Our weekly roundup of real estate news from Toronto, Canada, the U.S., and around the world ending Aug. 11, 2017.
Toronto
Toronto home buyers and sellers play the waiting game (Globe and Mail)
Toronto in mid-August feels like a city waiting with bated breath.
The real estate market is drowsy and buyers and sellers are anxious to know what will happen when it comes back to full consciousness in September.
Toronto Real Estate Prices Are Dropping Up To $2,100 Per Day (Better Dwelling)
Toronto real estate is finding out how fickle gold-rush buyers are when looking for property. Numbers from the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) show that sales are experiencing rapid cooling.
The rapid drop in sales is spooking buyers, and sending prices substantially lower in just one month.
Detached housing starts dip in Toronto area as buyers favour lower-cost options (Globe and Mail)
Builders are launching construction on fewer detached homes in the Toronto region as buyers are favouring lower-cost housing options in a weakening market.
Toronto saw a 19-per-cent drop in detached home starts in July compared with the same month last year, while construction of other types of housing – including semi-detached homes, townhouses and condos – climbed 21 per cent in the same period, according to housing starts data released Wednesday by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
Canada
Home Capital To Pay $11 Million Over Mortgage Fraud (Huffington Post)
TORONTO — Ontario's securities watchdog approved a settlement Wednesday with Home Capital Group Inc. and three former executives who failed to tell investors quickly and completely about fraudulent activity by some mortgage brokers associated with the alternative lender.
As a result of the settlement, about $11 million could flow through the Ontario Securities Commission to shareholders covered by a related class action suit that's awaiting court approval.
Home construction on pace for its best year since recession (Toronto Star)
OTTAWA—Canadian home construction is on pace for its best year since the 2008-2009 recession, with builders showing no sign of being slowed by rising interest rates or fears of a housing correction.
Home construction picked up last month, driven by British Columbia and Alberta.
Airbnb Property Owners Sucking Up Canada's Housing Supply: Report (Huffington Post)
MONTREAL — New research suggests a small number of large commercial property owners are the most successful on Airbnb and are eating up the local supply of housing in Canada's three largest cities in the process.
A team of urban planners from McGill University looked at Airbnb trends in Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto and noted a 50 per cent increase in the number of short-term rental properties year over year.
USA
Single Family Housing Permits in U.S. Down 46 Percent in Q2 (World Property Journal)
According to the National Association of Home Builders/First American Leading Markets Index (LMI) released this week, nearly 300 U.S. housing markets posted an increase in economic and housing activity from the first quarter to the second quarter of 2017.
The LMI measures current home price, permit and employment data to plot the economic health of an individual market. Based on the 337 markets tracked by the index, nationwide markets are now running at an average of 102 percent of normal housing and economic activity.
USA TODAY is tracking Trump's real estate deals. You can help. (CNBC)
The identities of people paying the President's companies for real estate may come under a microscope as the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election expands his probe to examine Trump's business transactions.
USA TODAY journalists have spent nine months cataloging every condo, penthouse or other property that Trump's companies sell and tracking every buyer. We welcome the public's help to document people behind these shell companies and deals.
Home Sales, Housing Prices Keep Rising in Greater Las Vegas (World Property Journal)
According to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors, an increasingly hot local Las Vegas housing market showed no signs of cooling off in July 2017, with home prices and sales continuing to rise while the housing supply keeps shrinking.
GLVAR reported that the median price of existing single-family homes sold during July through its Multiple Listing Service (MLS) increased to $260,000. That was up 10.2 percent from July 2016. Meanwhile, the median price of local condos and townhomes sold in July jumped to $138,000, up 20.0 percent from July 2016.
International
UK construction facing a tough 2018 as Australian sector surges to 12-year high (Global Construction)
The construction industry in the UK is facing its slowest growth rate in six years as we enter 2018, a result of economic and political uncertainties following Brexit.
Concurrently, the Australian construction industry is “surging” thanks to a strong run on infrastructure work, commercial construction and residential building.
Asian Investors Heavily Target US, UK and German Commercial Markets in 2017 (World Property Journal)
According to a new report by JLL, commercial property investors are allocating more capital to real estate worldwide, with Asian investors now accounting for five of the 10 biggest cross-border spenders. Inter-regional investment reached $19.5 billion in Q2 2017, up 71 per cent from the same period last year.
Globally, China was the third biggest source of cross-border capital into real estate in the first half of the year at $6.2 billion, behind Germany and the UK. After China, Asia's biggest spenders were Hong Kong ($4.9 billion), Singapore ($4.1 billion), South Korea ($1.9 billion) and Japan ($1.6 billion). Almost all their capital targeted the world's three largest and most liquid real estate markets, with the U.S receiving $10 billion, the UK pocketing $6 billion, and Germany $2 billion.
Key global cities see prime property prices rise 4.4% in 12 months to end of June (Property Wire)
Prime property prices in key global cities increases by 4.4% in the 12 months to June 2017, with Guangzhou in China recording the biggest rise at 35.6%, the latest index shows.
Although Guangzhou leads the rankings, the data from the Knight Frank prime global cities index also shows that all three Chinese cities tracked recorded a decline in annual growth compared with the first quarter on 2017.
