30 Replies to “A Bidding War Goes Into Reverse”

        1. Local governments that restrict development by zoning and million other means. Have you ever seen the welter of fees and BS Toronto puts people through for wanting to build stuff?

  2. Those low interest rates were the result of the Chinese communists pushing the profits from outsourcing into Western assets, for a rainy day, and to buy influence in Western capitals.

    The rain has started.

    Socialism with Chinese characteristics is failing. China grew old before it grew rich, and young Chinese are increasingly refusing to work at all, guessing, correctly, that they have no hope of ever making enough to marry or start a family, or even live in more than one room. They’d rather stay in their old rooms and look after their parents, who need them more than the CCP do. Who can blame them?

    So, for want of any other sustainable source of income, the CCP are now insisting on a good return on their Western investments, along with their investments in “emerging markets,” where the local elite mortgaged their own countries to fund their own lavish lifestyles.

    What to do? I have some idea of what any government not in the pocket of Beijing ought to do. Stiff the CCP.

    If that blows up Bay Street, so be it. Bay Street needed blowing up long ago.

    1. Dumping your money from another country has proven problematic as they’re buying up assets at any price.
      Leaving in its wake broken down houses with bad bylaws on repairs at inspections too costly to repair as decades of this horseshit has go on with the residents picking up the tab.

      Selling out our building infrastructure for butterflies and getting rich dreams that are totally scams of bad and defective products.

  3. Are you sure that the $499K price isn’t more in line to its actual worth? 46 Liberty Street Toronto is Liberty Village Townhomes. In addition to the $499k price, that particular unit (which is one of the smaller ones there) has an additional $674 monthly Condo fee. That one is a 2 Bedroom. There is a 1 bedroom for sale (likely with the bare minimum square footage listed just 20K less). 3 bedroom units at that location are listed at $1.2 Million.

    I’d be leaning more towards people moving out of overpriced condos and getting something cheaper outside the city limits. Average time spent in a condo is about 2 and 1/2 years. They’re are, and have always been transitory. I don’t think looking at a single condo taking down the price significantly shows anything. Especially since that condo village has quite a few other units up for sale at the same time.

    The other reason I say this is because I just sold a country house for 200k over the asking price and had over 10 bidders.

    1. No. The unit is 1,186 sq ft. It should go for 1,186 x $600 = $711,600 ish but it’s selling for $420/sq ft and includes a terrace. I looked at this area back in 2010 and prices were higher then. Something is odd. Could be a divorce or something. My daughter rented a condo in 2017 (ish) in the area for about $1,670/mn – it was 600 sq ft.

  4. There needs to be a serious readjustment everywhere when it comes to housing. Government policy has created an artificially high market and incomes on average are tens of thousands of dollars too low to get mortgages, or down payments on houses or apartments selling for in excess of $500,000. I think a complete collapse of the market is the only thing that will readjust pricing to sane affordable numbers.

    1. ” I think a complete collapse of the market is the only thing that will readjust pricing to sane affordable numbers.”

      Yes, what the financial people might euphemistically call an ‘adjustment’ or ‘market correction’.

      I laugh every time I hear a politician vow to “make housing more affordable “. No you won’t…because you can’t. Not without taking radical action that would necessarily lower the price of *all* housing, thus destroying the equity value in all currently owned homes. That would be political suicide, and they know it.

      1. Actually more flexible zoning can raise the value of a property by making it more liquid. There’s less ‘boom-bust’ this way. And more liberal zoning laws haven’t been political suicide where they’ve been tried. The YIMBY movement is just getting started.

        1. “Actually more flexible zoning can raise the value of a property by making it more liquid. ”

          Yeah, no, …we were talking about making housing *more* affordable, not less affordable.

          “And more liberal zoning laws haven’t been political suicide where they’ve been tried. ”

          Not talking about zoning laws, either. Try to keep up.

          (nice attempt at a ‘straw man’, though…)

  5. Or maybe just because people are just fed up with Toronto… Just sayin’.
    Maybe the migration has started, because the smart people know that it’s time to flee the big cities.

    Or maybe people have wised up and decided not to invest in condos (what a rip off, and I’m speaking from experience. I got lucky I dumped my condo in Ottawa when I did.)

      1. Funny…..so initially they listed for 1.07 million and now down to 499K (or lower). Lots of room between those two numbers and depending on when they bought it looks like a bank take back.

        1. 1.07 million was a ridiculous number. We sold our condo for $750/sq ft and it was in downtown Toronto. They should have listed around $750k so something was off in the listing. Probably against the advice of the listing agent. But the $499k is troubling for real estate.

  7. Sounds like a long overdue market realignment, there’s no way a cheesebox-in-the-sky in downtown Toronto should be worth more than a 50’ frontage suburban home in Pickering.

    RNrn

  8. They bought high in a market with low inventory.
    Interest rate rises, they have to sell.
    With the higher rate no potential buyer can get financing for the inflated price.
    Seller compensates by dropping price.
    The problem persists because potential buyers cannot get financing and those that can get to pick and chose which fire sale they want to buy into.

  10. Housing prices have been skyrocketing since the 1970’s when two income households became the norm. The housing/banking /property tax complex swooped in and stole one of the wages. They won’t let go until the household incomes drop by over one third.

    1. Housing prices did not soar in the ’80s and didn’t really start galloping until just after the dawn of the new century. This is all or almost all about zoning and restrictions on development.

      1. Hay unDork alla S
        Again you yap about things you know nothing about!
        The hi prices in good olde T O are due to immigrants bringing in cash and out bidding locals. As to restrictions Brampton is on fire, and will double in size in the next decade or so. I can remember Brampton at about 15-18K population, now it’s at well over 600K. You should learn to practice silence before you educate yourself to the facts.

        1. Canada had more immigration just over 100 years ago and no housing shortage for the simple reason that we let people build housing. Alberta and Calgary in particular had tons of immigration in the 2000s and not much of a housing shortage because they let people build housing. I have forgotten more than you’ll know.

    2. “Housing prices have been skyrocketing since the 1970’s when two income households became the norm. The housing/banking /property tax complex swooped in and stole one of the wages. They won’t let go until the household incomes drop by over one third.”

      Exactly, William. The key to dropping house prices is controlling the money…qualifications, the down payments, the mortgage rates etc. You would need to take on the banks to do so, which NO government is willing to do. Any fool who seriously believes that “increasing the supply of available units” will cause a drop in prices either forgets or does not understand that the demand *would need to stay static* for that to have any effect on prices….in other words, you can’t build more housing while simultaneously increasing the population and still expect prices to go down. “Supply and demand” works both ways.

  11. Anyone paying a million for a townhouse style condo should seriously consider moving to a different city. I have a cousin who moved to Kelowna from Edmonton stating it costs close to 25% more to live there. (real estate costs, provincial sales tax, higher gas prices, etc.) If the crap hits the fan (sickness, job loss, etc., she knows her window is very small to get things in order.

    1. BC= Bring Cash.

      We have had, for 30 years to pay for better weather and the lazy, heavily-unionized, coddled workforce and grown-up hippie attitudes/behaviours. It is also very stratified, especially since 1986, but well before that.

      GEN x/y kids often have two homes, so they are in collusion with politicians and immigrants, as they like their BC land assessment increases for a rental sky-apartment to go up. Of course, they were never taught real math, so ignore increasing taxes and green fees. There are credit cards for that!

      Wealthy immigrants park offspring etc. here (very cheap public education at all levels by overseas standards) in several homes, in all the best neighbourhoods and newer cool spaces across BC (Okanagan takeover etc.). Off-shore buyers with numbered companies are the target group for new rental condos, especially those subsidized by local/national governments.

      Lots of them do not rent. Go to a new showing (even in 2004) and you will be met by a “representative” who barely speaks English, and most certainly, not French. I certainly learned that the community of Richmond was not for “old-style” Canadians.

      Not-for-profit activists flourish here with meaningless helping jobs benefiting no one except themselves. Free safe cocaine? There is no serious thought here, but that is what you get when all municipal counselor candidates are activists.

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