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June 2015 Ontario Economic Fundamentals

Ally

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Real estate investing in Ottawa

Last week, MoneySense magazine published its “Canada’s Best Places to Live 2015” list. The magazine collected and analyzed data related to job prospects, affordability, and the weather to identify the best places to live in Canada. Based on the measures used by MoneySense, Ottawa is the second best place to live in our great country. Now that we know that Ottawa is a great place to live, let’s take a look at a few reasons why real estate investors should invest in Ottawa.

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Apartment vacancy rate dips in Waterloo Region

WATERLOO REGION — It's getting a little bit harder to find an apartment to rent in Waterloo Region.

The apartment vacancy rate in the Kitchener-Cambridge-Census metropolitan area dipped to 2.9 per cent in April, down from 3.6 per cent a year earlier, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported Monday.

The decline echoes the trend across Ontario. The vacancy rate for 15 urban centres across the province declined to 2.5 per cent from 2.8 per cent a year ago.

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GTA leads rise in home sales for May

TORONTO -- Home sales accelerated in May to their highest level in more than five years, as some home buyers looked to preempt an increase in mortgage insurance premiums.

The Canadian Real Estate Association said Monday sales last month through its MLS system were up 3.1 per cent from April, marking the fourth consecutive month-over-month increase.

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Ontario rental market vacancy rate declines in spring

The rental apartment vacancy rate(1) in Ontario urban centres(2) was 2.5 per cent in April 2015, down from 2.8 per cent in April 2014, according to the Spring Rental Market Survey released today by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

"Improving employment conditions for younger households who typically rent and fewer rental households moving to homeownership supported rental demand in Ontario this spring. Meanwhile, fewer migrants entering Ontario and more condominium rental completions were factors less supportive of purpose-built rental demand. The net effect these factors had on the rental market was to exert downward pressure on the Ontario vacancy rate this spring," said Ted Tsiakopoulos, CMHC's Ontario Regional Economist.

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Headlines can make anything a negative. Previous headlines and hand wringing stated that Waterloo Region has a big shortage of student housing and that could be devastating to the region. Now the strory and hand-wringing is about a potential OVERSUPPLY of student housing? PS, it can’t be both. More proof that you must, must must keep your eye on reality.

Now, however, we're told the city may soon suffer from the only thing worse than a shortage of student beds — an oversupply. When will the calamities end?

According to a recent town and gown committee report for the City of Waterloo, current demand for student housing sits at 31,429 beds. Total supply of rental units is 32,625 beds, for a surplus of 1,200 beds. New projects in the planning or construction phase could push it even higher.

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Gap between Toronto condos and low-rise homes jumps a record $100,000 from a year ago. Jult like #Vancouver

A new report from the Building Industry and Land Development Association says the average price of a new low-rise home, which includes detached, semi-detached and townhomes, was $783,995 at the end of May. That’s a 16 per cent jump from a year ago.

Meanwhile, the average price of a new high-rise condominium was $440,463, relatively unchanged from a year ago. The gap between the average new high-rise and low-rise home jumped $100,000 from a year ago and now sits at a record $343,492.

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Costco to move to Shoppers City East in 2017

Costco’s 100,000-square-foot store near the corner of Cyrville and Innes roads is too small and lacks adequate parking, a real estate source said Monday after confirming the retail giant will become the lead tenant in the redevelopment of the aging strip mall just east of Blair Road.

With no room to expand at its current east-end location, Costco had no choice but to look for a new home, retail experts say.

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Even if it was more expensive, wouldn't Ontario still net savings in benefits & taxes? As ship contract goes to Chile

TORONTO - Premier Kathleen Wynne needs to explain to outraged southwestern Ontario residents why her government awarded a ferry-building contract to a Chilean company over the shipbuilder in their own backyard, NDP MPP Taras Natyshak says.

“Premier, as you are well aware, the Province of Ontario has lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs in the last 10 years. The weight of that dismal record is borne disproportionately in the southwest,” Natyshak said in an open letter Wednesday. “My community of Windsor Essex has been at the epicentre of the decline of domestic manufacturing, and that is reflected in an unemployment rate that is now above 11% and has been near the top of that ignominious category for the entire nation for much of the last 10 years.”

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Ally

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Gap between Toronto condos and low-rise homes jumps a record $100,000 from a year ago

A new report from the Building Industry and Land Development Association says the average price of a new low-rise home, which includes detached, semi-detached and townhomes, was $783,995 at the end of May. That’s a 16 per cent jump from a year ago.

Meanwhile, the average price of a new high-rise condominium was $440,463, relatively unchanged from a year ago. The gap between the average new high-rise and low-rise home jumped $100,000 from a year ago and now sits at a record $343,492.

Read the full article here.
 

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Controversial eviction law to be reviewed

An investigation into how MetCap Living Management went after an evicted tenant for two months’ rent has prompted politicians to review housing laws – and landlords agree the time has come.

Lee Strauss, a landlord and investor in the Kitchener-Waterloo area, said that while the law is blurry, eviction laws need to be reviewed in the worst way, as he admits there has been very little recourse for landlords recouping unpaid rent.

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To no one's surprise: Municipal amalgamation in #Ontario fails to achieve cost savings. Costs are actually up substantially as contracts got in the way of reality

TORONTO—Ontario’s push for municipal amalgamation in the 1990s failed to deliver cost-savings and efficiencies promised for both large and small cities, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.

“In the late1990s, the government of the day wanted to consolidate municipal governments in an effort to reduce waste and lower property taxes. While that may have been a laudable goal, it’s become clear that those benefits never materialized,” said Lydia Miljan, Fraser Institute senior fellow and co-author of Municipal Amalgamation in Ontario.

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Ottawa light rail transit is growing, are you staying on top of where the stations are going to be located, which neighbourhoods will be positively affected and where student housing options will move to? If not, now’s the time

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New guideline set for rent increase in 2016

According to the Federation of Rental Providers of Ontario, the province has set the guideline on rent increases for 2016 at 2.0 per cent; meaning that is the maximum a landlord can raise a tenant’s rent without the approval of the Landlord and Tenant Board. The guideline is based on the Ontario Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation calculated monthly by Statistics Canada that reflects economic conditions over the past year.

The rent increase guideline applies to most private and residential rental accommodations covered by the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006. The guideline is not applicable to: vacant residential units, residential units first occupied on or after November 1, 1991, social housing units, nursing homes or commercial property.

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Low Loonie lures foreign buyers to Canada's cottage country

Re/Max says a low Canadian dollar is attracting more foreign buyers into the country’s cottage market.

The real estate company says a cheaper loonie is leading foreign buyers to “well-established recreational property markets across the country including Whistler, Tofino, Muskoka, Shediac and P.E.I.”

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