Trends, News, Tips, Tricks, and Strategies to help you with your investment needs for Condos and Real Estate.
Category
Market Updates
Date
July 22, 2019
This week we see Toronto continue its trend of building “mega-developments” with the announcement of Oxford’s Union Park project. We’ve talked a lot recently in our emails about master-planned communities and the growing tech in Toronto (you can sign up for email here), and we even learned in last week’s roundup that Toronto is now one of the top 3 tech hubs in North America… Union Park is a culmination of all these things.
A lot of developers are feeding into the demand of creating massive, multi-modal developments to give new residents a sense of community rather than cramming as many buildings together as possible (which you’ll soon see in today’s roundup has a huge appeal for millennial buyers!). Read on to learn more.
Toronto’s mega-development boom is reshaping downtown
https://www.curbed.com/2019/7/19/20699735/toronto-real-estate-downtown-oxford-megadevelopment
Toronto is going vertical as a building spree of billion-dollar projects continues. A newly proposed mega-development in downtown Toronto was announced late last month: the $2.7 billion ($3.5 billion Canadian dollars) Union Park project, helmed by Oxford Properties Group, a partner in New York’s Hudson Yards, will be one of the largest mixed-use projects in the city’s history.
Some other Toronto mega-projects include:
– The 12-acre Sidewalk Labs-backed Quayside smart city project (Just a short distance away from The Poet, River & Fifth, and Lakeside Residences
– The Well, a 7-acre “21st century city”
– CIBC SQUARE, a two-tower development adding 3 million square feet of office space
– New Microsoft office building near Lakeside Residences
– Cadillac Fairview and Investment Management Corporation of Ontario to develop 1.2 million-plus square feet of mixed-use office and retail at 160 Front Street West
A growing tech industry and expanded immigration, among other factors, have fueled a Toronto condo boom; there are 400 proposed high-rise projects in the pipeline, according to Rider Levett Bucknall a global construction firm, and the city has the most construction cranes in North America.
Ontario Real Estate Association calls on Ottawa for relaxed mortgage rules
The Ontario Real Estate Association has recently spoken out on many of the new mortgage rules that have been implemented.
OREA chief executive Tim Hudak says in a letter to federal policy-makers that Ottawa should consider restoring 30-year insured mortgages, ease up on the interest rate stress test, and eliminate the test altogether for those renewing their mortgage with a different lender.
His argument is that Canadians, especially young millennial families, looking to buy their first homes, now face structural barriers to home ownership that won’t go away on their own. Hudak contends that government should only aim to tamp down on risky mortgages and not borrowing in general
On the rebuttal, CMHC president CEO Evan Siddall, who has been a vocal critic of those lobbying for eased rules, argues that allowing 30-year insured mortgage terms, lowered to 25-year maximum terms in 2012, would stimulate increased borrowing and inflate prices.
Canadian Real Estate Sales Make A Small Gain, Weighed Down By Vancouver
https://betterdwelling.com/canadian-real-estate-sales-make-a-small-gain-weighed-down-by-vancouver/
Toronto continues to perform well, but the national numbers are being skewed by the recent slow-down in Vancouver’s real estate market.
According to Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) Canadian Real Estate the small increase was largely due to a jump in Southern Ontario, especially in Toronto, whereas Lower Mainland was a drag on growth, with Vancouver’s numbers weighing down the national market.
As we saw last week, Toronto and GTA (especially Hamilton) continues to show consistent growth.
Toronto one bedroom rent reaches a new peak of $2,290 on PadMapper
http://blog.padmapper.com/
Rental search engine PadMapper has released their rent report for June – with Toronto one bedroom apartments reaching a new median rental peak of $2,290 (outpacing the previous high of $2,270 in January).
Of 23 Canadian cities, only Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener, and Calgary saw month-on-month increases – though nearly half of all cities had double digit year-over-year growth, indicating continued strong long-term growth.
Attracting millennials: How builders and developers are reeling in the new generation of buyers
As more and more Millennials, who are now aged 25-34, are coming to the point in their lives where they’d like to purchase their first property, Developers and Builders have had to shift their strategy in terms of marketing, location and amenities to begin attracting a wider range of clients.
Developers say that millennials care primarily about community building, mixed-use neighbourhoods and being close to transit. The developer emphasizes that condo gyms are also popular with the group, which likes to keep fit without paying for club memberships.
Apparently many of them have their sights set on Yonge-Eglinton as well! Click to read more.
If you would like to learn more about how this news should affect your investment strategy, or you just want to talk about the market current developments, you can book a quick 1-on-1 meeting with us and we’ll discuss with you the best strategies to maximize your returns: