Wednesday, July 7, 2010

GTA REALTORS® Report Monthly Resale Housing Figures

Greater Toronto REALTORS® reported 8,442 sales through the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in June. This represented a 23 per cent decrease compared to the record 10,955 sales reported in June 2009. Sales for the second quarter of 2010 amounted to 28,810 – up one per cent annually. Year-to-date sales through June were up 23 per cent to 50,455 compared to the first six months of 2009.
“We experienced a record number of existing home sales during the first half of 2010, but these sales were weighted more towards the beginning of the year,” said Toronto Real Estate Board President Bill Johnston. “The pace of home sales has moderated from record levels over the past two months with the prospect of higher mortgage rates.”The average price for June transactions was $435,034 – up eight per cent compared to the average of $403,972 recorded for June 2009.
“With more homes to choose from in the second quarter, many home buyers have been making less-aggressive offers. This has resulted in less upward pressure on the average selling price,” said Jason Mercer, TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis. “The annual rate of average price growth in the second half of 2010 will be in the single digits.”

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Terranet Home Price Index Shows Monthly price rise of 0.8% in April

Canadian home prices in April were up 12.9% from a year earlier, according to the Teranet-National Bank National Composite House Price Index™. This acceleration from 12-month rises of 7.5% in January, 9.9% in February and 11.6% in March is attributable to the deflation that was still in progress 12 months earlier. Since April was the anniversary of the index bottom, this base effect has now run its course. The 12-month gain of the composite index in April was strongly influenced by Toronto, up 17.0%, and Vancouver, up 15.6%. In the four other markets surveyed, the 12-month rise was less than 10%.


For the first time in five months, all six metropolitan areas surveyed showed prices up from the month before, and for the first time in eight months, all six monthly gains exceeded 0.5%. These results end a three-month run of deceleration. The April monthly rise was 1.9% in Halifax, 1.1% in Montreal and Ottawa, 0.8% in Vancouver and Calgary and 0.6% in Toronto. For the composite index the rise was 0.8%, the strongest in four months. The string of 12 consecutive monthly increases was the longest since September 2006.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

RE/MAX Professionals Inc. reaches $1 million milestone in donations to SickKids

Mississauga, ON (June 8, 2010) – On June 10th, RE/MAX Professionals Inc. and its sales associates and support staff will officially become the first RE/MAX franchise in Ontario-Atlantic Canada to have donated $1 million to SickKids Foundation through Children’s Miracle Network. The company has championed the support of sick and injured youngsters and their families for nearly 20 years.

“RE/MAX has been a valued partner and strong supporter of SickKids Foundation since 1992 and we congratulate RE/MAX Professionals sales and support staff for reaching this significant donation milestone,” says Ted Garrard, President and CEO, SickKids Foundation. “We rely on the support of our community partners to help SickKids achieve crucial breakthroughs in paediatric research and care.”

RE/MAX Professionals—with 250 sales associates operating out of three offices in Toronto’s West End and Mississauga—has been a strong supporter of the Children’s Miracle Network since its inception. Through the Miracle Home Program, whereby sales associates donate a percentage of their earnings on the sale of each Miracle home, RE/MAX has provided vital support for highest-priority needs at SickKids, including the purchase of medical equipment, upgrades to facilities, funding for critical research, outreach programs, and support services.

“This milestone is of significant importance to our organization,” says Linda Sansom, General Manager, RE/MAX Professionals Inc. “We’ve worked tirelessly over the years to ensure that our efforts on behalf of the Children’s Miracle Network have met with unparalleled success. The on-going commitment, dedication, and outright desire to make a difference in the lives of children at SickKids has been nothing short of remarkable.”

Sansom has been instrumental in the process for the past 18 years, encouraging new agents to participate in the Miracle Home program and those already involved to increase their donations. She has also arranged numerous fundraising events, including summer barbeques, raffles, 50/50 draws, and dress-down Fridays to bolster contributions to SickKids.

The level of enthusiasm for the cause is second to none, notes Sansom. “Who hasn’t been touched by a child’s illness? We all know someone who has had an experience at SickKids. Realtors work with families day in and day out. This commitment is from our family to yours. And the best part about donating to SickKids through Children’s Miracle Network is that 100 per cent of funds raised go directly to the hospital.”

A celebration of RE/MAX Professionals’ remarkable milestone will occur at the company’s general meeting on June 10 at 11:15 a.m. at the Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, located at 2500 Old Carriage Rd. John Hartman, Chief International Officer of Children’s Miracle Network; Ted Garrard, President and CEO, SickKids Foundation; as well as a family currently receiving treatment at SickKids will be on hand at the presentation ceremony. Media are welcome to attend.

RE/MAX is Canada’s leading real estate organization with over 17,500 sales associates situated throughout its more than 680 independently-owned and operated offices across the country. The RE/MAX franchise network, now in its 37th year, is a global real estate system operating in 80 countries. Over 6,450 independently-owned offices engage over 92,000 member sales associates who lead the industry in professional designations, experience and production while providing real estate services in residential, commercial, referral, and asset management. For more information, visit: www.remax.ca.

For more information:
Linda Sansom Christine Martysiewicz
RE/MAX Professionals Inc. RE/MAX Ontario-Atlantic Canada
905.270.8840 905.542.2400

Monday, June 14, 2010

RE/MAX Professionals Dedicated $1,000,000 to the Childrens Miracle Network

The presentation of the cheque for $1,000,000 of contributions from RE/MAX Professionals staff. The RE/MAX Professionals have been  instrumental in thier support for the Childrens Miracle Network and are the first Brokerage to have accomplished this feat.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Study on HST states true cost to consumer on housing will soar

Premier Dalton McGuinty's plan to harmonize sales taxes threatens 21,200 construction jobs and will cost buyers of new homes at least $800 million, a housing industry analysis warns.


The melding of the 8 per cent provincial sales tax with the 5 per cent GST on July 1, 2010, will be especially onerous to buyers in Greater Toronto due to higher house prices, says the report commissioned by the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD).

GTA purchasers will pay $575 million of the $800 million, wrote Altus Group's Frank Clayton, who prepared the 28-page report, the first detailed examination of the new tax's impact since it was announced in the March 26 budget.

Prior to the budget, BILD had estimated it could cost Ontario homebuyers $2. 4 billion if the taxes were harmonized. That was before Finance Minister Dwight Duncan disclosed that residences costing less than $400,000 would effectively be exempt from the HST and there would be partial rebates for homes less than $500,000.

But new houses that cost more than $500,000 would be subject to the harmonized tax.

"The impacts will disproportionately hit new housing in the Greater Toronto Area because of its higher price level and middle-income households," wrote Clayton, whose study will be released today.

"New homes over $400,000 are not exclusively owned by the very wealthy," he noted, adding "a significant number of (such) households are classified as 'middle class.'"

About one third - 36 per cent - of all new homes sold in the GTA cost more than $400,000 and even a 10 per cent to 15 per cent reduction in demand due to the new tax would mean 7,400 to 11,100 fewer units being built.

That translates into 14,100 to 21,200 jobs in construction and related industries and $720 million to $1.1 billion in lost wages.

Interim Progressive Conservative leader Bob Runciman has tabled a motion urging McGuinty "to acknowledge that, due to the current economic downturn, this is the wrong time to move forward with his ill-advised plan to yet again increase taxes on all people of this province."

In addition to housing, the blended 13 per cent tax will boost the price of hundreds of items, such as gasoline, heating fuel, fast food, newspapers, magazines, taxi fares and dry cleaning, among other things, that are now only subject to 5 per cent GST.

Even though Liberal MPPs and cabinet ministers privately share Runciman's concern about the change, the premier insists it is full-steam ahead with the reform. "We need to do this to strengthen our economy," he told reporters.

The harmonized tax will hasten people's decisions to buy homes, said David Poon, a real estate agent with Cathedraltown, a housing development in Markham. "There's still a lot of time but I'm already seeing prospective buyers scrambling to find homes," he said yesterday.
"A lot of people want to beat the deadline. It's not making (buyers) happy. If my house costs about $500,000, I'll have to pay another $40,000 after July 1," said Poon. who called the harmonization nonsense.

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U.S.-Style Home Price Correction Unlikely in Canada

OTTAWA - May 26, 2010 - The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) released a new report today indicating that home prices will stabilize, and will remain stable for some time. This means that Canadian homeowners are unlikely to experience a U.S.-style decline in the value of their homes.


“The relationship between average price and income has recently been cited as portending a U.S.-style correction in Canadian home prices,” said Gregory Klump, Chief Economist, CREA. “However, such warnings ignore the longer-term relationship between prices and income, and disregard typical Canadian housing market cycle dynamics.”

Home prices tend to rise in cycles, characterized by periods of sharp growth and periods of stability. By contrast, income generally follows an orderly upward trend over time. For home prices to keep pace with incomes, they must rise faster during housing booms to make up for periods of little or no price growth. Canadian home prices were stagnant throughout most of the 1990s, while incomes continued rising, making housing more affordable. Over the past decade, home prices have climbed sharply as mortgage interest rates declined.

Klump adds: “The Canadian housing market is now widely thought to be at, or very near, the top of a cycle, and the ratio of home prices to incomes is currently high. This ratio will revert to its long-term average as it always does as part of a normal housing market cycle. History suggests, however, that it will not do so by means of a significant correction in home prices. The more likely scenario is that home prices will stabilize, giving incomes a chance to catch up again.”

The correction in U.S. home prices has sparked fears that Canadian home prices may share a similar fate. However, according to Klump, “warnings to this effect ignore solid Canadian mortgage market trends.”

Conservative lending practices in the mortgage industry combined with prudent borrowing and accelerated payments among Canadian mortgage holders have been seen throughout the recent housing market cycle. Accelerated accumulation of home equity will provide options for the small proportion of homeowners who may face financial difficulty when their mortgage is renewed at a higher interest rate. These trends are expected to help Canada avoid a U.S.-style housing crisis.

The correction in U.S. home prices is set against a massive oversupply of homes due to distress sales, combined with a drop in housing demand due to unemployment. The unwinding of the housing boom in Canada will be more orderly, characterized by softening sales activity and stable prices.

To view the full report please visit: http://www.crea.ca/public/news_stats/pdfs/housing_report_2010.pdf

Canada’s hot resale housing market starting to cool

OTTAWA – May 17, 2010) Home sales activity in Canada came up short of the record for the month of April and new listings continued to climb, according to statistics released by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).


Residential sales activity via the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) Systems of Canadian real estate Boards numbered 52,042 units in April 2010. This is less than one per cent short of the record for national sales activity during the month of April, which was set in 2007. Compared to April 2009, national activity was up 20 per cent.

Seasonally adjusted national home sales activity slipped 2.6 per cent from the previous month, and now stands 6.8 per cent below the peak reached in December 2009. More than half of the decline in activity over the first four months of 2010 resulted from fewer sales in British Columbia, while activity in Ontario and Quebec remains at or near record levels.

“The easing trend in national sales activity masks a rising trend in a number of major markets,” said CREA President Georges Pahud. “Real estate is local, so buyers and sellers should engage the services of a REALTOR® for knowledge about housing market trends in their market.”

Some 99,901 homes were newly listed for sale on Canadian MLS® Systems in April 2010, surpassing the previous record for the month of April set in 2008 by six-tenths of one per cent. A total of 236,397 residential properties were listed for sale on Boards’ MLS® Systems at the end of April 2010, down 1.9 per cent from levels one year earlier.

As for the national average price of homes sold via Canadian MLS® Systems, that figure rose 12.2 per cent over this time last year. This is a smaller increase compared to those recorded over the past eight months. Bucking the national trend, price gains continue to increase in a number of major markets in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.

With last year’s string of downwardly skewed average price values having now mostly passed, and with activity in British Columbia’s lower mainland having settled down, year-over-year national average price comparisons are coming back into line with changes in the national weighted average price.

The weighted average price compensates for changes in provincial sales activity by taking into account provincial proportions of privately owned housing stock. It climbed 11.3 per cent on a year-over-year basis in April 2010. Similarly, the residential average price in Canada’s major markets climbed 12.9 per cent year-over-year in April, while the weighted major market average price rose 12.1 per cent.

The actual (not seasonally adjusted) number of months of inventory stood at 4.5 months in April 2010. This is down from levels one year ago (5.6 months) and April 2008 (4.7 months), but up compared to April levels from 2004 through 2007. The number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, months of inventory stood at 5.3 months in April, the highest level since last May.
“Next month will mark the passage of one year since the national average price rebounded from the recessionary trough to return to the pre-recession peak, so the rise in the national average price is expected to be more subdued next month, ” said CREA Chief Economist Gregory Klump. “The national average price could potentially be skewed higher over the next couple of months if buyers of higher priced homes in Ontario and British Columbia move their purchase decision forward to beat the introduction of the HST in July.”
PLEASE NOTE: The information contained in this news release combines both major market and national MLS® sales information from the previous month. The Canadian Real Estate Association has previously released these separately.

CREA cautions that average price information can be useful in establishing trends over time, but does not indicate actual prices in centres comprised of widely divergent neighborhoods or account for price differential between geographic areas. Statistical information contained in this report includes all housing types.
MLS® is a co-operative marketing system used only by Canada’s real estate Boards to ensure maximum exposure of properties listed for sale.
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) is one of Canada’s largest single-industry trade associations, representing more than 96,000 REALTORS® working through more than 100 real estate Boards and Associations.

Further information can be found at http://www.crea.ca/public/news_stats/pdfs/media_apr10rpt.pdf