[Kenny]

December report is out:

http://torontorealestateboard.com/market_news/market_watch/index.htm

January 5, 2012 -- Greater Toronto REALTORS® reported 4,718 transactions through the TorontoMLS® system in December 2011. The December result capped off the second-best year on record under the current Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) boundaries. Total sales for 2011 amounted to 89,347 – up four per cent in comparison to 2010.

“Low borrowing costs kept Buyers confident in their ability to comfortably cover their mortgage payments along with other major housing costs,” said TREB President Richard Silver. “If Buyers had not been constrained by a shortage of listings over the past 12 months, we would have been flirting with a new sales record in the Greater Toronto Area,” added Silver.

The average selling price in December was $451,436 – up four per cent compared to December 2010. For all of 2011, the average selling price was $465,412, an increase of eight per cent in comparison to the average of $431,276 in 2010.

“Months of inventory remained below the pre-recession norm in 2011. Very tight market conditions meant substantial competition between Buyers and strong upward pressure on selling prices,” said Jason Mercer, TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis.

“TREB’s baseline forecast for 2012 is for an average price of $485,000, representing a more moderate four per cent annual rate of price growth. This baseline view is subject to a heightened degree of risk given the uncertain global economic outlook,” continued Mercer.

 

[Eug]

December report is out:

http://torontorealestateboard.com/market_news/market_watch/index.htm

8% increase for the year.

Here are the historic statistics:

http://torontorealestateboard.com/m...storic_stats/pdf/TREB_historic_statistics.pdf

Average prices have more than doubled since when I first bought in 1999. Back in 1999 the average was $228372. Now it's $465412. A decade ago in 2001 it was $251508, which means there has been an 85% increase over 10 years.

It will be interesting to see the Teranet numbers in a couple of months. As of October, Toronto was ~39% more than it was in June 2005. The index in October 2011 was 138.81, vs. 79.39 in October 2001, an increase of 75%.

--

P.S. Here's the ultimate teardown:

Elin Nordegren bought a $12 million home in North Palm Beach, Fla., but didn't like it, and has plowed the whole thing.

 

[rbt]

P.S. Here's the ultimate teardown:

Elin Nordegren bought a $12 million home in North Palm Beach, Fla., but didn't like it, and has plowed the whole thing.

Looks more like a $750k home sitting on a $11.25million plot of land. Don't blame him for tearing it down. For 10% more he can have a custom home of higher quality.

 

[zaius]

Looks more like a $750k home sitting on a $11.25million plot of land. Don't blame him for tearing it down. For 10% more he can have a custom home of higher quality.

errr you realize that's tiger woods ex wife...

 

[Eug]

Looks more like a $750k home sitting on a $11.25million plot of land. Don't blame him for tearing it down. For 10% more he can have a custom home of higher quality.

I'd guess that house with pool and landscaping would be $2.5 million to build.

 

[rbt]

I'd guess that house with pool and landscaping would be $2.5 million to build.

Last time I checked, house construction in Florida (Orlando) topped at about $100/sqft (10,000 sqft is $1M) for well finished houses. This was near the peak, before the housing crash and many contractors seem to have plenty of free time still. That place didn't look like top of the line from the outside, just large.

 

[Eug]

Last time I checked, house construction in Florida (Orlando) topped at about $100/sqft (10,000 sqft is $1M) for well finished houses. This was near the peak, before the housing crash and many contractors seem to have plenty of free time still. That place didn't look like top of the line from the outside, just large.

Not really. Cost of building for higher end homes is often approximately $150-200 per square foot, and sometimes significantly more, and that's not counting pools or landscaping. You're not going to build a 10000 square foot luxury home with cheap broadloom and bargain basement fixtures, which is what you get for $100 per square foot in the US.

if you're talking builder's cost, your number may be a bit closer, but builders don't build homes just to break even obviously.

BTW, to bring Toronto back into the discussion... For a home build in Toronto for a nice custom upper middle class home on a standard 50 foot lot, we're already talking $175-225 per square foot, with higher end homes costing more than that. ie. So, a custom 3000ish square foot home in a nice neighbourhood might cost $700000 just to build. You can get homes built for less than $150 per square foot in Toronto, but they're pretty basic, without the finishes I'd expect for a 10000 square foot home on a multi-million dollar lot.

 

[CN Tower]

Last time I checked, house construction in Florida (Orlando) topped at about $100/sqft (10,000 sqft is $1M) for well finished houses. This was near the peak, before the housing crash and many contractors seem to have plenty of free time still. That place didn't look like top of the line from the outside, just large.

The outrage over the story is itself proof of the polarizing views of the 99% and the 1%. To anyone familiar with the luxury housing market in Palm Beach (or anywhere for that matter) the notion that a large but poorly maintained home could be a tear down is barely worth a second though. Clearly the $12 million price tag was for the land and Elin is seeking to have not a $12 million house but probably a $15-$20 million house.

Whereas the 99% look at it from the perspective of why would anyone destroy an existing 10,000 house that on the surface looks more than adequate? Particularly with rampant unemployment and million lacking the ability to find bare minimum amounts of food and shelter.

I tend to side easily with Elin, it's her money after all, but have enormous sympathy for those less fortunate.

 

[AKS]

I tend to side easily with Elin, it's her money after all, but have enormous sympathy for those less fortunate.

I think the proper step she should have done was donate everything in the house to charity before the tear down. That would have sit better with the rest of the 99% of the people. The fact she only cares about herself makes her shallow. If she doesn't like something, she would rather throw it away than give it away using money that she didn't earn gives a bad impression. Especially from people who sympathized and sided with her. From her selfish act, it seems like maybe Tiger Woods had a good reason to cheat on her. She was maybe a bad wife.

 

[PinkLucy]

Please tell me you're being sarcastic.

 

[interested]

Judge not lest ye be judged.

We don't know the details. By the rationale being proposed, we should judge every person richer than us as being selfish by living austentaticiously. I am not saying I approve, but it is legally (whether deserved or not) Elin's money and she has to answer to no one about how she spends it.

Yes, it would be nice if the house was stripped away and the contents donated to those less fortunate. But that would have to have been Elin's and Elin's decision alone and to judge her on what she does in retrospect with her own money is suggestive that somehow she has a moral responsibility because she is now wealthy to share it. While it would be nice, she is under no such obligation more so than anyone else is.

Do I understand such extreme wealth? No. I would like to think I would bestow some of it on those less fortunate but where does one draw the line.

And I agree with Pink Lucy. It seems like a far leap to suggest that a spouse who had affairs with multiple partners did so "because she was a bad wife" is far fetched at best and ignores the facts. At most, and I am not condoning it, one would have an affair. However, the constant women in Tiger's life has nothing to do with a bad wife and everything to do with his not being ready to be in a committed relationship. If she was a bad wife, he could have divorced her. He did after all have a marriage contract (pre-nuptial). It cost him by all accounts a lot more money than it would have to divorce her had he chosen that route, though clearly I am guessing he did not believe or hoped he would not get caught.

 

[KA1]

Hey, welcome back Interested.

Now that you are back, we can continue with intellctually challenging discussions as to if and when the bubble will bust.

 

[interested]

Thanks Ka1.
Just back from my Christmas Holiday.

I have the impression and it is does an impression that the market is in the process of changing right now. I am not saying crashing but I think we are starting to see balancing of the market with what I think will be a gradual shift to a buyer's market mid year in mid to late 2012. I can't say this based on any "intellectually challenging" basis. It is simply a gut feeling. I do think that the ongoing rise in prices is close to hitting a wall if it has not already done so as far as condos in the downtown core goes.
That said, I will probably be proven wrong once again.

 

[KA1]

Thanks Ka1.
Just back from my Christmas Holiday.

That said, I will probably be proven wrong once again.

That Great Sage of the East, Mahatma Gandhi, once said, that it takes a great and a courageous man to admit that he has been wrong. By that definition, you are indeed a great man.

By the way, did you flirt with the 'Hippy' movement, and the pot smoking that went along with it, when you were young?

 

[interested]

On the reality side: I am definitely NOT a great man. To put me in the same sentence as Mahatma Gandhi would be a gross disservice to the "man".

I never flirted with the "Hippy" movement when I was young. Boring then as I am boring now. LOL