COVID and the housing market

backmarkerducati said:
The job location thing is a problem for some professions where they are very concentric to GTHA and GVA (and GMA and GOA) but many are more portable and there are plenty of opportunities outside of those areas. Sure there may be hundreds of openings in Toronto and only a dozen in a specific smaller city outside of Ontario, and Toronto pays more BUT with the lower cost of housing the person will be further a head outside of Ontario--they just won't go.

Healthcare, Education, Accounting, IT, Law, all portable and in need across the country... Engineering and some others will depend on specialization. In general, there are shortages nation wide.

Unskilled jobs, portability increases even more.

Interesting enough, I work with a lot of Hamilton professional people that were always in the never Toronto crowd--to expensive.... that have now moved west or east.
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Agreed. I would move out of here if I could find a job and just remove my mortgage completely. Could live with a lot less money if I didn't have that thing hanging over my head.

Once my parents pass we'll consider it, as won't have as much tying us down to here. But hopefully that's not for many more years.

Our friends are moving to Ottawa soon, they're still looking...and the houses you can get there in the suburbs compared to here are insanely nicer, larger, with huge plots of land. Too far for me, but under consideration.

I wouldn't mind moving Erin, Elora, Hockley, Paris, or a myriad of other smaller towns when we get older. More land, cheaper housing, less idiots on the road, etc etc etc. Hell we could move to the family cottage in Wasaga if parents don't sell it.
 
GreyGhost said:
Not too far from me vacant lots are going for $400-600k and 3000 sq ft houses in subdivision hell are close to $1.5M. I am outside of Barrie. That is nuts. There is very little employment that can pay off those loans. You either need to ride the property ponzi scheme to generate a huge downpayment or you need someone to give you many hundreds of thousands.

In a village not too far away, there was an application to divide a lot. All lots in the village were ~0.5 acres so there is room for at least two houses on every lot but the villagers got out their pitch forks. Not in the character of the neighbourhood, thin edge of the wedge, etc. If you can't beat them, join them. Any person that includes "not in the character of the neighbourhood" in their list of points should have their entire argument tossed. Not in character is exactly the goal. Enforcing status quo doesn't benefit anyone in the long run. FWIW, the guy won the severance but was driven out of the village.

I won't be surprised if we start seeing attempts to organize HOA's here to protect the character of the neighbourhood. While much of the US implements them from the beginning, there are many locations where HOA was created after the fact. I want nothing to do with them. Nobody can force me to sign and I will be a holdout if it happens.
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My mother sold her bungalow in Anten Mills (Horseshoe Valley and Wilson) in 1999 for $178K They had it built in around 1980 for about a quarter of that when my stepdad retired. Now it would be ~$900 K. Newer more elaborate places there could be 50 to 100% more.

Nice place for newly weds and nearly deads. Great place for hiking and snow shoeing but little else. Drive to Barrie for bread and milk, doctors, school, music lessons, little league etc. WFH is good.

As I understand it HOAs are a necessary evil in Texas where they don't have zoning. Build a 3500 square footer on an acre and the guy next to you builds a slaughter house. Other than that HOAs are a bit like condos where a controlling b**** gets on the board and doesn't like a pickup parked next to her Lexus so wants to ban trucks.

That actually happened at a small self managed condo in Orillia. Volunteer directors get tired of playing referee and quit with the control freak's posse taking over. Annual General Meetings have pathetic turn outs and few want to run for the board so the same control freaks run the zoo.

Timing is everything. A friend bought pre-construction just off Ardagh at a good price and sold his old place near Royal Vic at peak. Very little mortgage bump considering the size difference.
 
mimico_polak said:
Agreed. I would move out of here if I could find a job and just remove my mortgage completely. Could live with a lot less money if I didn't have that thing hanging over my head.

Once my parents pass we'll consider it, as won't have as much tying us down to here. But hopefully that's not for many more years.

Our friends are moving to Ottawa soon, they're still looking...and the houses you can get there in the suburbs compared to here are insanely nicer, larger, with huge plots of land. Too far for me, but under consideration.

I wouldn't mind moving Erin, Elora, Hockley, Paris, or a myriad of other smaller towns when we get older. More land, cheaper housing, less idiots on the road, etc etc etc. Hell we could move to the family cottage in Wasaga if parents don't sell it.
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My M-I-L's place in Paris went for about a half a million a few years ago, pre interest rate hikes. My F-I-L bought the land in early 1950s and built the house himself. 50 X 300 foot lot backing onto a recessed and abandoned RR spur for IIRC $500.

The trouble is Toronto is moving to the quaint little towns and quaint is being replaced by snobbery. The original locals don't like it because their kids have to move further away because of fat Toronto wallets jacking up prices.
 
nobbie48 said:
My M-I-L's place in Paris went for about a half a million a few years ago, pre interest rate hikes. My F-I-L bought the land in early 1950s and built the house himself. 50 X 300 foot lot backing onto a recessed and abandoned RR spur for IIRC $500.

The trouble is Toronto is moving to the quaint little towns and quaint is being replaced by snobbery. The original locals don't like it because their kids have to move further away because of fat Toronto wallets jacking up prices.
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But that's just the natural state of the Toronto (snobs I guess?) moving out because they're being pushed out. Same as areas are stating they're being overrun by 'those people'...there's no fixing it, there's only 2 options.

1. Move further out and hope it doesn't follow
2. Accept it and live with it

For us...I want more peace and quiet. While I have that here...it'd be nicer to move to the 'country' closer to motorcycling roads, and open spaces.
 
backmarkerducati said:
The job location thing is a problem for some professions where they are very concentric to GTHA and GVA (and GMA and GOA) but many are more portable and there are plenty of opportunities outside of those areas. Sure there may be hundreds of openings in Toronto and only a dozen in a specific smaller city outside of Ontario, and Toronto pays more BUT with the lower cost of housing the person will be further a head outside of Ontario--they just won't go.

Healthcare, Education, Accounting, IT, Law, all portable and in need across the country... Engineering and some others will depend on specialization. In general, there are shortages nation wide.

Unskilled jobs, portability increases even more.

Interesting enough, I work with a lot of Hamilton professional people that were always in the never Toronto crowd--to expensive.... that have now moved west or east.
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Is it garbage dump bear syndrome?

Our economic relationship with the USA is a big reason Canada, economically, is a country 3000 miles east to west with a fat belt 50 miles north to south. We have failed to pursue other options over the last century or so.

It is so ingrained in our minds that we have to be GTA rich that we can't comprehend satisfaction elsewhere.
 
mimico_polak said:
Yowza...

www.villagereport.ca

Insolvent landlords with $144M debt used investors' cash on 'extravagant' expenses, report claims

New insolvency report alleges landlords 'diverted, misused or misappropriated funds that were borrowed from investors,' while struggling to pay municipal taxes, utility bills and contractors
www.villagereport.ca www.villagereport.ca

632 units across Ontario b/w the 4 of them...
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What a disaster. Looks like they were spending it as if the money was just raining down on them (kind of was I guess) hopefully smart enough to stock a bunch away before all their fines and tax bills, lawyer fees, criminal fines etc. clean them out.
 
GreyGhost said:
Not too far from me vacant lots are going for $400-600k and 3000 sq ft houses in subdivision hell are close to $1.5M. I am outside of Barrie. That is nuts. There is very little employment that can pay off those loans. You either need to ride the property ponzi scheme to generate a huge downpayment or you need someone to give you many hundreds of thousands.

In a village not too far away, there was an application to divide a lot. All lots in the village were ~0.5 acres so there is room for at least two houses on every lot but the villagers got out their pitch forks. Not in the character of the neighbourhood, thin edge of the wedge, etc. If you can't beat them, join them. Any person that includes "not in the character of the neighbourhood" in their list of points should have their entire argument tossed. Not in character is exactly the goal. Enforcing status quo doesn't benefit anyone in the long run. FWIW, the guy won the severance but was driven out of the village.

I won't be surprised if we start seeing attempts to organize HOA's here to protect the character of the neighbourhood. While much of the US implements them from the beginning, there are many locations where HOA was created after the fact. I want nothing to do with them. Nobody can force me to sign and I will be a holdout if it happens.
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backmarkerducati said:
Very GTHA concentric thinking...

Go to MLS and set the max price to $500K and the filters to single family homes, then scroll across the country looking at "cities" and towns. $500K too rich, try $300K, still too rich......... Still to rich yet, drop it more and include condos and townhomes... Canada has plenty of land. We have cities that actually need people AND have housing AND room to grow AND cheap land. The idea we need to tear up the GTHA because people only want to live here is stupid. Never mind that IF you look at what (little) is being built here none of it is below those prices above... shoebox tiny condo maybe.

The GTHA is also littered with approved buildings lots that for many reasons are not being built. Developers are either hoarding land, playing games, want to wit until they can make even more money... In my area alone, I count a few thousand units not being built.

www.toronto.ca

Application Information Centre

The Application Information Centre (AIC) provides information on all development applications in Toronto.
www.toronto.ca www.toronto.ca

Not easy to navigate but see an empty building, lot, type the address in.

BTW, tent cities have almost nothing to do with the above... There are so many reasons it is all out of wack, most of it can be fixed without bulldozing the city.
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I see challenges with the permitting and build cost. With build costs running upwards of $300/sq’, the small SFH units aren’t profitable to build. And in outlying areas with low cost building lots, $300/sq and permitting that can run well over $100k I driving demand for existing stock.

And then there’s the land. When municipalities got greedy with dev fees, they drove the value of existing stock by the amount of fees. I used to own a swamp lot in the south end of Keswick. $160k with a 1200sq house in 05 whe dev fees were near zero. Today those lots (without a house) sell for < $500k.
 
mimico_polak said:
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A few years back a client in Rosedale and I compared notes, finding a similar game plan.

1) Wait for condo prices to crash and buy one that we would consider living in.

2) Rent the condo out.

3) When the market picked up and we were ready for the bliss? of condo life sell the big house and move into the condo and live fat off the proceeds of the house. Or buy a cottage.

I have concerns about that happening now.

1) LTB takes forever to throw out a delinquent tenant.

2) When asked to vacate with six months notice some are demanding cash for keys. They want a share of your investments. One was demanding $100,000.

3) Where the majority of the residents are renters, maintenance can be an issue. The owners want fees to be as low as possible so get things fixed cheap or not at all. The owners, not the residents approve budgets and direct the property managers. The renters have to tolerate malfunctioning equipment, shoddy carpets in the hall, dark parking garages, general grime.

It's not hard for a deferred $10,000 repair to grow into a million dollar rebuild requiring special assessments.

P.S. You can't trust every property manager. One condo near QEW and Erin Mills found out that their manager forged paperwork to obtain massive loans and disappeared to some place hard to find. After a lengthy battle the courts decided the lender hadn't used due diligence in the loan so the condo was only on the hook for $50,000 in legal fees.

As far as the mini condos go they would be like living in a hotel room. One layout I saw (Gardiner and Bay) the bathroom was right off the dining room. Not for everyone.

It used to be, in Brampton, a vacant industrial unit got a reduced property tax. In Toronto a vacant residential property gets a surcharge. They want you to rent it out to relieve the housing crisis but they at the same time hang you out to dry if the renter doesn't pay.
 
mimico_polak said:
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Reality?

I've posted about the reality of the 1960's real estate where three years trade wages gets you a semi for $15,000. That's now a $1.5 million house.

Today's reality is the above video with three years wages for a trades person and his significant other gets you a 300-400 square foot condo.

The couple can put in another three years to get a townhouse, three on top of that to get into a semi and another three for the white picket fence or the 1960's semi in my first sentence.

Hopefully they don't need to eat, wear clean clothes, sit on furniture or drive a car.

Will it get better? IMO, no. It may vary but that will be due more to interest rates and recessions etc.

It will take a generation or two to settle out. When parents cash in and leave the assets to the kids it will get diluted by the number of offspring. A few die hard estates may remain as land rich, cash poor entities, like some English estates. Have more than one kid and you're in trouble.

Downton Abbey anyone?
 
New winner for taking it on the chin. Cambridge sold for 2.3 but buyer failed to close. Seller sued buyer for 2.3 and eventually sold for 1.5. Ouch. That first buyer will be lucky to escape this with any net worth.


www.blogto.com

Ontario home sold at massive $825k loss after failed attempts to sell

Although there was a short-lived pick-up in the GTA's real estate market last spring, buyers throughout the region have continued to benefit from i...
www.blogto.com www.blogto.com
 
mimico_polak said:
Ooof…this one would hurt also…

www.blogto.com

Ontario condo sold at staggering loss is just the latest case in worrying trend

A condo sold at a significant loss in Ontario last month demonstrates just how unpredictable prices tend to be in the province's turbulent real estat…
www.blogto.com www.blogto.com
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Not as bad as this. I would feel bad for them but if you borrow 1.4M from a B lender to buy a 2.55M home in oshawa, they deserve the beating they took. Sold for 800k less after two years. Add in ltt and re fees and they are down almost $500k/yr (not even considering interest paid).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1808531624578957793
 
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