Thursday, February 7, 2013
Sotheby's International Realty's luxury Canada's most popular ski resorts.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Is Canadian Real Estate Market Becoming Overvalued?
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.
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
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
Friday, March 30, 2012
Canadians worried about mortgage rate hikes
The survey commissioned by the Bank of Montreal study finds 43 per cent believe an interest hike would either hamper their ability to pay or leave them on unsure footing.
Regionally, residents of Alberta were the least concerned, with 73 per cent saying that rising rates would not affect their ability to afford their homes, while residents of British Columbia were the most concerned. Just 48 per cent B.C. residents are comfortable in their ability to handle higher rates.
The survey results come as banks and economists warn about the rising debt levels of Canadian households.
It also comes as some of Canada's biggest banks have started raising variable mortgage rates, even though the Bank of Canada's overnight interest rate remains unchanged.
Earlier this week, both RBC and TD raised the posted rates on five-year mortgages.
That could signal the end of the era of cheap borrowing that has encouraged many Canadians to take on houses they may not have been able to otherwise afford.
BMO anticipates that the Bank of Canada will begin increasing interest rates from the current one per cent next year.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Condos VUE a hot spot for condo real estate
The Condos VUE project is located at the corner of Jean Talon St. and Mountain Sight Ave.
The multi-phase development will consist of seven concrete buildings and take seven to eight years to build. Once it's completed it will house 900 units. Every building will be ten stories high and two of them will feature a commercial element incorporated into the first two floors.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Quebec foreclosure rates dropping
The number of properties that went into foreclosure, or were seized by mortgage lenders because of non-payment of debt, fell by 15 per cent in Quebec last year to 2,356.
That compared with 2,782 properties seized in 2009. The findings were reported recently by economist Paul Cardinal of the Quebec Federation of Real Estate Boards.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Toronto startups make the home-buying process easier
This spring when I realized that by George, I might actually have enough to buy a place this decade, I set out to learn as much as I could about the home-buying process. While researching, I discovered a couple Toronto-based startups that are making buying a home a simple process for potential buyers, both pre- and post-purchase.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Canada sees dip in housing prices, starts in July
Statistics Canada reported that its new housing price index fell for the first time in 13 months, declining 0.1 per cent in July from its level in June. That reversed what was seen between May and June, when new house prices rose 0.1 per cent.
Reinforcing that trend, the annualized rate of housing starts dropped three per cent in August compared to July, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., to 183,300 from 188,900. Both single and multiple-dwelling starts dropped during the month.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Homburg Canada Real Estate Investment Trust announces closing of over-allotment option associated with its recently completed initial public offering
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Canada's Real Estate Market Continues Strong Rebound
Vancouver real estate
Vancouver, Canada
The residential real estate market in Canada is expected to remain unusually strong through the first half of this year after a robust finish to 2009, according to a new survey.
The stimulus effect of low borrowing costs has contributed to a sharp rise in demand that has driven activity to new highs, according to the report from Royal LePage, which has a network of 14,000 agents across the country. It found that property prices appreciated in late 2009, with fourth quarter averages higher than in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Avison Young releases 2010 national real estate forecast for U.S., Canada
CHICAGO, Jan. 13 /PRNewswire/ - Recessionary headwinds took their toll on real estate markets on both sides of the border in 2009, with the U.S. continuing to shoulder the worst of the storm. Now several quarters into it, the Canadian real estate sector has not been entirely immune, but appears to be weathering the downturn thanks to relatively sound, though shaken, market fundamentals.
These are some of the key trends noted in Avison Young's 2010 National Forecast, released today. The annual report covers the Office, Industrial, Retail and Investment markets in 13 regions: Chicago, Washington, DC, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, GTA West/Mississauga, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and Halifax.
"If anyone needs to be reminded, commercial real estate is a cyclical industry," comments Mark E. Rose, Avison Young's Chair and CEO. "In our 2009 Forecast last January, we predicted one overriding theme - decision-making would grind to a halt until key metrics stabilized and new trends appeared. The dislocation in real estate lending and investing was so severe in March and April that the markets looked to be on the verge of collapse. Canada weathered the storm better than the U.S. and activity was down, but transactions were executed."
Monday, January 11, 2010
GTA housing market quickly shook off the recession
As 2009 wound down, homebuyers were partying like it was late 2007, which illustrates the V-shaped path the market followed when the recession started to bite in the fall of 2008.
The recession is generally considered to have started in October 2008. For that month, the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) reported that GTA sales were down 35 per cent over the same period in 2007.
Toronto average home prices were down 13 per cent over the same period in October 2007, while 905 homes prices declined about eight per cent.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/content/view/138368/110/
Friday, 08 January 2010
While major Canadian cities showed significant increases in the real estate market in 2009, they had much further to recover after the boom times two and three years ago compared with southern Alberta, says a local official.
Audrey King, president of the Association of Lethbridge and District Realtors, said listings and sales in Lethbridge through realtors were down about two per cent through Dec. 31, 2009 from a year earlier.
Lethbridge realtors sold 1,169 homes in 2009. They also sold 250 condominiums. In the year, 1,839 homes were listed for sale.
The 2009 southern Alberta figures, which include country residential and farms, were sales of 2,355 properties with 5,304 listed in the year. That compares to 2,575 sales to Dec. 31, 2008 and listings of 6,219.
Nationally, house prices appreciated late in 2009 with the fourth quarter price average surpassing averages from the same quarter in 2008.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Vince Vaughn marries Canadian real estate agent
Full report via Reuters:
Hollywood actor Vince Vaughn wasn't a gatecrasher at a wedding last Saturday -- he was the groom.
Vaughn married his girlfriend of two years, Kyla Weber, in a small, private ceremony outside his hometown of Chicago on Saturday, according to People magazine.
A representative for the actor, who starred in the movie "Wedding Crashers" in 2005, told the magazine that Vaughn, 39, proposed to Weber, a 31-year-old Canadian real estate agent, last Valentine's Day.
It is the first marriage for both Vaughn and Weber. Vaughn, whose film credits also include "Fred Klaus" and "Four Christmases," previously dated his co-star from "The Break-Up," actress Jennifer Aniston.
Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2010/01/05/vince-vaughn-marries-canadian-real-estate-agent.aspx#ixzz0bxv0uBIm
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Tuesday, January 5, 2010
How To Buy Real Estate In Canada
buying Canada real estate
Toronto, Canada
Anyone familiar with transactions in the United States won’t have any problem navigating the Canadian system. There are few restrictions on foreign ownership and the process is full of checks to protect both buyer and seller.
In many ways the system mirrors the United States, with the Canadian Real Estate Association overseeing the licensing and ethical standards of Realtors, much like the National Association of Realtors in the U.S. CREA owns the MLS trademark and operates Realtor.ca for residential properties and ICX.CA for commercial listings, which include listings from regional boards around the country. The CREA site also includes the latest data on prices and sales.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Canada Housing Resales Climbed to Record in November
Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian home resales rose to a record 46,450 units in November, as the housing market helped to pull the economy out of recession, a realtor group said.
Seasonally adjusted sales in November climbed 67 percent from a year earlier, the Canadian Real Estate Association said in a statement.
“The Canadian housing market remains on fire as the combination of low mortgage rates and still favorable buying conditions continues to spur buying activity,” Millan Mulraine, an economist with TD Securities in Toronto, said in a note to clients.
The Bank of Canada has predicted growth in housing investment will stay “brisk until early 2010,” and then slow as pent-up demand is satisfied and affordability declines. The bank lowered its benchmark lending rate to a record 0.25 percent in April to spur domestic demand and pledged to leave it there through June unless the inflation outlook changes.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Home prices see first annual rise in 10 months
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Canadian Real Estate Investment Trust Acquires a 50% Interest in Retail Properties Forming Part of South Edmonton Common Shopping Centre
SEC is one of the largest and most successful unenclosed regional power centres in Canada and currently comprises approximately 2.1 million square feet of retail space.
Retailer-owned anchors of SEC include IKEA, Walmart, The Home Depot and Loblaw Real Canadian Superstore.
CREIT has acquired a 50% interest in several key components of SEC, including certain income producing property, property under re-development and retail development land. The specific property details are outlined below.