Webinar for Smart Density: An Ontario Line Tour

The section on Science Centre Station at Don Mills and Eglinton has been updated with an illustration of the CreateTO proposal for the southwest and southeast corners. This article combines the speaking notes and presentation deck for my webinar An Ontario Line Tour that streamed on February 1, 2022 under the sponsorship of Smart Density, […]

Maps of Toronto that investors need to see

Who doesn’t love a good map? Maps are so much more than just a nice-looking view of an area. They can be highly useful as a way to effectively display data about an area in a way that is immediately readable. In real estate, maps are crucial for all sorts of tasks like title searches, […]

January 2022 Market Update

The January 2022 Market Update affirms Ontario’s historic commitment to modernizing the province’s public assets, including hospitals, highways, public transit, children’s treatment centres, courthouses and correctional facilities. IO’s first Market Update for 2022 includes 39 projects, with 24 projects in pre-procurement and 15 in active procurement, totalling an estimated $60 billion in contract value. The […]

Five charts that will define Canadian real estate and housing in 2022

For Maclean’s eighth annual chartstravaganza, we’ve once again asked dozens of economists and analysts to ponder the year to come, and choose one chart that will help shape Canada’s economy in 2022 and beyond, and explain this outlook in their own words. This year, we’ve decided to release the charts over several days, making this […]

GTA real estate market forecast for 2022 and beyond

The Greater Toronto Area is one of the hottest regions in the Canadian housing market and has been for a long time. With so much attention from buyers and investors, the ever-pressing question is how the market will perform in the coming months and years. Despite difficulties stemming from pandemic conditions in the past two […]

Toronto’s elimination of most parking minimums is now official

We knew it was coming. But it’s important and worth mentioning again. This week, Toronto City Council adopted new Zoning Bylaw Amendments that will remove most parking minimums across the city. We now join many other cities across North America who have done similar things in order to try and encourage more sustainable forms of […]

Canadian new home prices see biggest jump since 2006: StatsCan

The price of a new home in Canada increased on both a monthly and yearly basis during October as supply constraints persisted in some regions. In its New Housing Price Index for October 2021, Statistics Canada reported that national new home prices grew by 0.9 per cent from September to October. This marks a slightly […]

Toronto’s Tallest Ten Towers Waiting In Line for Approval

In Toronto, you’re never very far from a crane. There are so many here — particularly because of the huge demand for new housing — that, in fact, we have more cranes than any other city on the continent, over 220 in the 416 alone. While our streets and our skylines are rapidly changing, there […]

Homeowners paid $769 less than renters a month last quarter

There’s the old adage in the industry that buying a home is cheaper than renting long-term. Despite sky-high property prices in many Canadian cities, that still rings true according to research published today. In a study conducted on behalf of the company by economist and housing market analyst Will Dunning, new data shows that for […]

Home builders are tackling Canada’s housing supply shortage

Canada’s housing supply fell short of demand even before COVID struck, a situation the pandemic brought into sharp relief. It’s not that home builders have been sitting idle. Housing starts over the past 12 months were the strongest since the mid-1970s, and the number of homes under construction is at an all-time high. The problem […]

What’s driving housing starts?

Supply shortages are hitting single family starts, despite an overall rise in the number of homes being built and homebuilder sentiment improving for the first time in three months, two reports show. Builder sentiment rose in September by one point, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, amid a drop […]

Mortgage delinquency rates ease in Q2 – Equifax

Government support and payment deferrals played major roles in improving Canadians’ financial health, Equifax said Despite the end of payment deferral programs, Canadian mortgage delinquency rates declined from first-quarter highs in Q2, according to Equifax Canada. The 90+ day mortgage delinquency rate fell by 32.6% annually in Q2, while the rate for non-mortgage products dropped […]

Over 4 In 5 Canadian Real Estate Markets Have Seen Price Growth Slow

Canada is in election mode, and all politicians have a plan to cool real estate markets. The thing is, most markets have begun to cool on their own. Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) data shows a third of markets made a monthly pullback in July. The trend is likely to get stronger as well, as […]

Toronto Condos No Longer Dominate GTA’s Highest Appreciating Properties

Only one Toronto building makes Top 10; best investments are outside city limits For the first time in six months, Toronto condominiums no longer dominate Strata.ca’s list of properties with the highest appreciation rates. If the latest data is any indication, it appears that condos outside the city are offering much higher returns on investment. […]

Competition for low-rise rentals in GTA sparks bidding wars

Parsimonious rental data in the GTA makes tracking hotspots difficult, but stories about leasing bidding wars are commonplace and, according to the president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON), that’s a direct consequence of developments completing at a snail’s pace. “I’ve been hearing about bidding wars on rentals. You’ve got bidding wars on […]

House prices shot up more than 40% in these three GTA cities

The GTA real estate market has reached historic highs over the past year, with house prices in outer-lying cities seeing unprecedented surges in interest. As homebuyers searched for larger spaces in more suburban areas of the GTA during the pandemic, it drove demand and, consequently, home prices through the roof. A new report from RE/MAX […]