COVID and the housing market | Page 284 | GTAMotorcycle.com

COVID and the housing market

GreyGhost said:
It's interesting to see what people value and are willing to pay. Two houses for sale near Barrie for roughly the same price. One is a semi to be built soon (4bed, 3 bath) in a 25' subdivision lot. New subdivision so you will be living with construction and dust for a decade. The other is ~50 yo bungalow (3 bed, 2 bath) on 20 acres. About seven minutes apart by car. Bungalow sold in 70 days. Semi just listed, I suspect it will be a hard sell as who wants to pay seven figures for a semi outside of barrie.
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I'm going to assume the country lot is on well and septic. City folk don't understand water other than turn on tap and flush toilet. Is the lot workable and if so could some of it be rented out for crops.

Crops make good tenants. No wild parties, leave once a year, don't complain too much.
 
nobbie48 said:
I'm going to assume the country lot is on well and septic. City folk don't understand water other than turn on tap and flush toilet. Is the lot workable and if so could some of it be rented out for crops.

Crops make good tenants. No wild parties, leave once a year, don't complain too much.
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20 acre lot is on the edge of a village. I suspect well and septic but wouldnt be surprised if connection to municipal was possible (at great expense).

There is a decent percentage as field. Last I heard, rental rate for a field that size wasnt much. It also divides up your property. I'd probably use the field to build a dirt bike track or reforest.
 
crankcall said:
Re : cloning an app, complete bull crap. You can see everything that it needs to do , and pretty much how they got there .
Why do you think China reverse engineers thousands of products a yr ? It’s easy and it’s fast. Silliest news story this month .


Sent from my iPhone using GTAMotorcycle.com
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True, but looking like we won't be getting a detailed list of contractors who received payments with home addresses listed as their headquarters.

 
Ontario is proposing to double the fine for builders cancelling contracts. Seems like stupid useless pandering. Fine going from 25K to 50K. Fine needs to be at least an order of magnitude higher before it is even considered in the thought process. This seems like a complete waste of paper and staff time.

The actual wording will be interesting as the article has the threshold at "unfairly cancelling". That means nothing legally. In many cases, there are layers of obscurity (eg contract requires builder to obtain reasonable construction financing but lender owned by builder principal wants 100% interest so builder can cancel or the builder that is charging 100K+ for utility connection, they aren't unfairly cancelling, they are just extorting with impunity).

windsor.ctvnews.ca

Ontario doubling fines for unfair cancellation of new home projects

Ontario government officials say they are doing more to protect new home buyers by doubling the maximum fines for unethical builders and vendors of new homes who unfairly cancel a new home project or terminate a purchase agreement.
windsor.ctvnews.ca windsor.ctvnews.ca
 
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GreyGhost said:
Ontario is proposing to double the fine for builders cancelling contracts. Seems like stupid useless pandering. Fine going from 25K to 50K. Fine needs to be at least an order of magnitude higher before it is even considered in the thought process. This seems like a complete waste of paper and staff time.

The actual wording will be interesting as the article has the threshold at "unfairly cancelling". That means nothing legally. In many cases, there are layers of obscurity (eg contract requires builder to obtain reasonable construction financing but lender owned by builder principal wants 100% interest so builder can cancel or the builder that is charging 100K+ for utility connection, they aren't unfairly cancelling, they are just extorting with impunity).

windsor.ctvnews.ca

Ontario doubling fines for unfair cancellation of new home projects

Ontario government officials say they are doing more to protect new home buyers by doubling the maximum fines for unethical builders and vendors of new homes who unfairly cancel a new home project or terminate a purchase agreement.
windsor.ctvnews.ca windsor.ctvnews.ca
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Wouldn't it be nice if we could manipulate our stock purchases like the developers manipulate contracts.
 
nobbie48 said:
Wouldn't it be nice if we could manipulate our stock purchases like the developers manipulate contracts.
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Balanced market is the way to fix it. As long as fomo is rampant, contracts can be one-sided. If buyers have lots of choices, they have the opportunity to review/amend contracts prior to signing as the builder will be hungry for deposit cheques.

Some toronto mayoral candidates are talking about time limited approvals. That may work in the short run but make a bigger mess in the long run. You dont want to lose out on an approved project but new projects wont get the paperwork started until developer wants to go. That could cause a big backlog in approvals as they would be boom and bust instead of streaming in.
 
I'm guilty of a level of NIMBY, i understand the need and the value of density housing. I also can appreciate that we make decisions on where we would like to live for a variety of reasons. Buying into an area because it has the look you appreciate, the traffic you can live with and a lifestyle you want is how many of us roll. Having nice old bungalows on big lots dozed and a triplex jump up may not be to everyones liking.

I will go along with putting a leash on the conservation authority which often just adds layers of cost and permiting for no reason but justifying govt jobs.

The latest 'local' govt fail is a new highrise going ahead in Bronte. Builder wanted 28floors , local bylaw cap is 12. The builder and the town have 'settled' on 16 floors. The mayor announces HUGE success and the new building conforms to the towns plan. If the bylaw is 12, he's getting 16...
apparently you can buy environment credits by gifting money for local improvments. This one paid $750K and got 4 more floors. So lets look at the obvious, if you have bags of cash you can do pretty much what you'd like. Lets just call it what it is.
$750 builds what? a small flower bed in the middle of a street down here?
 
mimico_polak said:
Not a fan of Ford but this seems to be a step in the right direction to limit NIMBYism.

www.thestar.com

Doug Ford will override municipal zoning to allow more housing across Ontario, confidential document reveals

The Ontario government wants to “remove rules that prevent missing middle” housing — multi-dwelling units curbed by local zoning laws favouring single-family homes.
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com
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It's something but not as helpful as it sounds. Allowing dwellings to be split into multiple units as long as total square footage is unchanged. That will get some basement apartments legalized which helps but doesnt allow the imo necessary 3/4 plex that could easily be built on many residential lots (max building envelope cube with multiple 1000-1500 sq ft dwellings).

Edit:
As far as basement apartments being legalized, that may be optimistic. This removes the zoning barrier but cost to properly build a separated dwelling including fire separation is not trivial. Illegal units now will probably remain as such. I could see new builds coming with owner dwelling above and a legal suite in the basement. Not sure if it would be economically viable with upgrade price builder charges.
 
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crankcall said:
I'm guilty of a level of NIMBY, i understand the need and the value of density housing. I also can appreciate that we make decisions on where we would like to live for a variety of reasons. Buying into an area because it has the look you appreciate, the traffic you can live with and a lifestyle you want is how many of us roll. Having nice old bungalows on big lots dozed and a triplex jump up may not be to everyones liking.

I will go along with putting a leash on the conservation authority which often just adds layers of cost and permiting for no reason but justifying govt jobs.

The latest 'local' govt fail is a new highrise going ahead in Bronte. Builder wanted 28floors , local bylaw cap is 12. The builder and the town have 'settled' on 16 floors. The mayor announces HUGE success and the new building conforms to the towns plan. If the bylaw is 12, he's getting 16...
apparently you can buy environment credits by gifting money for local improvments. This one paid $750K and got 4 more floors. So lets look at the obvious, if you have bags of cash you can do pretty much what you'd like. Lets just call it what it is.
$750 builds what? a small flower bed in the middle of a street down here?
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I'm sort of in your camp and we have the densification movement not too far from where we are. I like my, over-sized by today's standards, lot. However there are opinions that our taxes aren't paying their way with regards to infrastructure upkeep so that void has to be paid out of development fees, another government run Ponzi scheme. How many people are prepared to pay double their tax rate to avoid the need for higher densities?

If I was 25 and buying my first home my opinion would likely be different.

One solution is for people to get over owning a house. There are advantages to renting. That would require trashing the present LTB and making things fair for everyone. Deadbeats and slumlords are both instantly dealt with as criminals. The problem is you can't legislate ethics.
 
mimico_polak said:
Not a fan of Ford but this seems to be a step in the right direction to limit NIMBYism.

www.thestar.com

Doug Ford will override municipal zoning to allow more housing across Ontario, confidential document reveals

The Ontario government wants to “remove rules that prevent missing middle” housing — multi-dwelling units curbed by local zoning laws favouring single-family homes.
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com
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I see it different, he is handing the keys to the developers.

In our area the developers scream NIMBY but they bought land beside SFHs that has a maximum height of 6 stories (currently two story on it), knowing the bylaws. Then the fight starts, they want 20+ again right beside regular homes with no ifrstructure to support it, this goes on for years and years and they end up building 7 or 8. This is happening all over the city. BTW the extra height does not bring affordable condos....this is all high end.

If they just built to the reasonable in this case bylaws there would be more housing. Now with the new rules they will be building the 20 and it will be a mess and all big money units.
 
backmarkerducati said:
I see it different, he is handing the keys to the developers.

In our area the developers scream NIMBY but they bought land beside SFHs that has a maximum height of 6 stories (currently two story on it), knowing the bylaws. Then the fight starts, they want 20+ again right beside regular homes with no ifrstructure to support it, this goes on for years and years and they end up building 7 or 8. This is happening all over the city. BTW the extra height does not bring affordable condos....this is all high end.

If they just built to the reasonable in this case bylaws there would be more housing. Now with the new rules they will be building the 20 and it will be a mess and all big money units.
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I didn't see anything remotely like that in this announcement. This announcement was if you want to create multiple units within an existing dwelling without adding any square feet, you are allowed to without zoning permission. Replacing that dwelling with a 20 storey condo would still require the entire planning process.
 
crankcall said:
I give it 24 hrs before @mimicopolak is trying to engineer a triplex on his lot .


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24?! I started within 5min of the announcement!

In all seriousness, a triplex is my goal next anyway. It still slots in below commercial property interest rates and taxes and is an overall good investment.

We had a 6plex and it was awesome. Cousins have a 3 plex that effectively runs itself as the tenants are all (currently) great and keep it clean and tidy.

I know the risks, but I want a damn 3 plex.
 
I suspect we will see more of that as the panic quells , and interest rates continue to climb, and uncertainty keeps some hands in thier pockets. The era of essentially free money HELOCs is over for now, and some folks are looking at life a bit different.
Friends built a very nice McMansion is west Oakville , its a bit over 4,000sqft, property taxes are 22k per yr. The first 40k you earn every year pays the property taxes. Other friends are unsure they could retire in the current home they have , taxes will eat a big hunk of retirement funds.

I think we will see more long term planning as the house swapping starts to slow.
 
Not covid related Visited someone on the weekend with a nice lakefront house in barrie. Probably something close to 1/2 acre. Property tax was close to 50K. Filed for reassessment and got about 10k knocked off. Cough. That's about 70k in before tax income just to cover property tax.
 
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