Posts

Mortgage and real estate professionals may be in the sights of a group of Nigerian cyber criminals who are trying to steal company funds.

CNN reports that the group, called London Blue, have obtained a list of the email addresses of around 50,000 executives, including 35,000 chief financial officers, across 80 countries. Some are from banks and mortgage companies.

According to Mastercard company NuData Security, the scammers’ access to the direct email addresses of CFOs means that they can orchestrate targeted attacks requesting transfers of funds.

These kind of attacks are known as business email compromise campaigns (BEC) and the FBI says companies have lost an estimated $12 billion over the past 5 years.

“Banks, mortgage lenders and other financial corporations need to remain extremely vigilant to this kind of activity,” said Ryan Wilk, VP of customer success for NuData Security. “BEC fraud can be incredibly difficult to spot as these hackers will take the time to make their attempts as accurate as possible using social engineering – learning job titles and names of key decision makers with tools such as LinkedIn and Twitter.”

Wilk adds that CFOs and other potential targets of this campaign should use extreme caution when clicking on unsolicited email links and should flag the email with the decision maker it allegedly came from if it seems in any way unusual.

Canadian real estate investors are often dissuaded from purchasing American properties because of the exchange rate, but a lot of needless headaches can be avoided by receiving U.S. financing from select Canadian banks.

“A $400,000 home in the U.S. will become $532,000CAD, so the U.S. mortgage makes sense to mitigate the impact of the weak Canadian dollar,” said Alain Forget, RBC’s director of business development in the U.S. “At $0.76, a lot of Canadians are backing out of purchases because they’ll still have to change their money at about 33% exchange. A lot of Canadians don’t know they can get U.S. financing from a Canadian bank like RBC, and for investment properties they rent out all year long we can finance 75% of that. But for a second home, if they use the property for six to eight weeks and want to rent seasonally for a few months, we can go with 20% down.”

Canadians are investing increasingly south of the border, spending $10.5 billion last year.

“It averaged $384,000, and that number can buy you a lot of real estate in the U.S.’s Sun Belt states,” continued Forget. “There’s a lot of opportunity in those markets to get three- or four-bedroom homes, or even nice townhomes with three bedrooms and 3,000 square feet in gated communities that have resort lifestyles.”

A home worth $1 million in Canada goes for about $400,000 in much of Florida, but choosing the right kind of home will offset the purchase price, especially during the peak season.

“In Southwest Florida, the west coast of Florida and Central Florida, for $250,000 to $300,000, Canadian investors can rent out their homes for $3,000 to $4,000 a month,” said Forget. “A lot of Canadians are using properties for themselves for up to a couple of months and then renting them out during the peak months of January to April, and they still generate enough U.S. cash flow income to cover their property taxes, HOAs, taxes and insurance. It can even cover financing principal and interest.”

A five-bedroom house in Orlando goes for roughly $450,000 and typically fetches substantial monthly rental income.

RBC has dropped its down payment requirement on investment properties to 25% from 40%—a sign that it regards Florida rental properties as low-risk, high-yield investments.

“The real estate market in Florida varies but you can buy new construction from reputable builders in beautiful gated communities for $200 to $250 per square foot,” said Forget. “It has solid rental potential from an ROI perspective. That’s the beauty of the real estate market in Sun Belt states like Arizona and Florida—you can rent homes out year round or just for a few months.”

Condo hotels are other worthwhile investments. The HOA fee is higher, but those monies are recouped with yield from as little as 65% rental occupancy. Some projects offer up to 10% lease backs, as well.

The Toronto area’s land squeeze will continue to drive up home prices and commute times unless the Ontario government puts the brakes on some of the targets in the updated version of its smart growth plan, says the region’s home builders’ association.

The dwindling supply of greenfield lands where builders have traditionally developed subdivisions, along with the “unintended consequences” of the provincial Places to Grow legislation, means up to half the land needed to house the population by 2031 may not be available, says the Building and Land Development Association (BILD).

Those “unintended consequences” include a longer planning process that can extend to 10 or 15 years pushing up the cost of development, and housing density targets that concentrate a disproportionate number of people into smaller spaces on the fringes of the region stretching from Lake Simcoe to Lake Ontario on the north and south and from Hamilton to Clarington on the west and east.

BILD published the comments Tuesday along with a study called “Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area Land Supply Analysis” by Malone Given Parsons, a planning consultant firm.

It shows that only 12,800 hectares of greenfield land remains uncommitted to new development — an area that amounts to 4.5 per cent of the total area that is already built or has been designated for urbanization. That is down from about 6 per cent a year ago.

Fifty-five per cent of the land designated for development by 2031 has already been spoken for, with 40 per cent having already been built, 8 per cent under construction, and 7 per cent with draft approvals from municipalities.

“These were the easier lands to develop, with enough infrastructure,” said the BILD commentary.

The committed community area refers to land that has already been built on, is under construction or is part of an area that has already been approved as a subdivision. Vacant community areas refers to land that has not yet been committed to a particular development. Committed employment areas refer to those that have already been built on or are under construction or have been planned for. Vacant employment areas are those that haven’t been designated to a particular development. Uses to be determined are areas that haven’t been designated for an urban land use but are being studied for future development.

With the region growing by about 115,000 people a year, the supply of new construction homes is at a 10-year low, reports BILD. But the cost of residential building lots has increased 300 per cent in the last decade. In September, BILD reported the average cost of a single family home in the region was $1.1 million. A condo sold for $789,643 on average.

Association CEO David Wilkes warned there may be a blip where housing prices don’t escalate as quickly in the near-term, but sometime in the middle of the next decade, “you’re really starting to get a crunch.”

“All things being equal — the pace of development being similar, no significant changes — mid-2023 to 2025 you really start seeing a lack of grade-related (ground level) new housing lands coming on stream,” he said.

“You can expect two things: land is going to become scarce and there is going to be a continuation of the inflationary pressure on the cost of new lots. The cost of housing is going to continue to go up for new communities, which will influence the entire market,” he said.

BILD’s comments come less than a week after the Ontario Progressive Conservative government announced it would release a Housing Supply Action Plan in the spring, looking at the timelines and costs of development approvals and the restrictions on where housing can be built.

Once a new community is approved by the municipality, it can take 10 to 15 years for builders to get to the permit stage, said Matthew Cory, a principal in Malone Given Parsons.

Although the report’s analysis suggests the region’s housing mix is evolving slowly from single-family detached and semi-detached homes to more multi-family dwellings, about 70 per cent of residential land is already occupied by established neighbourhoods of detached and semi-detached houses close to transit, schools and hospitals. But the residents there tend to resist changes that could see more “gentle densities” through duplexes, triplexes or secondary suites.

Many of those homes are owned by older people aging in place, who don’t want to give up their house and neighbourhood for a condo.

Condos, which are concentrated in downtown areas, are among the most expensive ways to house families because the cost per square foot of those homes tends to be high, said Cory, author of the study.

“If I want to buy 1,000 square feet, it’s like $1,000 per square foot at this point whether it’s a resale or new build (condo). Who has a million dollars? The average income in the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area as per the Census is $118,000, that gets you a whopping $500,000 worth of home with a $40,000 down payment. It’s hard for anybody to afford anything,” Cory said.

At the same time, people who own homes in those established neighbourhoods are aging-in-place with more space than families, creating a challenge for housing the region, he said.

The report shows there are 3.19 people per single-family detached or semi-detached household in the region compared to 1.99 in an apartment. In Toronto the gap is smaller — 3 people per detached or semi-detached home compared to 2.01 for an apartment — a .99 person difference. In York Region, the difference is 1.53 fewer persons in an apartment-based household.

The denser housing — condos and stacked townhomes — that help municipalities meet the growth plan requirements are being pushed to the edges of the region where people have to commute further and municipalities have to pay more to build the infrastructure to serve those developments.

The original Places to Grow plan called for 50 residents or jobs per hectare in new developments. The updated edition, implemented by the previous Liberal government last year, specified 60 to 80 residents or jobs per hectare, depending on the area.

A land use study released by the non-profit Neptis Foundation in 2016 found only 20 per cent of the land available for development had actually been used. It argued land supply was not the reason behind the region’s soaring home prices.

Cory said that report was likely based on older data. He said his company’s study also excludes more areas that would prevent developers from building due to features such as utilities, like power plants or hydro corridors, or natural areas such as waterways.

Promoting homeownership as an investment strategy is a risky proposition. No financial advisor would recommend going into debt in order to put such a massive part of your savings in any other single financial instrument—and one that, as we learned just a few years ago, carries a great deal of risk.

Even worse, that risk isn’t random: It falls most heavily on low-income, black, and Hispanic buyers, who are given worse mortgage terms, and whose neighborhoods are systematically more likely to see low or even falling home values, with devastating effects on the racial wealth gap.

But let’s put all that aside for a moment. What if housing were a low-risk, can’t-miss bet for growing your personal wealth? What would that world look like?

Well, in order for your home to offer you a real profit, its price would need to increase faster than the rate of inflation. Let’s pick something decent, but not too extreme—say, annual increases of 2.5 percent, taking inflation into account. So if you bought a home for $200,000 and sold it ten years later, you’d be looking at a healthy profit of just over $56,000.

Sound good? Well, what if I told you that such a city existed? What if I told you it was in a beautiful natural setting, with hills and views of the ocean? And a booming economy? And lots of organic produce?

Maybe you’ve guessed by now: The wonderland of ever-increasing housing prices is San Francisco. When researcher Eric Fischer went back to construct a database of rental prices there, he found that rents had been growing by about 2.5 percent, net of inflation, for about 60 years. And this Zillow data suggests that San Francisco owner-occupied home prices have been growing by just over 2.5 percent since 1980 as well.

Like I said, over ten years, that gives you a profit of just over 25 percent. But compound interest is an amazing thing, and the longer this consistent wealth-building goes on, the more out of hand housing prices get. In 1980, Zillow’s home price index for San Francisco home prices was about $310,000 (in 2015 dollars). By 2015, after 35 years of averaging 2.5 percent growth, home prices were over $750,000.

Now, if all you cared about were wealth building, this would be fantastic news. The system works! (Although actually even this rosy scenario is missing some wrinkles: San Francisco real estate prices did suffer enormously, if briefly, during the late-2000s crash, and if you bought in the mid-2000s and had to sell in, say, 2010, you would have taken a massive loss.)

But this sort of wealth building is predicated on a never-ending stream of new people who are willing and able to pay current home owners increasingly absurd amounts of money for their homes. It is, in other words, a massive up-front transfer of wealth from younger people to older people, on the implicit promise that when those young people become old, there will be new young people willing to give them even more money. And of course, as prices rise, the only young people able to buy into this Ponzi scheme are quite well-to-do themselves. And because we’re not talking about stocks, but homes, “buying into this Ponzi scheme” means “able to live in San Francisco.”

In other words, possibly the only thing worse than a world in which homeownership doesn’t work as a wealth-building tool is a world in which it does work as a wealth-building tool.

This also means that the two stated pillars of American housing policy—homeownership as wealth-building and housing affordability—are fundamentally at odds. Mostly, American housing policy resolves this contradiction by quietly deciding that it really doesn’t care that much about affordability after all. While funds for low-income subsidized housing languish, much larger pots of money are set aside for promoting homeownership through subsidies like the mortgage interest deduction and capital gains exemption, most of which goes to upper-middle- or upper-class households.

But even markets with large amounts of affordable housing demonstrate the contradiction. Since at least the second half of the 20th century, the vast majority of actually affordable housing has been created via “filtering”: that is, the falling relative prices of market-rate housing as it ages, or its neighborhood loses social status, often as a result of racial changes. Low-income affordability, where it does exist, is predicated on large portions of the housing market acting as terrible investments.

And to the extent that low-income people do find a subsidized, price-fixed housing unit to live in, that means that they won’t be building any wealth, even as their richer, market-housing-dwelling neighbors do, increasing wealth inequality.

Even the community land trust, which seems to be a way of squaring the wealth-building/affordability circle, ultimately fails. Community land trusts typically provide subsidized or reduced price ownership opportunities to initial buyers, and assure longer term affordability by limiting the resale price of the home. In other words, CLT-financed homes remain affordable only because they restrict how much wealth building the initial owners are allowed to capture. The result is that CLT-financed homes only attract those who couldn’t otherwise purchase a home—which means that the lower-income people in CLTs will be building wealth more slowly than higher-income people in market-rate housing, a fundamentally inequality-increasing situation.

We say we want housing to be cheap and we want home ownership to be a great financial investment. Until we realize that these two objectives are mutually exclusive, we’ll continue to be frustrated by failed and oftentimes counterproductive housing policies.

Nestled in the heart of Yorkville, two glass towers rise above a scarlet fountain that gently gurgles as residents pull into a parking lot with paving stones arranged in paisley patterns.

The Four Seasons Private Residences Toronto is one of the most prestigious condo developments in Canada, a place where the moneyed elite can live modern urban lifestyles akin to Manhattan, Paris, London or Hong Kong.

But the glitz and glitter at the Four Seasons hide secrets.

Amid Toronto’s condo boom — which has fuelled one of the strongest real-estate markets in the world — a striking number of condos in the Four Seasons have sold for a loss.

A Toronto Star and Ryerson School of Journalism investigation into real-estate transactions in the Four Seasons found nearly one-third of sales in the towers have been for a loss.

Since condo owners took possession of their units in 2013, there have been 101 sales. Thirty of them were for a loss. The average loss recorded is $253,909 or 8.1 per cent.

Six of the losses are greater than half a million dollars.

“It’s not normal for people to be selling at a loss,” said John Pasalis, the founder of the real-estate analytics website Realosophy. “In the past five or six years generally prices have gone up … What’s going on here?”

The average price for a condo in Toronto has risen 67 per cent during the last five years, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board. Many people in the Four Seasons have also made money, selling for an average profit of $704,856 or 23.9 per cent.

But a subset of owners are selling for less than they paid.

The losses are so out of whack with the wider condo market that an agent who buys and sells in the towers didn’t believe they exist.

“No one person that bought at the Four Seasons lost,” said Elise Kalles, 80, a real-estate agent who specializes in the luxury market and owns two units in the Four Seasons. “I was involved right from the beginning. I don’t know, honestly, of any that sold for less than they paid. None.”

Kalles is listed as the agent for a unit holder who lost over $1 million in 2016, when she sold her unit for $5.7 million. The owner had bought pre-construction for $6.5 million (plus at least $326,212 in tax). Kalles and her client did not respond to questions about this transaction.

Nineteen losses were evident in sales prices listed in the Ontario land registry. Because buyers of newly built condominiums pay sales tax — and this extra cost isn’t included in the registered sales price — we added 5 per cent GST as the minimum amount of tax first purchasers would have had to pay. (Since mid-2009, 13 per cent HST is applied to the purchase of new condos.) With tax factored in, 11 sales that appeared to be for a small gain went instead for a loss.

The losses have occurred in every year but 2018 and have affected lower-, middle- and high-end units in both towers. Some were flips, where the seller owned the unit for as few as 29 days. Others involved units that were held for up to four-and-a-half years. One unit sold for a loss twice. The loss sales do not include 26 transfers between family members for $2 or $0.

Losses peaked in 2015, when 13 of the 21 sales in the towers left sellers in the red. There were four losses in 2016, three in 2017 and none this year to date.

The Star dug into land registry documents, mortgage filings, court records and corporate registrations in an attempt to understand the loss transactions. This task was complicated by a lack of transparency in the public registers that made it impossible to determine exactly what went on in each deal.

But the records point to a bigger problem in the housing market: poor oversight and weak regulations have made Toronto real-estate vulnerable to abuse.

The Star found no evidence of illegal activity in the Four Seasons. But as cities around the world — from New York to London to Vancouver — make moves to clamp down on financial crime by ending anonymous ownership of property, experts say Toronto’s real-estate market is exposed.

“If a province like Ontario and a financial sector like Toronto thinks that the same kind of things aren’t happening here, it’s just naive,” said James Cohen, executive director of Transparency International Canada.

Here are the stories of some of those who sold for a loss in one of Canada’s most elite developments.

Ryan Yen-Hwung Fong — Unit 5301
A $4-million unit was purchased by a convicted insider trader from Hong Kong and sold two years later for a loss of more than half a million dollars.

In 2005, Ryan Yen-Hwung Fong, 45, received confidential information about a proposed business deal and used the information to turn a profit, according to the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong. Fong had exchanged emails with his tipster using a code that referred to the deal as the purchase of a French car. He made more than $687,000 for himself and the fund he managed, according to the SFC.

In 2009, Fong pleaded guilty to insider trading, was sentenced to 12 months in prison and fined $213,500. The next year, the SFC banned Fong from re-entering the investment industry for life.

After getting out of prison, Fong took possession of unit 5301 in the Four Seasons, which he had bought pre-construction. It was 2013 and land registry documents show that Fong didn’t need a mortgage. He bought the condo for $3,775,221 (plus at least $188,761 in tax) all in cash.

According to Fong’s LinkedIn profile, he currently resides in Hong Kong and works as the managing director for SLS Capital Ltd., an investment firm based in New York. When a reporter repeatedly called SLS Capital, no one answered the phone and no voicemail was available.

In response to a list of questions about the condo transaction emailed to Fong, the Star received a letter from Deacons law firm in Hong Kong.

“We have evidence to prove that the contents as set out in the email contain serious, untrue and highly defamatory comments about our Client,” the letter stated.

When asked to point out specifically what was untrue, the law firm sent a second letter stating “our Client does not wish to correct the inaccuracies.”

Fong sold his unit in 2015 for $664,000 less than he paid for it.

When the pre-construction sales for the Four Seasons began in 2007, units at 55 Scollard Street and 50 Yorkville Avenue were priced between $1,350 and $1,500 per square foot — the most expensive condos in Canada at the time.

“It redefined Toronto real estate,” said Jimmy Molloy, a Toronto real-estate agent specializing in the luxury market. “All of a sudden, it just dragged everybody up … It just kind of changed the whole landscape of the marketplace.”

The 210 exclusive condos are split between the lower-priced “East Tower,” where you can still buy a unit for under $1 million, and the more prestigious “West Tower,” where a unit hasn’t sold for less than $3 million in years.

The West Tower condos sit atop a five-star hotel and owners in both towers have access to a French bistro, private yoga classes, a spa that has a reflexologist and a masseuse on call, and a psychic named Cyndi who will “guide you through a highly personal psychic and spiritual exploration.” Condo owners can also book travel aboard the hotel’s private jet.

The list of Four Seasons owners reads like a who’s who of Toronto’s elite, including Leafs’ coach Mike Babcock, Postmedia president Paul Godfrey, Rogers executive Anthony Staffieri, department store heir John Craig Eaton and Seagram’s liquor fortune heir Paul Bronfman.

While all of them still own their units, others sold for a loss. These losses could have been prompted by personal situations including rushed sales, divorces or incomplete renovations. There are also tax reasons why someone might want to take a loss on a real-estate transaction. Capital gains tax are due on the sale of a rental property. But if the sale goes for a loss, there are no taxes to pay — instead, you get a tax credit.

One agent involved in the tower suggested the losses could be due to the delayed opening of the towers, or because some buyers had difficulty obtaining bank mortgages and turned to higher-cost alternative lenders. Both of these situations may have pushed some pre-construction to sell their units early.

“A number of foreign investors decided to sell at the same time,” said Nissan Michael, an agent who specializes in buying and selling in the Four Seasons and markets himself as Mr. Yorkville. “Too much inventory and you’ve got a buyer’s market.”

Toronto businessman David Holton Young, 66, inherited unit 205 from his father, who passed away after putting down a pre-construction deposit. Shortly after registering the condo in 2013 for $2.3 million (plus at least $116,283 in tax), Young put it up for sale, where it languished on the market for almost two years before selling at a loss of more than $685,000.

“It took a long time and many price reductions to sell,” Young told the Star in an email. “In the hottest property market in the history of the city — to lose about 35 per cent over almost a decade takes some doing!”

Court records show that Frank Provenzano, 56, a former owner of ProGreen Demolition, was accused by two of his brothers of secretly withdrawing $8.5 million from the family company and using it to invest in real estate without their knowledge. One of those investments was unit 202 in the Four Seasons, which was purchased pre-construction for $1.2 million (plus at least $58,585 in tax). Two months after the lawsuit was filed last summer, Provenzano sold the unit for an $80,000 loss.

Provenzano did not file a statement of defence and did not respond to multiple requests for comment. His brothers dropped the case in May.

Japanese author Toshio Masuda, 80, bought unit 2503 for $4.1 million ($4.3 including tax) in March 2013 via a shell company called Frontier One Canada Investments Ltd. The same day, he and his wife, Mariko Ejiri, took out a $3.2 million mortgage from a Japanese meat packing company with an interest rate of 40 per cent. They sold the unit less than a year later for a loss of more than $375,000.

Masuda did not respond to emails or faxes sent requesting comment.

Oliver McGinley, a 48-year-old greenhouse operator and consultant for non-profits, purchased units 602 and 2402 in pre-construction for a combined $11.3 million (plus at least $566,372 in tax). When he took possession of the units in 2013, he registered private mortgages from cable mogul and family friend David Graham for $16.5 million — nearly 50 per cent more than the units’ purchase price.

Reached by telephone, McGinley said the mortgages, which were not fully drawn upon, financed extensive renovations he had done on the units. Despite these enhancements, McGinley wasn’t able to recoup the purchase price he paid, let alone the additional money invested in renovations.

“At the end of the day, I paid top of the market price based on a spec in advance. I just paid too much,” he said. “I don’t like losing and losing in a market that’s going up and up, but it is what it is.”

McGinley sold the smaller unit last year for a $7,000 profit. He sold the more expensive unit in 2016 for a $680,000 loss.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” said McGinley. “My name was on these things. I couldn’t have been more transparent.”

In response to questions about the losses, Four Seasons company president Paul White sent the Star a statement that read in part: “Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is a management company and, as such, we are not responsible for the conduct of sales or resales of residential units.”

“We firmly believe that Four Seasons Private Residences Toronto is the best address in the city and we are very proud to serve the community of residents who have chosen Four Seasons as their home.”

Simion Kronenfeld – Unit 3401

Shortly after emerging from bankruptcy, Toronto entrepreneur Simion Kronenfeld, 47, registered more than $3 million in private mortgages to buy a unit in the Four Seasons. He then flipped the condo for hundreds of thousands of dollars less than its purchase price — but says he didn’t lose any money.

Born in Russia and raised in Israel, Kronenfeld immigrated to Canada as a teen in 1986. In 1993, he pleaded guilty to possession of counterfeit $100 bills and was fined $2,500. Because of the conviction, he was issued a deportation order in 1995.

He returned to Canada the next year and in 2001 founded Electronic Liquidators Inc., a company that made him millions by reselling used electronics. In 2008, he lost much of that money in casinos, becoming one of Las Vegas’ largest debtors ever, with gambling debts topping $18 million.

At the same time, his bank, RBC, filed a lawsuit claiming he had opened accounts and obtained credit cards with two different names and social insurance numbers and defrauded the bank by cashing more than $1 million in bad cheques.

In his statement of defence, Kronenfeld denied he defrauded RBC and denied using aliases, explaining that “various variations of his name result from the translations from Russian to Hebrew and then to English.” Kronenfeld stated he relinquished his social security number when he was deported to Israel and was issued a new one when he returned to Canada.

 

By the time Kronenfeld filed for bankruptcy in 2010, he was more than $26 million in debt. He received an absolute discharge from bankruptcy in November 2011, staying RBC’s lawsuit and erasing his Canadian debts, but leaving his American ones in place.

Fourteen months later, on February 7, 2013, Kronenfeld purchased unit 3401 in the Four Seasons, registering it for $2,997,084 (plus $179,773 in tax).

The same day, Kronenfeld took out two mortgages. Public records show Diana’s Management Inc. issued a $1.2 million mortgage. The corporation is registered to Diana Bahrin, Kronenfeld’s wife.

Tammy Herzog registered a second mortgage: $2 million with zero per cent interest. Herzog is the daughter of the late developer Sam Herzog, whose company, Lifetime Developments, was one of the two developers of the Four Seasons towers.

Bahrin and Herzog did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Only five months after buying it, Kronenfeld sold the unit for $2.8 million, nearly $377,000 less than the purchase price.

Kronenfeld’s lawyer, Stanley Rosenfarb, told the Star that Kronenfeld did not lose money on the sale, and actually made $500,000 because he did not pay the deposits on the unit. The pre-construction buyer, Alexander Zeltser, who had paid $952,800 in deposits, could not get a mortgage, Rosenfeld said, and Kronenfeld stepped in.

“Mr. Kronenfeld agreed to pay the balance due on closing … in exchange for title to Suite 3401,” Rosenfarb wrote in an email.

According to Rosenfarb, Kronenfeld did not compensate Zeltser for his deposits, paying him a portion of the sales proceeds instead.

Rosenfarb also said the $2-million mortgage from Herzog did not have a 0 per cent interest rate because Kronenfeld had pre-paid her $217,000 in interest. In addition, Kronenfeld only borrowed $295,000 from his wife’s company, Rosenfarb said, and not the full $1.2 million that was registered.

“There was absolutely nothing inappropriate, improper, surprising or newsworthy about any aspect of Mr. Kronenfeld’s purchase and subsequent sale of the condo,” Rosenfarb wrote.

Eight months after the sale, Kronenfeld was indicted by a Nevada grand jury for his gambling debt and 12 separate felonies including theft, obtaining money under false pretenses, and the use of bad cheques. (Nine of the charges were dropped in 2015.) A bench warrant was issued for Kronenfeld’s arrest and remains active today.

Lawyer Julian Porter, who was retained by Kronenfeld after he was contacted by the Star, wrote: “There is no public benefit in your smearing Mr. Kronenfeld with his past bankruptcy and criminal charge emanating from Nevada.”

Porter sent the Star a report he commissioned from real-estate agent Jamie Erlick, which analyzed four similar sized units in the Four Seasons that had difficulty finding buyers and concluded “during the years 2013/2014 it would have been difficult to get much over $2,600,000 for the 1,956 sq ft unit.”

Not included in Erlick’s report was the unit next door to Kronenfeld’s, which sold for $3.2 million in September 2013 — a profit of nearly $150,000.

A lack of transparency in Ontario’s land and corporate registries makes it difficult or even impossible to determine the ownership of 51 units in the Four Seasons, which have been or are currently held by private (that is, not publicly-traded) corporations.

Twelve of the 51 corporations are numbered companies, six of which were incorporated a couple of months or mere days before purchasing the unit.

Eight of the 30 loss transactions involve private corporations.

Anonymity in Canadian real estate can be further bolstered by offshore tax havens, making it doubly difficult for tax officials or law enforcement to trace the origin of funds. Six units are held by companies with addresses in offshore tax havens, such as Delaware, Bermuda, Malta and the Cayman Islands.

Unit 4603, for example, was purchased for $4.6 million in cash (plus at least $231,835 in tax) by Pramor Global Financial Corp., a company registered in the British Virgin Islands. Because the BVI allows companies to keep the names of its shareholders and directors private, the people behind Pramor are completely anonymous, unknowable to anyone without a warrant. The unit is still owned by Pramor.

Max Motel Cohen, the Toronto lawyer who filed real-estate documents on behalf of Pramor, declined to identify his client.

“The purchase of land by well-to-do individuals or holding companies, for cash, is not that unusual,” Cohen said in an email.

Unit 206 was purchased by 60 Degrees Group Canada Ltd., a company registered to a mailbox in the Cayman Islands. The only names associated with the company are Barry Cleaver, a London, ON, lawyer, and Mark Joseph Azzopardi, a Maltese banker. The real owner of the unit is unknowable.

A year after buying the unit for $875,000 in cash, the anonymous owner took out a $2-million mortgage from another offshore company registered at the same post office box in the Cayman Islands.

The Star was unable to reach Azzopardi. Cleaver said the unit was not the only piece of property pledged as security for the mortgage. The unit sold in October for a $115,000 profit.

Alexandre Ventura Nogueira and Alexander Altshoul — Unit 1902 and 1702
Two units in the towers were used to pay off a debt by a pair of businessmen charged with mortgage fraud, one of whom fled justice and remains a fugitive today.

Alexandre Ventura Nogueira, a 44-year-old Brazilian, and Alexander Altshoul, a 47-year-old Belorussian-Canadian, were business partners in the late 2000s selling condos in Panama City — including in the Trump Tower — according to a Reuters/NBC investigation published last year. They double sold pre-construction units and deposits disappeared, according to the report.

In 2009, Panamanian police charged Ventura Nogueira with fraud and forgery stemming from his work selling condos. Released on $1.4 million (U.S.) in bail, he fled the country and is still at large.

Ventura Nogueira did not respond to requests for comment from the Star.

In 2007, York Regional Police charged Altshoul with fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. The charges were dropped a year later.

While the charge was still outstanding, Toronto lawyer Stanley Ehrlich testified at a hearing at the Law Society of Upper Canada that Altshoul had forced him to participate in fraudulent real-estate transactions between 2001 and 2005.

Ehrlich told the panel that when he participated in the frauds, he was “acting under life-threatening duress from which there was no safe avenue of escape.”

“His position is that he had fallen into the clutches of what he calls the ‘Russian mafia,’ that he was an innocent victim of their ruthless conduct, and that the same thing could have happened to any other honest Lawyer,” the Law Society’s panel wrote.

In 2008, the panel found Ehrlich guilty of participating in the mortgage fraud, writing that he “greatly exaggerated the threats.” Ehrlich was disbarred and had his licence revoked.

Altshoul did not respond to requests for comment from the Star.

At some point between 2007 and 2009, Ventura Nogueira and Altshoul each put pre-construction deposits down on a unit in the Four Seasons in Toronto.

Before the towers were completed, however, Altshoul and Ventura Nogueira were criminally charged in Panama with defrauding a business partner, Joseph Martin Rodin, according to court documents obtained by the Star.

In August 2009, they signed over their deposits to Rodin’s wife and daughter as repayment for the debt. But Maria Rodin says she and her step daughter Marcela were cheated by the men, because the deposits weren’t paid in full.

“(Ventura) told us he paid the deposit, but in the end, he only paid only half the deposit. He was in arrears,” Maria Rodin told the Star in an interview.

The Four Seasons asked the Rodins to pay an outstanding sum of $259,000, according to emails seen by the Star.

In 2013, the Rodins registered the units for $3.3 million (plus at least $165,888 in tax). Martin was not present at the closing because he was facing corruption charges in Panama and had been issued a travel ban. The charges were dropped and the travel ban was lifted in 2014.

The Rodins were unable to cover their mortgage and condo fees with the rent they received from the units. Less than two years after purchasing them, they sold the units for a combined $433,000 loss.

“(Ventura) was very nice to us. He pretended to be our friend. We trusted him,” Maria said. “And in the end, we lost twice.”

In 2016, the United States Treasury Department started tracking real-estate purchases by shell companies in the hot real-estate markets of Manhattan and Miami. It found that more than a quarter of cash purchases of property by shell companies were flagged as suspicious. The monitoring program has now been expanded to six other areas including San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Antonio.

Earlier this year, British Columbia implemented reporting rules that will require anonymous companies that purchase real estate to identify their real owners to authorities.

After the U.K. House of Commons proposed a ban on real-estate ownership through shell companies in July, there will soon be few places left with as little transparency as Ontario.

“It’s still a bit of a Wild West that’s not policed,” said Realosophy’s Pasalis.

Source : Star Newspapers

Once the calendar ticks over to December, the days start flying by and our calendars fill up with end-of-year events, Christmas shopping and holiday preparations. With all the demands on our time, many people decide to put their property plans on hold until the new year.

However, you may be surprised to know that our savviest clients are in fact doing the exact opposite, because they know that buying a property before Christmas can save them thousands.

This is why December is one of our busiest and most rewarding months at Cohen Handler. Many of our clients are picking up the pace of their property hunt because while most people are out celebrating and not searching for property, they have a greater opportunity to grab a bargain. And as Richard Branson says, when you find yourself on the side of the majority, then you’re on the wrong side; this is especially true of buying property at Christmas.

So to spread the Christmas property cheer, we have brought together our top 8 reasons for buying a property at Christmas. As you plan all your end-of-year activities, make sure you keep penciling in those property inspections as well!

1.Sellers are motivated

The process of selling a house can be hard work, so it’s no surprise that vendors may be keen to finalise their sales before Christmas. From preparing for open houses to negotiating complex agreements, vendors often just want to start their holidays with the peace of mind they have sold their house. What this means for buyers is that sellers may be open to accepting $20,000, even $30,000 less for a quick sale. Talk to your buyer’s agent about using their networks to find motivated sellers

2.The land tax motivator

Another great motivator for sellers in December is the impending land tax date, which in NSW and Victoria falls at midnight on 31 December. Any property owned or jointly owned at this time counts towards the land tax threshold, so vendors who are over the threshold may be keen to sell quickly. If you are looking to buy and are not concerned about the threshold, then you are in a great position to negotiate on price. Giving someone the gift of reduced land tax at Christmas means you can win too!

3.Less Competition with Fewer Buyers

We know how busy everyone is at this time of year, so it’s no wonder many people decide to take a break from house-hunting. We also know that many buyers who missed out on properties over spring decide to have a rest as well; the overarching effect of which is a “reduction in buyer concentration” – that is, quite simply, less people looking!

4. Real estate agents are motivated to finalise end-of-year sales

Just like everyone else racing to finish their business before the end of the year, real estate agents are looking to wrap up all their sales for vendors too. Not only does this benefit vendors, who can head into the holidays stress-free knowing their house has been sold, but it allows agents to bring in those last commissions for the year as well. With motivated sellers, hardworking agents and willing buyers, the end-of-year deadline can lead to good results for all parties. Have a talk to your buyer’s agent about all the “must sell” properties.

5. Agents and vendors are keen to avoid the influx of listings in January

Another reason both vendors and real estate agents are keen to finalise sales before year-end is to avoid the influx of properties in January. This is a pattern we see every year: as soon as the holidays are over, people kick off their property plans and the market is quickly flooded with new stock. For existing sellers, this influx means increased competition for buyers, as well as the psychological disadvantage of having ‘old stock’ which buyers are less keen on. Vendors may accept a lower price to avoid this increased competition. Talk to your buyer’s agent about making an offer.

6. Vendors listed for January/February auctions may be open to the ‘right buyer’ before Christmas

While there are benefits for selling at auction, at this time of year vendors may prefer the peace of mind that comes with finalising their sale quickly rather than having to wait several months for an auction. Heading into the holidays with the certainty that their house has been sold can relieve a huge amount of anxiety and stress, so vendors may be more open to negotiating on price to sell now. Talk to your buyer’s agent about “will sell now” properties listed for auction next year.

7. Vendors who have just bought may be particularly keen to sell

Vendors often buy and sell in the same market, so for someone who has just bought, the pressure to sell can quickly increase. With many services slowing down over the Christmas period (solicitors’ offices closing, banks shut for public holidays), vendors in this position may be willing to accept a lower price for a shorter settlement period.

8. The Christmas break is a great time to move

Our final reason for buying property at Christmas is that vendors are often keen to move during the holiday break. If you can be flexible with settlement dates to the vendor’s advantage, they may be more willing to accept a lower price; an advantage you would miss out on if you waited until January to buy.

So as your calendar fills up over December, keep penciling in those inspections and talking to your buyer’s agent. A great property purchase this December will make for a very merry Christmas indeed!

The rental market in Toronto remains dismal, with a recent report from Rentals.ca showing that Toronto rents are the highest in the country, especially in the heavily student populated areas around UTSG.

As of October 24, the average monthly rent for a one-bedroom was $2,166, and a two-bedroom was $2,589.

a popular website for apartment hunters across the country, also reported that the Ontario average asking rent per square foot was $2.76. Vacancy rates in the city are below two per cent, creating a competitive housing climate among Torontonians.

Being in the centre of downtown, UTSG is surrounded by some of the most expensive neighbourhoods in Toronto, such as Yorkville and the Entertainment District. Average rent in Yorkville, which surrounds most of the northeast corner of campus, was $3,468 a month.

However, escaping downtown isn’t a solution to the rising rents, as the top eight most expensive cities in the country are all part of the GTA, including Richmond Hill, Mississauga, and North York.

Rental prices are being pushed up by the unwillingness to buy, according to the website’s report. Toronto has experienced a housing bubble in the past year or so, therefore making people more hesitant to buy.

In addition, high mortgage credit requirements — along with the recently increased interest rate — is “reducing the credits available, reducing the ability for people to buy. So they’re choosing to rent for longer, so that’s certainly increasing demands in the rental market, which would have gone into the ownership market,” according to Ben Myers, who runs the consulting firm that analyzes the data for Rentals.ca’s housing report.

The problem of rising housing costs is compounded with the issue of minimal options for on-campus housing at UTSG. During the 2017–2018 school year, only 6,616 students were able to live on campus, spread out over 11 residences. U of T boasts a total enrolment of 90,077 students.

Most of the students living on campus are in first year, leaving a vast majority of St. George’s 43,820 undergraduate students to find housing elsewhere. However, it is difficult to pinpoint how many students are renters, since U of T does not release statistics on the number of commuters.

A plan to build a new residence at Sussex Avenue and Spadina Avenue was recently approved by the city, but it will not be completed until 2021.

A new residence is also in the works at Trinity College, tentatively located next to the Gerald Larkin Building. However, it is only in the earliest stages of planning and there is no set timeline yet.

Outside of U of T, the willingness of developers to build condominiums, which create more revenue, is not being met by the same demand. According to Rentals.ca, there simply isn’t enough rental housing being built.

Rentals.ca found that while condos comprised nearly 20 per cent of the listings on the site, they made up only six per cent of page views. Due in part to the prevalence of condos, Toronto is comprised of half owners and half renters, as opposed to the national average of two-thirds owners and one-third renters, said Professor David Hulchanski of the Department of Urban Studies.

Hulchanski also commented on the aging of Toronto’s rental buildings, noting that “existing rental stock is about 40 or 50 years old and getting older. In Toronto, almost half of rental stock is in the form of those clusters of 20-storey high rises that were built in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.”

The most recent complication to the housing situation is the provincial government’s plan to end rent control for new buildings. Current rent-controlled apartments are safe, but there will be no new supply of them. This could cause rents to rise even further, as proprietors of new housing will have no obligation to provide rent-controlled housing.

The myriad of factors that contribute to Toronto’s rising rents, such as immigration and low unemployment, are not likely to dissipate while the city continues to prosper. Toronto is currently experiencing low unemployment at 5.6 per cent. “We’ve really grown dynamically and we are a very successful, desirable city to live in, but we haven’t maintained a fair housing system,” said Hulchanski.

The government of Ontario is exempting new builds from rent control.

In doing so, the Doug Ford-led Progressive Conservatives are partially rescinding one of the more controversial components of the Fair Housing Plan, introduced in 2017 by the governing Ontario Liberal Party. Existing tenancies are still subject to rent control.

“Many people in Ontario face challenges in finding suitable, affordable rental accommodations, in part due to an extended period of under-building of rental units,” read an official release from the government. “Since 1992, rental unit construction has not matched household formation. Approximately 20 per cent of Ontario households live in purpose-built rental housing. In 2017, the level of new rental construction would accommodate only 10 per cent of new Ontario households. If construction of rental units had kept pace with underlying demand, construction would have started on an additional 6,100 units in 2017.”

Additionally, as part of its Housing Supply Action Plan, the PC government is putting an end to the Development Charges Rebate Program, which subsidized units earmarked for affordable housing.

While Ontario grapples with a 1.6% vacancy rate, the situation is even direr in Toronto where only 1% of total units aren’t occupied and the average rent on a one-bedroom condo is more than $2,000. Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government imposed rent control on all units, capping annual increases at 2.5%.

Many key industry players have lambasted the Wynne government for its implementation of rent control, and in a statement Tim Hudak, CEO of the Ontario Real Estate Association and former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, welcomed the Ford’s government’s amendment.

“We’re pleased to see the Ford Government following our advice and ensuring the fading dream of home ownership will become a reality for more Ontario women, men and children. OREA looks forward to being a key advisor as the Government finalizes the Housing Supply Action Plan to provide solutions to make home ownership more affordable for Ontario families like speeding up approval times, intensifying along transportation corridors and building more missing middle housing.”

By far the biggest misconception investors have is that “alternative investment,” in fact, means “risky investment.”

However, they’re merely alternatives to chartered bank-sanctioned products, and they don’t necessarily carry more risk. Alternative means different in size, scope, duration, or even investment type.

Educating clients can be a challenge, and much of that has to do with erroneous information that they pick up in media stories about failed investments, because bad news sells.

Ninety-eight percent of alternative investments in Canada, however, have positive outcomes for investors, and it’s important to convey that deploying capital into Canada’s alternative market overwhelmingly results in a positive experience for investors.

Download this white paper to learn more about alternative lending, its benefits and how it works.

Toronto’s apartment segment is experiencing a healthy infusion of new supply, but a new analysis by Marcus & Millichap indicated that the rate of addition is not proving enough to address the inflamed levels of demand for the city’s residential spaces.

The Toronto Multifamily Spotlight report for November 2018 stated that the first 3 quarters of 2018 saw the addition of 2,500 new apartments, putting the delivery rate on track to reach the highest level since 1994.

However, elevated prices in the single-family segment and increased population growth fuelled by immigration have pushed the benchmark price for the property type at $863,500 in September, well out of reach of most entry-level buyers.

“With a limited number of starter homes on the market, apartments have been virtually filled to capacity with a vacancy rate under 1%, keeping rent growth in the mid-single-digit range and motivating the development of new units,” Marcus & Millichap said.

In addition, the influx of skilled professionals that will be employed by Toronto’s burgeoning tech sector is predicted to add 43,500 new households over the next 18 months.

“Intel, Microsoft and Uber are just some of the companies to recently announce plans to grow their footprint and bring on new hires, solidifying Toronto’s reputation as one of North America’s top innovators in tech and other industries,” the report stated.

“Strong rental demand and improving property performance will keep sales activity elevated this year, particularly in areas near employment hubs with transit connectivity.”

Grappling with affordability in the low-rise market and paucity of space in condo apartments, Greater Toronto Area homebuyers are flocking to townhouses in droves.

In 2008, townhouses comprised only a quarter of sales in the low-rise sector, but as of this October, row houses accounted for 42% of low-rise sales.

“Townhouse product fits between apartments and the detached housing market, and we expect to see more demand for that asset,” said Matthew Boukall, VP of product management, data solutions at Altus Group. “When we look across different markets they’re generally flat. In Toronto, the market had a rough start to the year, where we saw sales plummet, but within that detached housing market of single-family homes and row townhouses, the latter accounted for 42%. They grew the low-rise market segment.”

According to Christine Cowern, a sales representative and team lead at Keller Williams Reffered Urban Realty, townhouses are ideal for homebuyers who struggle with affordability but who also resist too much compromise.

“We’ve been telling our clients for years that townhouses are a fantastic compromise between a house and a condo apartment,” she said. “Freehold towns are on the higher end but still cheaper than owning a house, while condo towns are quite a bit cheaper. For someone who is new to the market or owns a condo and wants to move up but can’t afford a house, their go-to should be a townhouse.”

Condo towns make sound investment properties, too.

“Condo towns have maintenance fees but they’re typically cheaper than condo maintenance fees because there’s no pool or a concierge, and it could be half the cost of condo apartment maintenance fees,” said Cowern, adding that freehold towns aren’t sagacious investments.

“It makes the most sense for investors to stick to condo apartments and condo townhouses because with freehold you get into higher purchase points and you won’t attract a higher-paying tenant. You’d need anywhere from the mid-$2,000s to $3,500-plus in rent and that narrows your tenant pool.”

In the GTA, townhouse sales have been highest in Brampton, followed by Milton, Whitby, Vaughan and Oakville.

“We think (row house towns) are going to become much more popular,” said Boukall.

The Bank of Canada has launched a new part of its website dedicated to promoting stability of the financial system.

The Financial System Hub includes reports and insights which it says gives it the flexibility to “discuss new financial system developments as they arise and present its work in more accessible and engaging ways.”

“The launch of the Hub is a step forward to increasing the transparency and timeliness of our research and analysis of the Canadian financial system, and it gives this core function of the Bank’s mandate the greater visibility it deserves,” said deputy governor Carolyn Wilkins.

Included in the first publications on the site is a report called “The Impact of Recent Policy Changes on the Canadian Mortgage Market,” which assesses how households are adapting to new mortgage finance guidelines and other changes in the housing market.

“The changes to mortgage lending guidelines are driving a steady improvement in the quality of new loans, while the quantity has decreased. We believe both higher mortgage interest rates and stricter mortgage criteria are playing a role,” added Wilkins.

There is also a report called “Financial System Resilience and House Price Corrections,” which models the possible impact of a hypothetical house price correction centered in the Toronto and Vancouver areas.

“This scenario analysis shows the financial system remains highly resilient to a house price correction centered in our two largest markets,” Wilkins said.

Canadian home sales were lower in October than in the previous month and activity decreased from a year ago.

Figures from CREA show a 1.6% decline in sales month-over-month while activity was down 3.7% year-over-year (not seasonally adjusted).

There were fewer home sales in half of local markets led by Hamilton-Burlington, Montreal, and Edmonton. And while there was modest improvement in activity in many markets, declines in other areas outpaced those gains twofold.

“National sales activity lost momentum in October,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s Chief Economist. “In part, this reflects waning activity among some urban centers in Ontario’s Greater Golden Horseshoe region and the absence of an offsetting rise in sales in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Even so, the balance between sales and listings in these regions points to stable prices or modest gains.”

Klump added that the balance between sales and listings for housing markets in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland indicates a weak pricing environment for homeowners who are looking to sell.

New listings slip
New listings edged down 1.1% between September and October, led by the GTA, Calgary and Victoria; more than offsetting increases in new supply in Edmonton and Greater Vancouver.

There were 5.3 months of inventory on a national basis at the end of October 2018 – in line with its long-term national average, but well above the month’s long-term average in the Prairie provinces and in Newfoundland & Labrador. By contrast, Ontario and Prince Edward Island are the two provinces where the measure remains.

Prices begin to ease
The MLS Home Price Index (HPI) was up 2.3% year-over-year (y-o-y) in October but the national average sale price slipped by 1.5% y-o-y in October.

“This year’s new mortgage stress-test has lowered how much mortgage home buyers can qualify for across Canada, but its effect on sales has varied somewhat depending on location, housing type and price range,” said CREA President Barb Sukkau.

A leading measure of Canadian home prices declined in October nationwide although one housing market bucked the trend.

The Teranet-National Bank National Composite House Price Index was down 0.4% compared to September, only the fourth time in the index’s 20-year history that there has been an October decline.

Ten of the eleven metros tracked declined – Victoria (−0.1%), Toronto (−0.2%), Winnipeg (−0.2%), Calgary (−0.3%), Ottawa-Gatineau (−0.4%), Hamilton (−0.5%), Edmonton (−0.7%), Vancouver (−0.8%), Quebec City (−1.0%) and Halifax (−1.0%).

Montreal was the only metro where the index rose, up 0.2%, marking its seventh consecutive monthly advance.

Year-over-year, the index was up 2.8%, beating the annual gains posted in the previous two months due to a large drop in August and September 2017.

With interest rates rising, the report does not forecast much upside for home prices in the months ahead.

Affordability worsened
While the October price index decline provides some relief for first-time buyers, affordability over the previous quarter worsened.

Nine out of ten urban markets saw lower affordability in Q3 than in the previous three months.

Even in Vancouver and Toronto, easing prices did not improve affordability as wages were down and mortgage rates rose.

Montreal and Ottawa-Gatineau saw the largest decline in affordability and the report says that these markets appear to be unaffected by rising rates and tighter lending standards, with home prices rising sharply (2.1% and 2.5% quarter-over-quarter respectively).

The report also highlights the relative deterioration of condo affordability compared to non-condo homes with strong demand pushing prices up 6.8% year-over-year while non-condo prices were flat.

City has been working since 2012 to implement Downtown Tomorrow Plan’s long-term vision to better connect the downtown to its waterfront

Setting the stage for downtown waterfront development in the City of Orillia is in full-swing.

The City of Orillia is in the process of pre-designating and pre-zoning the 9.75 acres of City-owned waterfront lands at the Metro plaza and former rail lands beside Centennial Drive to allow for a range of residential and commercial uses. This is part of Council’s plan to redevelop the waterfront and improve the connections between the waterfront and the downtown as envisioned in Orillia’s Downtown Tomorrow Plan.

“Council continues to move ahead with its vision of redeveloping and improving the downtown waterfront area all while maintaining our beautiful waterfront parks and the unique character that is Orillia,” said Mayor Steve Clarke. “Orillia has a waterfront that is the envy of many and we want to provide the ability for private developers to better connect that asset with the downtown core.”

The City has been working since 2012 to implement the Downtown Tomorrow Plan’s long-term vision to better connect the City’s downtown to its waterfront. To help make this happen, the City bought the Metro Plaza in 2016 with the objective of extending Coldwater Street to connect to Centennial Drive, to facilitate development and extend the retail experience along the waterfront, and to construct a public square at the foot of Mississaga Street and Centennial Drive.

“The Waterfront Working Group has been actively working to put a plan in place that will pave the way for transformative redevelopment of the City’s waterfront that focuses on new public space and includes a mix of residential and commercial uses,” said Councillor Tim Lauer, Chair of the Waterfront Working Group, which was established in 2016 and includes four members of Council.

“Our engineering staff are planning the future realignment of Centennial Drive and the relocation of the existing sanitary trunk sewer to Front Street. The reconstruction of Front Street between Neywash Street and Queen Street is planned to begin in 2019. The reconstruction will commence at the south end (Queen Street), and will occur over a two-year timeframe. The reconstruction and realignment of Centennial Drive will in part enlarge Couchiching Beach Park by moving a part of Centennial Drive to a location west of French’s Stand, and the construction is planned for 2022 and 2023,” said Ian Sugden, director of development services and engineering.

“The City is also working on documents related to the Request for Proposal (RFP) process, which will allow the City to solicit proposals from the development community that align with Council’s vision for the site,” said Laura Thompson, manager of real estate and commercial development. “It is anticipated the City will release the RFP in the spring of 2019.”

The public meeting on the proposed official plan policies and zoning by-law provisions for the waterfront redevelopment area will be held on Monday, Nov. 26 at 5:30 p.m. in the Council Chamber at the Orillia City Centre. Staff will be asking Council to approve the changes during the regular Council meeting on Nov. 26, 2018.

It’s looking more certain that the $2.1-billion Confederation Line LRT will open near the end of next March, although the city is nervous about promoting another launch date after it aborted the first two.

The city’s transportation general manager, John Manconi, would only tell council members Wednesday during a finance and economic development committee meeting that LRT would be ready sometime in the first quarter of 2019 but didn’t have an exact date.

After the meeting, Mayor Jim Watson, who was buoyed by a video of a train running end-to-end on the 12.5-kilometre line, suggested the opening would likely happen near the end of that January-March time frame.

“When we finally saw the train run from one end to the other, with the right speeds and the right times for loading and unloading people, it tells me that we’re coming very, very close to having full service by the 31st of March 2019,” Watson said. “I have great confidence in that date and I believe we will meet that date, if not exceed it by a few days.”

Rideau Transit Group, the consortium building the LRT system, missed the first handover deadline on May 24 and the second deadline on Nov. 2.

RTG has 60 days from Nov. 2 to propose a new handover date, so the city should know by Jan. 2 how soon it could open the LRT system in 2019.

However, the LRT contract calls for a minimum of 30 days between the date on which RTG notifies the city and the handover date itself. After the handover date, the city predicts it would need up to 10 days to do its own work with the LRT system before welcoming fare-paying passengers.

Whatever date RTG proposes, the builder can count on the city scrutinizing the evidence, Manconi said.

“To be very candid, there are very good days in testing and commissioning and there are challenging days, and that’s what you want,” Manconi said.

“You want to find out what the issues are and you want to proactively deal with them. The outcome is very crystal clear: a safe reliable system that gets the taxpayers the $2.1-billion investment in accordance to the project agreement. That’s our relentless pursuit.”

Bus customers and their city councillors are growing louder in their calls for better bus service before the LRT line opens.

Barrhaven Coun. Jan Harder this week announced improvements for customers who live in her ward after people continued to voice frustration over late and crowded buses, which OC Transpo attributes to the downtown bus detours. Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans said customers who live in her ward could use Transpo’s help, too.

Manconi said “I hear the noise” when it comes to customers’ irritation, but Transpo has limited resources while trying to transform the transit network.

One bit of good news for customers: Transpo intends to put a hold on fare increases at the beginning of 2019 until the LRT system opens.

Watson, who supports the temporary fare freeze as a “small gesture” by the city to acknowledge the frustration customers have with the bus detours, has ideas about how the lost revenue could be offset.

“We’ll have to find it from reserve funds. As you know, we have reserve funds for transit and tax stabilization, (plus) any savings we can generate from OC Transpo, but also we’re seeing increased ridership, which is good news for the fare box and the system as well,” Watson said.

(Manconi said there was an increase in transit ridership last quarter).

There are promising signs that LRT construction is wrapping up.

Rideau Station, based on pictures provided by the city, appears more advanced than what the city indicated in September. Interior finishes in other underground stations are being installed. The seven easternmost stations almost have their occupancy permits. Trains have run in fully automated mode across the entire line. All fare gates and machines are installed.

The public could see a very active rail line before the end of this month.

RTG wants to execute a “practice plan” on the entire system. Manconi said it will involve between eight and 10 two-car trains and up to 15 single trains.

“They’ll see that full fleet going end-to-end (with) the spacing they need to get to those headway times and they’ll pull up to the stations, the doors open, the doors close, and they do all the manoeuvres. They’ll see the service without occupants on the trains.”

Eventually the City of Ottawa will be asking its own workforce to participate in test runs to make sure wayfinding signs are in the right places, the pedestrian flow-through isn’t blocked and, perhaps most importantly, that the train-to-bus transfers at Tunney’s Pasture, Hurdman and Blair stations are seamless.

When it comes to the city’s extra costs tied to the LRT delay, city treasurer Marian Simulik said a full list should be available for council within the next two weeks.

The city is penalizing RTG $1 million for the missed handover in November and the builder would be liable for another $1 million if it misses a future handover date.

Realtors in Vancouver’s Lower Mainland will be launching their coordinated effort to help people in need next week.

The Realtors Care Blanket Drive is the largest of its kind in the Lower Mainland and, now in its 24th year, aims to collect enough to help 30,000 people keep warm this winter.

“A recent homeless count in Metro Vancouver indicates there are more people living in shelters or on the streets than ever before,” Phil Moore, Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver president said.

Between November 13 and 20, Realtor volunteers will collect warm clothing and blankets across the region. The donations are then distributed to partner charities from the same community where the item was donated.

More than 100 real estate offices will be utilized as collection points for clothing, blankets, and sleeping bags.

“Anything you can give that’s in good shape – an unused blanket, spare coat, even a pair of mittens – will directly help a person in need in your area,” John Barbisan, Fraser Valley Real Estate Board president said. “Please look through your closets and reach out to a participating Realtor or real estate office. They can help get your donation into the hands of someone who could really use it.”

A large proportion of Canadian workers are living in the shadow of debts that they say are overwhelming.

Four in 10 respondents to a new survey by the Canadian Payroll Association expressed that sentiment, up 5% from a year ago; while more than a third said their debt levels have increased year-over-year.

A higher cost of living is the biggest concern followed by higher interest and mortgage rates – 96% believe costs will rise over the next year.

Debt is such a concern for workers that 46% say that it impacts their workplace performance, however a similar share say they would feel uncomfortable discussing their financial situation with peers.

Trust in their pay cheques
The survey also reveals that most Canadian workers trust that their pay check is correct with just 36% reviewing pay statements.

Workers are open to the prospect of receiving help with financial management through their workplace with 84% saying this would be of interest; saving and planning for the future is the preferred topic.

“Decreased productivity, absenteeism and high turnover are just some of the negative ways that stress arising from finances can affect employees,” says Peter Tzanetakis, President of the CPA. “Employers are uniquely positioned to support employee financial wellness, either by offering them financial resources or methods to help employees save.”

A new advertising campaign is urging renters in Toronto to ensure their landlords comply with RentSafeTO.

The program requires rental apartment owners to comply with building operation and maintenance standards. It was launched in 2007 and applies to all rental apartment buildings with three or more storeys and 10 or more units.

Landlords that don’t comply can face orders and court charges which can result in substantial fines.

The new campaign, launched by the City of Toronto, is urging residents to speak to the RentSafeTO team on 311 if they have any issues. It reflects the top 3 complaints that the RentSafeTO officers hear about: pests, broken elevators and leaky ceilings.

“Ultimately we are striving to help ensure that tenants have a safe, secure and decent place to live, as well as protect and preserve the rental housing stock in the city. Our goal with this ad campaign is to remind residents to call the RentSafeTO team if they need support to have problems addressed,” said Mark Sraga, Director of Investigation Services in Municipal Licensing and Standards. “Our message is simple: The RentSafeTO team is the next step after your landlord, and we are here to help.”

Renters that live in buildings not covered by the program are urged to speak to their landlords but the City will still investigate if issues are reported.