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Interactive Map of Toronto Housing Changes 2011-2016

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Re: Interactive Map of Toronto Housing Changes 2011-2016

#31

Post by msie »

taurath wrote: post #17
allengeorge wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe people should adjust their perception of what "residential housing" looks and feels like. The concept of large detached single-family lots is unsustainable. Much better would be 2-3 floor row houses or 3-4 floor midrises with plenty of green space in walkable distance.

Unsustainable, or unsustainable in the face of people using property as an investment rather than a place to live? Foreign investment has destroyed Vancouvers affordability. The city is half full of rich Chinese driving Audis, and nearly all real estate signs come in Chinese. The same is happening down the west coast of the US as well as Toronto now. We need to prioritize affordability - and not just subsidies for th…

"The city is half full of rich Chinese driving Audis, and nearly all real estate signs come in Chinese."

No, this is not true. You must not live in Vancouver. It is really sad that this myth continues to have a life of its own. I mostly blame the press and politicians for perpetuating it. I also blame everyone for lazy thinking.

Latest reports peg foreign ownership at 5%. People seem to overlook that the majority of buyers are Canadians who want to live in Vancouver, the favourable mortgage rates, and the geography of Vancouver which makes it hard to build more SD houses.

Re: Interactive Map of Toronto Housing Changes 2011-2016

#32

Post by CountSessine »

msie wrote: post #31
taurath wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsustainable, or unsustainable in the face of people using property as an investment rather than a place to live? Foreign investment has destroyed Vancouvers affordability. The city is half full of rich Chinese driving Audis, and nearly all real estate signs come in Chinese. The same is happening down the west coast of the US as well as Toronto now. We need to prioritize affordability - and not just subsidies for th…

"The city is half full of rich Chinese driving Audis, and nearly all real estate signs come in Chinese." No, this is not true. You must not live in Vancouver. It is really sad that this myth continues to have a life of its own. I mostly blame the press and politicians for perpetuating it. I also blame everyone for lazy thinking. Latest reports peg foreign ownership at 5%. People seem to overlook that the majority of…

No, this is not true. You must not live in Vancouver. It is really sad that this myth continues to have a life of its own

I am from Vancouver and I don't know what you're talking about - every for-sale sign I see here in Burnaby for a detached house is primarily or exclusively in Chinese. Do you live in Vancouver?

Latest reports peg foreign ownership at 5%.

These are reports that are published almost exclusively by the BCREA, an organization that is known to misrepresent data (the so-called 'Benchmark Home' price, cross-market mixing, etc) and is the only organization other than the government that has this data.

Do you know why the provincial government imposed the foreign buyers tax? It was because after about 6 months of collecting this data, they realized that they had been so thoroughly and completely lied to by the BCREA, especially for sales figures in Burnaby and Coquitlam, that they felt compelled to act.

The 5% sales figure comes from aggregating all sales of all 'homes', condo+detached houses+apartments+pre-sales across the entire Fraser Valley, including places like Chilliwack. It also groups together the absurd stock of 1 bedroom condos that families can't live in with detached houses which 10 years ago families depended on. Please stop quoting this ridiculous 5% figure - you're doing so much more damage than you realize. I can't be everywhere to correct you.

Nobody cares about house prices in Chilliwack because they're still quite reasonable and they're too far away from where all of the jobs are. 75% of the GVRD is inflexibly zoned for detached houses and all of this property has now been bid out of the hands of Canadians who earn their living in this city. What good is 95% of housing not being purchased by foreign investors when it's all in Chilliwack or Squamish or is one of the ubiquitous lofts or 1 bedroom apartments that are completely unsuitable for families?

Ideally we would de-zone Vancouver and allow the city to organically densify - a city that can build as many homes as it needs can frustrate investors and still provide everyone with an affordable home. But in the meantime, the foreign buyer tax halted rocketing detached house prices and put a lid on what anyone can charge for similar market housing like 3 and 4 bedroom condos. Let's not pretend that this was going to get any better without that tax.

Re: Interactive Map of Toronto Housing Changes 2011-2016

#33

Post by msie »

derefr wrote: post #22
snowwindwaves wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope just catching up to the valuations in Vancouver, New York, London, Tokyo and other desirable international cities.

I'd guess less "catching up" than "shunted away from"—Vancouver specifically. (Vancouver passed a foreign home-buyer tax; suddenly the housing market there began to cool down. But, very likely, all that money didn't just stop trying to find a place to "land"; it just skipped over Vancouver for the next-easiest city to invest into.) If Toronto enacts similar measures, the money will just move somewhere else again.

The housing market in Vancouver is heating up again. The tax does little to stop non-foreign buyers.

Re: Interactive Map of Toronto Housing Changes 2011-2016

#34

Post by nikanj »

sanswork wrote: post #10
lacampbell wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same issue in NZ and Australia. All three countries are addicted to high immigration levels and rapid population growth, in order to grow the GDP. This will inevitably have effects on housing affordability and sprawl. If you try and hem in development like you say, the house prices will just increase even faster. I don't think you can have your cake and eat it too. You either need to deal with an aging popul…

The biggest problem both cities have is that everyone seems to only want a detached house. Condos are cheap in Toronto and they pump them out constantly but everyone still wants a fully detached house.

Condos in Vancouver have been appreciating at over 30% YOY for a while now.

Re: Interactive Map of Toronto Housing Changes 2011-2016

#35

Post by CountSessine »

msie wrote: post #33
derefr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess less "catching up" than "shunted away from"—Vancouver specifically. (Vancouver passed a foreign home-buyer tax; suddenly the housing market there began to cool down. But, very likely, all that money didn't just stop trying to find a place to "land"; it just skipped over Vancouver for the next-easiest city to invest into.) If Toronto enacts similar measures, the money will just move somewhere else again.

The housing market in Vancouver is heating up again. The tax does little to stop non-foreign buyers.

Again, an oversimplification.

Condos, especially 3 bedroom and 4 bedroom condos are on fire right now, because families need a place to live and those are the only homes they can afford. Detached houses east of Cambie are dead right now; all the foreign investors are in Toronto.

Re: Interactive Map of Toronto Housing Changes 2011-2016

#36

Post by sanswork »

nikanj wrote: post #34
sanswork wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem both cities have is that everyone seems to only want a detached house. Condos are cheap in Toronto and they pump them out constantly but everyone still wants a fully detached house.

Condos in Vancouver have been appreciating at over 30% YOY for a while now.

From what I could find quickly Toronto has over 2.5x as many new condo development projects under way.

Re: Interactive Map of Toronto Housing Changes 2011-2016

#37

Post by catmanjan »

derefr wrote: post #26
sanswork wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem both cities have is that everyone seems to only want a detached house. Condos are cheap in Toronto and they pump them out constantly but everyone still wants a fully detached house.

I wonder if a city could just decide to turn all the land titles that detached homes sit on, from freehold titles, to life-estate titles. So, it'd be like eminent domain, but you can keep living in the property (if you do live in the property) until you die. But, if you were to try to sell the land, you'd only be allowed to sell it to the government, at the market rate (as they would pay in under eminent domain); whe…

Canberra, Australia sort of does this - houses were originally built by the government and have a 99 year lease hold, the first of these leases is expiring now.

Re: Interactive Map of Toronto Housing Changes 2011-2016

#38

Post by ahassan »

Waterluvian wrote: post #3
dugditches wrote: post #2

There's lots of talk about tapping into the 'green belt' to allow more residential building. Something needs to be done though, soon and carefully. The market's getting out of control. And often what you don't hear is the 'spillovers'. 1.Where a person from toronto sells their home for a lot, then travels to a town outside toronto to retire/settle down. Local residents/new home owners can't compete with these buyers…

I live an hour from Toronto. Single detached homes closing prices went up 40% since last April. It's an unsustainable bubble.

And here I was hoping that I'd be able to afford a place in Waterloo eventually (I've already given up hope for a home in the GTA).

Re: Interactive Map of Toronto Housing Changes 2011-2016

#39

Post by acchow »

ziikutv wrote: post #25
sanswork wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toronto is pretty cheap for a city of its size.

And pretty awesome. You will appreciate it 100% more if you visit our capitol.

I spent most of my life in Toronto. I'm alright, thanks tho :)

Re: Interactive Map of Toronto Housing Changes 2011-2016

#40

Post by taurath »

msie wrote: post #31
taurath wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsustainable, or unsustainable in the face of people using property as an investment rather than a place to live? Foreign investment has destroyed Vancouvers affordability. The city is half full of rich Chinese driving Audis, and nearly all real estate signs come in Chinese. The same is happening down the west coast of the US as well as Toronto now. We need to prioritize affordability - and not just subsidies for th…

"The city is half full of rich Chinese driving Audis, and nearly all real estate signs come in Chinese." No, this is not true. You must not live in Vancouver. It is really sad that this myth continues to have a life of its own. I mostly blame the press and politicians for perpetuating it. I also blame everyone for lazy thinking. Latest reports peg foreign ownership at 5%. People seem to overlook that the majority of…

This is just my perception from driving around downtown, and east and south several weeks ago. Lots and lots of cars almost exclusively driven by older Chinese, and nearly all the real estate signs I saw were Chinese. I don't dispute your data but that impression I got stayed with me, and was confirmed by the several friends I knew who had lived in or around the city their whole lives.

I wonder where the discrepancy is.

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