have opened up to them, causing a booming uptake on Home Equity Lines of Credit, or HELOCs.
Despite the financial crisis all around us in 2008, many Western Canadians continued to hold jobs and prosper, freeing up cash. An aging population, having been out of debt for a few years, was willing to borrow against their future.
With stock markets having gone through a "lost decade" in which indices wound up where they were 10 years earlier, real estate has become a more attractive investment in many places.
But having a proliferation of rental properties being held by everyday people is cause for concern.
One of my clients bought more than a half-dozen rental resort properties near the Alberta-B.C. border, which was having a building renaissance a few years back. Then the United States housing crisis hit, and many Canadians who used to holiday regularly in the Canadian Rockies tried out U.S. vacations instead, looking to buy depressed property there. Suddenly, Canadian resort rental properties had vacant periods.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Canadian Oil Boom Reverberates in Offices as Returns Rise
Bank of Nova Scotia may have found the perfect time to sell Scotia Plaza, a Toronto office complex that’s expected to fetch as much as C$1.5 billion ($1.5 billion), a record for Canada.
Office vacancies are falling in Toronto and the rest of Canada amid economic growth led by the oil and natural-gas industries. Investor interest in commercial property is rising after the total return on real estate climbed almost 16 percent last year, the most since 2006 and outpacing gains in the U.S., according to the REALpac/IPD Canada Annual Property Index.
Low vacancies and increasing demand are pushing developers to build 8.9 million square feet (827,000 square meters) of office space in Canada, the most since the first quarter of 2010, according to CBRE Group Inc. (CBG) Calgary, the center of the energy business in Canada, is leading the way with more than 3 million square feet under construction.
“They have had a commodities-fueled boom across the country,” Dan Fasulo, managing director at property-research firm Real Capital Analytics Inc. in New York, said in a telephone interview. “The fundamentals of the property markets are in very good shape.”
Office property values probably will rise 20 percent this year in Calgary and about 10 percent in Toronto and Vancouver as low vacancies help landlords raise rents, according to estimates by CoStar Group Inc. (CSGP)’s Boston-based Property and Portfolio Research Inc. Montreal values are expected to gain 4 percent.
The increase in rents and occupancies has helped Canadian real estate investment trusts. The 13-member S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index (SPRTRE) had a total return of 13 percent in the 12 months through March 29. Canadian REITs are likely to have strong returns in 2012 as well, said Heather Kirk, an analyst at National Bank Financial.
“The key Canadian office markets are doing very well,”she said in a telephone interview from Montreal. “The demand is very robust right now.”
Canadian REITs are estimated to have a total return of 15 percent to 25 percent this year, partly because of low and falling vacancies, limited new construction and demand from investors for income-producing securities, according to a Feb. 29 report by CIBC World Markets Inc. analysts led by Alex Avery. The REITs gained 22 percent last year, including reinvestment of dividends.
Read more
Office vacancies are falling in Toronto and the rest of Canada amid economic growth led by the oil and natural-gas industries. Investor interest in commercial property is rising after the total return on real estate climbed almost 16 percent last year, the most since 2006 and outpacing gains in the U.S., according to the REALpac/IPD Canada Annual Property Index.
Low vacancies and increasing demand are pushing developers to build 8.9 million square feet (827,000 square meters) of office space in Canada, the most since the first quarter of 2010, according to CBRE Group Inc. (CBG) Calgary, the center of the energy business in Canada, is leading the way with more than 3 million square feet under construction.
“They have had a commodities-fueled boom across the country,” Dan Fasulo, managing director at property-research firm Real Capital Analytics Inc. in New York, said in a telephone interview. “The fundamentals of the property markets are in very good shape.”
Office property values probably will rise 20 percent this year in Calgary and about 10 percent in Toronto and Vancouver as low vacancies help landlords raise rents, according to estimates by CoStar Group Inc. (CSGP)’s Boston-based Property and Portfolio Research Inc. Montreal values are expected to gain 4 percent.
The increase in rents and occupancies has helped Canadian real estate investment trusts. The 13-member S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index (SPRTRE) had a total return of 13 percent in the 12 months through March 29. Canadian REITs are likely to have strong returns in 2012 as well, said Heather Kirk, an analyst at National Bank Financial.
“The key Canadian office markets are doing very well,”she said in a telephone interview from Montreal. “The demand is very robust right now.”
Canadian REITs are estimated to have a total return of 15 percent to 25 percent this year, partly because of low and falling vacancies, limited new construction and demand from investors for income-producing securities, according to a Feb. 29 report by CIBC World Markets Inc. analysts led by Alex Avery. The REITs gained 22 percent last year, including reinvestment of dividends.
Read more
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