TheKingEast
Senior Member
Those people are foolish, though, especially the ones who bought at ICE for those ridiculous prices.
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Those people are foolish, though, especially the ones who bought at ICE for those ridiculous prices.
interested
Senior Member
Real estate is like any other investing.
I know very few people who get every investment decision right. Personally, I just try and get more right than wrong.
I am more than a little suspicious of people who "know the market" and therefore have it all figured out. I appreciate that TorontoMike$$ states "my best guess". I think it is important that we all remain a bit humble. It is only a matter of time until one makes wrong decisions, no matter how much one knows the market because there are factors outside predictable logic that influence what happens. That said, it is still good that people make "informed/educated decisions".
People who bought in Trump I fear in many cases did not understand their investment. There were I think a lot of investor/speculators in this project. If one thinks about it, people were buying in a building with a hotel rental pool. Who wants to live somewhere were the suite beside is being run as a hotel(not talking about the upper floors).
Personally as a purchaser in Shangrila early on I believe I may be a bit below water on it at present but it was not bought as a speculative venture but for personal use. Frankly the more important question was where did I wish to have the unit, building amenities, and the appreciation secondary. Also, the condo fees were critical to me. Those who bought to speculate...if they can't carry and have to sell at a loss...their problem. I frankly still do not understand most new development/builds in the high $600's to $700/sq.ft. that are mediocre projects. Makes the Ritz, SL and 4S bargains in my view at the $700-$900/sq.ft. price level.
Also, it is only of interest when once sells. I think Cinema and Ice small spec units the well capitalized investors may/may not lose money. The poorly capitalized ones may have to sell if they can't get the mortgage.
Condo George
Active Member
I don't like stocks, I invest in real estate.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nasdaq-drops-most-since-2011-dow-drops-267-pts-2014-04-10
Other than this commodity I am a real estate investor!
http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/Nickel.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nasdaq-drops-most-since-2011-dow-drops-267-pts-2014-04-10
Other than this commodity I am a real estate investor!
http://www.kitcometals.com/charts/Nickel.html
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interested
Senior Member
The one thing with the stock market...it is a lot more liquid than real estate.
Hence, my personal view is one should diversify. You don't hit home runs but you also don't get wiped out if one asset class is hurting.
Of course, since asset classes seem to moving a lot in tandem, diversifying is not necessarily the be all end all.
Hence, my personal view is one should diversify. You don't hit home runs but you also don't get wiped out if one asset class is hurting.
Of course, since asset classes seem to moving a lot in tandem, diversifying is not necessarily the be all end all.
Condo George
Active Member
Agreed liquidity is an issue with real estate.
James
Senior Member
Interesting report from a study based out of London, England...Canada Ranks No. 1, 2 and 3 in International Index of World's Most Resilient Cities with Toronto at #1. "A report released today by Grosvenor's research team suggests that Canadian cities are the best bet for long-term real estate investment, with Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary taking the first, second and third spots respectively."
Link: http://www.marketwired.com/press-re...x-of-worlds-most-resilient-cities-1897533.htm
Link: http://www.marketwired.com/press-re...x-of-worlds-most-resilient-cities-1897533.htm
detroitbootybass
Active Member
It's an advertising piece for Grosvenor (a global real estate investment company). Their website even mentions in the legal notes that the info on the site is for, and I quote, "financial promotion".
Condo George
Active Member
cdr108
Senior Member
to help make it easier for others to read as sometimes links content disappear ...
Condo sales, prices up — but rents starting to ease
Up to 20,000 new units are set to hit the GTA this year, making it a buyers’ and a renters’ market
By: Susan Pigg Business Reporter, Published on Tue Apr 15 2014
It could be the year of shrinking condo rents but surging condo “for sale†listings if the first quarter of 2014 is any indication.
Condo sales were up nine per cent in the first three months of this year over last, with 70 per cent of the 4,454 transactions taking place in the City of Toronto, according to figures released by the Toronto Real Estate Board Tuesday.
Prices in the first quarter were up 5.6 per cent, year over year, to an average of $351,213 across the GTA and $376,226 in the City of Toronto.
Realtors say they’ve seen more demand for condos the last few months as the supply of lowrise houses close to the downtown and transit lines has fallen so far below demand, bidding wars are driving prices for houses out of reach of many buyers.
Condo for-sale listings, on the other hand, appear to be headed in the other direction — up. And given that as many as 20,000 new condo units are expected to reach completion this year, more units are likely to hit the market by the end of this year, potentially driving down prices and even rents as owners look to rent or sell into an oversupplied market.
“. . . We could see stronger growth in listings in the second half of 2014 as some investors choose to list their units for sale. If this occurs, buyers would benefit from more choice in the marketplace and thus could have more negotiating power with regard to price,†said Jason Mercer, TREB’s senior manager of market analysis.
Already there are some signs that rents may be softening for investors choosing to offer up their units to the growing number of young people, and downsizing baby boomers, looking to live and work in or close to the downtown core.
Condo rental transactions were up 17.8 per cent in Q1 of 2014, year over year, but the total number of listings surged by 27.7 per cent as more investor-owned condos came to completion.
As a result, the rent for a one-bedroom unit in the GTA declined by 1.6 per cent, to $1,573 per month in the first quarter. Rents can run closer to $1,800 in the downtown core. One-bedroom units accounted for 60 per cent of all condo rentals.
Two-bedroom units, which are seeing some increase in demand among young people looking to share the hefty rents, saw rents increase 1.9 per cent in the quarter to $2,155. Two bedrooms accounted for 60 per cent of all condo rental transactions in the first three months of 2014, according to the TREB statistics.
TheKingEast
Senior Member
Interesting. I have seen some condos at pretty reasonable prices come on the market over the last little while. Depends on what you're looking for...there are some deals(if that's what you want to call them) to be had.
James
Senior Member
I think Globe and Mail's ongoing year-over-year real estate price comparison is interesting. You can go back to see YOY for previous periods too. As with all things statistics, I don't think the figures point to any trend, per se, but they're still engaging to review.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life...in-your-toronto-neighbourhood/article4520994/
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life...in-your-toronto-neighbourhood/article4520994/
Condo George
Active Member
Sales of new condos in the Toronto area last month hit the highest level ever for the month of March. (Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail)
Toronto condo sales soar despite concerns of a crash
TARA PERKINS - REAL ESTATE REPORTER
The Globe and Mail
Last updated Thursday, Apr. 17 2014, 6:04 AM EDT
Sales of new condos in the Toronto area last month hit the highest level ever for the month of March, according to research firm RealNet Canada Inc., as buyers remained active in one of the country’s most worrisome markets.
While the country’s housing market is just digging itself out of a winter slump, sales of new condos in Toronto have been ramping up. That’s despite the fact that Toronto condos are at the top of economists’ and policy makers’ watch lists.
• Why Ottawa is raising mortgage insurance premiums
• Real estate sector applauds new mortgage rules
• Housing market off to a sluggish start as spring selling season begins
The number of newly constructed units in and around the city that found a buyer last month reached 2,496. That’s more than double the number from a year earlier, and significantly above the average 1,753 units that sold in the month of March over the past ten years.
While developers hailed the sales surge in March as a sign of consumers’ renewed confidence in the market, many experts are still warning of potential problems ahead.
The Bank of Canada noted in December that there is an “elevated” number of unsold condos that are still being planned or under construction in Toronto, and that any correction in the city’s condo market could spread to other parts of the housing market and drag down the real economy.
Toronto-Dominion Bank economists said last month that they expect the city’s condo prices to fall by around 4 per cent this year and a further 4 per cent next year, as a large number of new units are finished.
For their part, developers see they are still seeing lots of buyers and some believe that the March spike in sales reflects capitulation on the part of consumers who have been waiting for the market to cool.
“For the past two years, people have been waiting on the sidelines thinking the market was going to drop and they were going to be able to get these great deals,” said Riz Dhanji, vice-president of sales and marketing at developer Canderel, which is selling units in a building it will be constructing near Yonge and College Streets in the city’s core. “It hasn’t happened, and what’s happening is there is two years of demand of people looking to buy because they see it’s still good.”
Looking at the longer term, Phil Soper, chief executive of real estate firm Royal LePage, said on Wednesday that more condos are currently being built – not only in Toronto, but also in Vancouver and Montreal – than are needed based on demographics.
“We do have short-term overbuilding in our major cities in the country,” he said, speaking of condos. “There just isn’t any way we should be building 44,000 units in these cities, because the requirements … would be somewhere between 26,000 and 32,000.”
But he argued that the condo market is not headed for a crash. “Demographic shifts, immigration, preference shifts will – our hypothesis is – drive higher density living in our major cities,” he told an industry conference. “There’s a decided shift in preference in our biggest cities towards high-rise living.”
He pointed to global cities such as Mumbai where families live in condos and suggested Canada’s major cities will follow that trend. About one-quarter of people in Greater Vancouver now live in condos, he said, and buyers are increasingly turning to condos as detached houses become more expensive.
“The same people who have been predicting [a condo market crash] have been predicting it for about 20 years, eventually one of them’s going to be right, but in our estimation it’s not going to happen in the near term,” Mr. Soper said.
RealNet said that the benchmark price of a new condo in the Toronto area rose 1 per cent in March to $436,898. But condo prices per square foot in Toronto peaked in February and then dipped slightly to $548 in March.
Unit sizes have generally been shrinking in recent years. They ticked up from their February low, to a benchmark level of 797 square feet in March. The benchmark was closer to 900 square feet five years ago.
RealNet president George Carras noted that shifts in the benchmark size could be due to a changing mix in the number of studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms that are being built.
“I think the unit sizes are small as they are now and I think it’s going to be difficult to see them go smaller,” said Bryan Tuckey, chief executive of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), which represents developers. He added that “we’ll hopefully start to see more two-bedroom units so that families may be able to find a home in downtown Toronto.”
Toronto condo sales soar despite concerns of a crash
TARA PERKINS - REAL ESTATE REPORTER
The Globe and Mail
Last updated Thursday, Apr. 17 2014, 6:04 AM EDT
Sales of new condos in the Toronto area last month hit the highest level ever for the month of March, according to research firm RealNet Canada Inc., as buyers remained active in one of the country’s most worrisome markets.
While the country’s housing market is just digging itself out of a winter slump, sales of new condos in Toronto have been ramping up. That’s despite the fact that Toronto condos are at the top of economists’ and policy makers’ watch lists.
• Why Ottawa is raising mortgage insurance premiums
• Real estate sector applauds new mortgage rules
• Housing market off to a sluggish start as spring selling season begins
The number of newly constructed units in and around the city that found a buyer last month reached 2,496. That’s more than double the number from a year earlier, and significantly above the average 1,753 units that sold in the month of March over the past ten years.
While developers hailed the sales surge in March as a sign of consumers’ renewed confidence in the market, many experts are still warning of potential problems ahead.
The Bank of Canada noted in December that there is an “elevated” number of unsold condos that are still being planned or under construction in Toronto, and that any correction in the city’s condo market could spread to other parts of the housing market and drag down the real economy.
Toronto-Dominion Bank economists said last month that they expect the city’s condo prices to fall by around 4 per cent this year and a further 4 per cent next year, as a large number of new units are finished.
For their part, developers see they are still seeing lots of buyers and some believe that the March spike in sales reflects capitulation on the part of consumers who have been waiting for the market to cool.
“For the past two years, people have been waiting on the sidelines thinking the market was going to drop and they were going to be able to get these great deals,” said Riz Dhanji, vice-president of sales and marketing at developer Canderel, which is selling units in a building it will be constructing near Yonge and College Streets in the city’s core. “It hasn’t happened, and what’s happening is there is two years of demand of people looking to buy because they see it’s still good.”
Looking at the longer term, Phil Soper, chief executive of real estate firm Royal LePage, said on Wednesday that more condos are currently being built – not only in Toronto, but also in Vancouver and Montreal – than are needed based on demographics.
“We do have short-term overbuilding in our major cities in the country,” he said, speaking of condos. “There just isn’t any way we should be building 44,000 units in these cities, because the requirements … would be somewhere between 26,000 and 32,000.”
But he argued that the condo market is not headed for a crash. “Demographic shifts, immigration, preference shifts will – our hypothesis is – drive higher density living in our major cities,” he told an industry conference. “There’s a decided shift in preference in our biggest cities towards high-rise living.”
He pointed to global cities such as Mumbai where families live in condos and suggested Canada’s major cities will follow that trend. About one-quarter of people in Greater Vancouver now live in condos, he said, and buyers are increasingly turning to condos as detached houses become more expensive.
“The same people who have been predicting [a condo market crash] have been predicting it for about 20 years, eventually one of them’s going to be right, but in our estimation it’s not going to happen in the near term,” Mr. Soper said.
RealNet said that the benchmark price of a new condo in the Toronto area rose 1 per cent in March to $436,898. But condo prices per square foot in Toronto peaked in February and then dipped slightly to $548 in March.
Unit sizes have generally been shrinking in recent years. They ticked up from their February low, to a benchmark level of 797 square feet in March. The benchmark was closer to 900 square feet five years ago.
RealNet president George Carras noted that shifts in the benchmark size could be due to a changing mix in the number of studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms that are being built.
“I think the unit sizes are small as they are now and I think it’s going to be difficult to see them go smaller,” said Bryan Tuckey, chief executive of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), which represents developers. He added that “we’ll hopefully start to see more two-bedroom units so that families may be able to find a home in downtown Toronto.”
KA1
Senior Member
There is an ad in today's Report on Business section of The Globe and Mail: For sale: Downtown residential condo site, Yonge & Wellesley subway, OMB approved ,35 storeys.
Could this be one of the sites that Condo George is promoting?
Could this be one of the sites that Condo George is promoting?
