This Week in Toronto Real Estate

skyline effect winter.jpgI'm back with my semi-regular round up of news related to real estate in Toronto. Quite a lot going on this week as the first week of March is traditionally represents the beginning of the spring market and the busiest time of the year for the real estate industry.

Students and homeless people rejoice: the line up for condos at College Park is over and finally everyone can go home and get some sleep. Things were fairly civil although it briefly turned ugly before order was restored as agents got their priority numbers and were allowed to go home.

Rather than continue to lease it out a prime piece of property on Bloor Street for pennies on the dollar, the city decided to sell it for pennies on the dollar. McDonald's bought the property across from the ROM for $3.38 million that is probably worth at least $8 million. McDonald's in turn has plans to sell it the property developer Bazis International-the Kazakhstan-based developer behind the infamous 1 Bloor project. I can picture it now: high-end Yorkville condos with a McDonald's in the building!

Harry Stinson-the one-time condo king of Toronto is going to try his luck in Hamilton of all places with a proposed condo tower above an historic downtown hotel. This is very befitting of the city of Hamilton's current marketing campaign: "If you can't make it there, you can make it it in Hamilton!" 80-storeys of glass and steel in downtown Hamilton, anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

And finally, the numbers are in and the results are somewhat surprising. The Toronto Real Estate Board is reporting that sales in February were down 14% in Toronto versus February of last year. Two possible causes include the introduction of the new land transfer tax, the terrible weather we had in February.

Photo by . Spiral . from the blogTO Flickr pool.

Andrew la Fleur is a registered real estate agent and regular contributor of blogTO.

Reader Reviews and Comments

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Why the potshot at Hamilton? It's a fine place, and for the past few years seeing loads of TO people move there because of the affordable houses and intact, interesting and good downtown/inner city. Stick to the real estate talk, leave the jokes to the professionals.

Posted by: Ham at March 7, 2008 11:11 AM

I concur - I'm personally thrilled to see Hamilton reappear in any sort of real estate news. I'd much rather see it become Tacoma to our Seattle, or Providence to our Boston, rather than stagnating its way into an Oakland or Newark.

New condos are certainly a good start, but lets see a renewed airport, historic streetscape restorations, light rail, microbrews, lofts, arts expansions and all that other good stuff now happening in smaller, post-industrial US cities. Hamilton has the bones to be a great small city in a new golden age of cities.

Posted by: uSkyscraper at March 7, 2008 12:29 PM

Thank you Andrew for the comment about condos over a McDonald's. I've seen this done around Toronto recently, and to my mind it is evidence that people will buy ANYTHING.

PS -- no disrespecting Steeltown allowed.

Posted by: Patrick at March 7, 2008 12:40 PM

To my Hamilton homies: Tongue was planted firmly in cheek.

I agree, Hamilton does have good bones and will one day be a fine small city. Daring entrepreneurs like Stinson are exactly what the city needs. But seriously, 80 storeys in Hamilton?! Remember how much resistance the idea of 80 storeys got at Yonge and Bloor? But that's why I kinda like Stinson-he's not afraid to rock the boat.

Posted by: Andrew (author) at March 7, 2008 4:46 PM

Thank You Andrew for mentioning the slowdown in Real Estate in Toronto. There are some very disturbing statistics that point to the fact that we are on the verge of a major correction:


? In January, sales of pre-owned homes across Canada fell 6%, or an annualized rate of more than 70%, says the Canadian Real Estate Association.

? The number of people saying they are very likely to buy a new home within the next two years has hit the lowest point in 15 years, says a poll conducted by the Royal Bank.

? Home resales in Toronto last month crashed by 14%, says the Toronto Real Estate Board while price appreciation slows to 2% year

? The number of people trying to unload their houses has suddenly mushroomed. Listings soared to a new record in January across Canada, up 9% in a single month, says CREA.

? Stats Can reported that building permit applications plunged a third month in a row, stunning economists.

? Canada will most like be in a Recession this year. Canadas economy came to a screeching halt in December as its GDP shrank.

Would you buy now?

Posted by: Proud Canadian at March 7, 2008 8:53 PM

Proud Canadian,

To your last point, Canada's economy did not come to a "screeching halt" in December or any time in the last while. You make it sound like we are Somalia or something. We're not -- we are rich babies able to spend our money on designer coffees, expensive dogs and iPods.

But yeah, BAD time to buy real estate.

Posted by: Patrick at March 9, 2008 5:24 PM

Patrick,

I agree. Definately not a good time to buy. Historically Real Estate has been cyclical: BOOM and BUST, so the above numbers posted are no surprise given the 10 years of boom we have had.

Posted by: James at March 10, 2008 10:24 AM

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