Residential sales activity recorded through the MLS® System of the Orillia and District Real Estate Board softened in May 2012 compared to levels in recent months, although it did come in above a weak month of May last year. Home sales numbered 98 units in May 2012, up four per cent from the same month in 2011. Sales of all property types numbered 107 units in May, up seven per cent from May 2011. On a year-to-date basis, sales activity was running 17 per cent ahead of levels at the same time last year. “Housing demand cooled off in May compared to the very healthy levels we saw over the first four months of the year,” said Debbie Gilbert, President of the Orillia and District Real Estate Board. “It’s been suggested that perhaps warmer weather earlier in the year gave buyers a head start on the spring buying season, which would have in theory boosted sales in March at the expense of sales later in the spring, and that’s certainly the pattern we’re seeing play out right now.”
Residential sales activity recorded through the MLS® System of the Orillia and District Real Estate Board softened in May 2012 compared to levels in recent months, although it did come in above a weak month of May last year.
Home sales numbered 98 units in May 2012, up four per cent from the same month in 2011. Sales of all property types numbered 107 units in May, up seven per cent from May 2011.
On a year-to-date basis, sales activity was running 17 per cent ahead of levels at the same time last year.
“Housing demand cooled off in May compared to the very healthy levels we saw over the first four months of the year,” said Debbie Gilbert, President of the Orillia and District Real Estate Board. “It’s been suggested that perhaps warmer weather earlier in the year gave buyers a head start on the spring buying season, which would have in theory boosted sales in March at the expense of sales later in the spring, and that’s certainly the pattern we’re seeing play out right now.”
A serial bad tenant who failed to meet a recent deadline to pay her rent set by a Superior Court judge has been granted two more weeks to produce what she owes.
Nina Willis appeared at Osgoode Hall court Thursday. She is appealing a Landlord and Tenant Board decision to evict her from a Don Mills home for failing to pay rent.
Willis alleges in court documents she was ordered out because of a “factual error” at the hearing and because she didn’t have an “opportunity to participate.” Her landlord, Darius Vakili, is trying to have the appeal quashed.
The Toronto-Dominion banking group says Vancouver and Toronto home prices will probably experience a relatively mild downturn in two to three years — but not the dramatic drop that hit the United States a few years ago.
TD says a 15 per cent decline in Canada’s two most expensive cities is likely in a few years but it will be gradual, rather than the sudden drop of 30 per cent seen in the U.S. real estate market.
This morning, media outlets, including the Financial Post, picked up and ran with a research note from Scotia Capital citing statistics that said up to 25% of condos in Toronto remain empty after being sold. The note referred to the phenomenon as creating a “ghost city.”
The Scotia note cites the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation as providing the 25% estimate. But as CMHC explains, it does not track data on how many condominiums in Canada remain unoccupied after being sold.
Talking about Toronto’s condo craze has become something of a sport for residents of Canada’s largest city, where soaring real estate prices and a forest of construction cranes have fed speculation of a real estate bubble.
WINDSOR – A historic agreement was unveiled Friday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to build the long-awaited $1-billion government-backed bridge after 10 years of controversy and unfulfilled promises to fix the gridlock at the Windsor-Detroit border.
Calling it a necessary step to better facilitate and expand the current $120 billion in annual Canada-U.S. trade across the Detroit River, the prime minister said there is no other project more urgently needed across the country than the Detroit River International Crossing bridge.
Toronto is a city of neighbourhoods, but which one is the best? This is the question we will answer over the next two weeks. Sixteen areas from across the city have been nominated by our newsroom, but it’s you, readers, who will decide which emerges victorious.
The first round of competition will run June 18-21, with two friendly (fierce?) battles open for votes each day. The second round runs June 25-28
Research in Motion Ltd. has confirmed it is again cutting jobs as it looks to trim costs, although it is not yet saying how many employees will go, nor where the axe will fall.
The beleaguered BlackBerry maker said Wednesday the “headcount reductions” are part of its efforts to save at least $1-billion by the end of its current fiscal year.
“RIM has reduced some positions as part of this program and may continue to do so as the company methodically works through a review of the business,” Nick Manning, a spokesman for RIM, said in an emailed statement Wednesday.
With 10,850 homes changing hands in May, sales were up 11 per cent over May 2011. Sales growth was stronger in the ‘905’ regions compared to the ‘416’ – 14 per cent versus 11 per cent respectively. The fact that sales have been growing at a quicker pace outside of the ‘416’ area code is not surprising in light of a recent Ipsos Reid poll suggesting the City of Toronto’s land transfer tax has prompted many buyers to search for their next home outside of the city.
Tight market conditions continued to result in strong average price growth in May. The average selling price in the ‘905’ regions grew by over seven per cent year-over-year to $484,840. In the City of Toronto, the average selling price was up by six per cent to $568,768.
Six years ago, Ann Alves hired a contractor to renovate the kitchen and bathroom in her Ajax home. She gave Charlesworth K. Carter nearly $6,000, about half the total, as a deposit.
For that she received a partially finished bathroom and an uninstalled shelf and vanity dropped off in the garage. Now the bathroom remains unfinished, save for the tiling that another contractor completed, and the shelf and vanity remain in the garage, turned into makeshift storage units.
The annual Rent Increase Guideline is a calculation based on the Ontario Consumer Price Index as compiled by Statistics Canada.
The Rent Increase Guideline applies to most private residential rental accommodation covered by the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (RTA).
The guideline does not apply to:
In most cases, the rent for a unit can be increased if at least 12 months have passed since a tenant first moved in, or if at least 12 months have passed since the last rent increase.
A tenant must be given proper written notice of a rent increase (at least 90 days before the rent increase takes effect).
Toronto property tax hike will fund massive $30-billion TTC expansion The city of Toronto was hunkering down Wednesday for another bitter transit battle, as councillors lined up on opposing sides of a $30-billion plan heralded by TTC chairwoman Karen Stintz as a chance to “bring the city together” and derided by the mayor’s allies as an unrealistic tax grab. The announcement by Ms. Stintz and TTC vice-chairman Glenn De Baeremaeker of the OneCity transit expansion plan — which calls for a tax increase to fund 170 kilometres of new subway, streetcar, light-rail and bus lines — underscored the shifting power dynamics at City Hall, with Mayor Rob Ford losing control of key files as his council colleagues jockey for position in the run-up to the 2014 election. Ms. Stintz was quick to brush aside questions on whether she may be prepping her own mayoral platform, noting simply: “This is about a transit plan, and we have a mayor.”