Housing market

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Nobody should be ashamed to rent > home ownership isn't necessarily the best route.

[interr0bangr]

And lets not pretend there's still not quite a few options around the 200k mark, which is half of the city average.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Dr Awesomesauce

Nobody should be ashamed to rent > home ownership isn't necessarily the best route.

I do find it weird that Hamilton has some of the highest house prices, but when I was comparing rents of different cities it has some of the lowest rents.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

I'm a bit outta touch with the Hamilton market these days but I'm pretty sure the opposite was true not too long ago > rental prices always seemed a bit out of wack.

[Jon Dalton]

The price to rent ratios in Hamilton are lower than in the hot markets like Toronto. That is what makes it attractive to buy a house here either for investment or to live in. If you do it right you actually save money buy buying over renting.

[interr0bangr]

My rent in Toronto for a nice 1BR apartment in a house was $1850/m. My mortgage payment in Hamilton for my 5 bedroom Victorian is under $750/m. It was a no brainer.

[SteelTown]

Boom town: Hamilton housing predicted to stay hot in 2015
Hamilton the only big Canadian city with price increases projected over 2 years, TD says

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilt...2015-1.2883809

Major Canadian bank economists say Hamilton will continue to be one of the strongest housing markets in the country in 2015.

Some predictions are even more striking.

“For 2015-2016, Hamilton is the only city where we actually have home prices growing over the two years,” said TD real estate economist Diana Petramala.

The TD analysis looks at the largest 14 cities in Canada.

Over the last few years, Hamilton’s housing market has been hot, often ahead of the pack in how much prices rose or how many homes sold. The market has been a frequent talking point, its strength touted as evidence of the city's vibrancy.

Hamilton, where prices rose six per cent last year, has been experiencing the kind of sales and price activity more typical in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. While the rest of the country may wonder about the continued strength of local housing markets, Hamilton appears poised to remain hot in 2015.

BMO Financial Group economists expect national housing prices to “scratch out a small gain” in 2015, said chief economist Doug Porter.

No scratching expected in Hamilton.

“I have to say the dynamics in Hamilton looks to be one of the firmer markets in the country,” Porter said.

The projected strength comes as builders try to keep up with demand. There are more than a dozen condo and townhome projects comprising hundreds of units in downtown Hamilton alone, under construction or about to start.

Less clear than the cranes in the air: What effect the continued frenzy will have on Hamilton neighbourhoods and whether first-time buyers will find a way in to homeownership.

Rising prices are good news for homeowners, but not usually for those who haven’t bought in to the market yet.

"It’s now, I think, pretty much an established fact that Hamilton's beginning to experience gentrification," said Richard Harris, who teaches a fourth-year real estate class at McMaster University. "For such a long time that just seemed like something that had passed Hamilton by."

More supply on the way

The pipeline has hundreds of units on the way in projects that have been recently completed, are under construction or about to commence. Here are just a few with more than 75 units, from the city's urban renewal department:

City Square Phase 2 — 85 Robinson: 99 units.
Residences at Acclamation – James Street North: 60 units.
150 Main Street West: 142 units.
Royal Connaught – King St E: 697 units over five phases.
The Connolly – James St. S: estimated 259 condos, proposed 30 storey.
Artizen Condos – James St. N: estimated 100 units.
Spallacci Homes – 101 Locke Street: estimated 104 units.
467 Charlton Ave. East: 162 units.
220 Cannon Street (Vrancor) – 12 storey, mixed use – estimated 100 units.
Tivoli Theatre condos – estimated 106 units.

[thistleclub]

Vancouver, Toronto, Hamilton see eye-popping home price increases in past year
(The Globe & Mail, Michael Babad, Nov 12 2015)

If you needed more evidence of where the action is, the latest reading of Canadian home prices spells it out.

Values rose in Vancouver by 0.6 per cent in October from September, and in Toronto by 0.3 per cent, according to the Teranet-National Bank home price index released today.

But it’s the year-over-year figures that are eye-popping: 9.8 per cent in Vancouver and 9.3 per cent in Toronto and nearby Hamilton.

Those are the three cities that have seen prices surge repeatedly, and in the case of Vancouver and Toronto have led to warnings about the froth in the markets.


Read it in full here.

[thistleclub]

As detached home prices soar, first-time buyers turn to condos
(The Globe and Mail, Tamsin McMahon, Feb 29 2016)

The average first-time buyer in Vancouver now needs more than a decade to save for the minimum down payment on a house under tough new federal mortgage rules, a sign that affordability in Canada’s most expensive cities has reached crisis levels.

But as two new analyses of the housing market make clear, soaring prices of detached houses in Vancouver and Toronto are masking the reality that, for many Canadians, housing has actually become more affordable over the years, spurred by falling interest rates, steady income growth and a surge in condo construction.

In the Vancouver region, where resale house prices jumped nearly 14 per cent last year to more than $950,000, it now takes 109 per cent of median pretax income to afford the costs of a mortgage, property taxes and utilities on a typical detached house, according to a fourth-quarter analysis by Royal Bank of Canada economists Craig Wright and Robert Hogue.

Thanks to surging home prices and stricter down-payment rules for insured mortgages that took effect in the middle of February, the typical first-time buyer in Vancouver would need to save 10 per cent of their pretax income for 132 months – or roughly 11 years – to be able to afford the minimum down payment on a typical house. That’s up from 89.5 months, or about 7.5 years, in the fourth quarter of last year, economists Matthieu Arseneau and Kyle Dahms said in a new housing affordability report by National Bank of Canada.

In Toronto, the average first-time buyer would need to save for 76 months, or more than six years to afford the down payment on a low-rise property. The costs of a detached house now consumes more than 70 per cent of median household income in the city.

Detached houses have now become a luxury in Canada’s two hottest housing markets, the economists say, accessible to only a select group of wealthy buyers, with little hope for prospective buyers that such conditions will change any time soon.

“The single-family home market has become unaffordable and that’s the reality for markets such as Vancouver and Toronto,” National Bank chief economist Stéfane Marion said.

That has pushed many first-time buyers into the condo market, which has actually become more affordable for such buyers because of an abundance of supply. In fact, Toronto and Hamilton are the only two major cities in which condo ownership has become more expensive over the years. In cities such as Edmonton, Winnipeg and Ottawa it is now cheaper to make a mortgage payment on a condo than to pay rent, a trend driven by a boom in new condo construction coupled with weak job markets that have encouraged more prospective first-time buyers to continue renting.


Read it in full here.

[drpgq]

Bidding frenzy: West Mountain house sells for $101,000 over asking
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/63...0-over-asking/

It's still a feeding frenzy in Hamilton's resale home market.

One Mountain family got graphic evidence of that this week when their Appleford Court home sold for $101,000 more than they asked.

The listing, for sale on remaxescarpment.com for $279,900, attracted 219 showings and 56 formal offers.

Not bad for a property that was on the market for only seven days.


Meh. Listing it at only $279K was obviously really low.

[eatboots]

"House listed with low asking price sells for what it's worth" is what the article needs to be called but does not have the same ring to it.

[realcity]

That's fine until you realize you're paying four hundred dollars a month for an elevator and basically non-useful common space.

Ward 3 is the new steel.

[thistleclub]

Slightly stale but hilarious addition to the "bot-made listicle" canon of Hot Hamilton Real Estate mythology, via Huffington Post:

10 Cities That Are About To Be Famous... Again

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
This metropolitan city has been called “Brooklyn of the North” and also the “waterfall capital of the world.” It’s a former industrial town whose affordable housing and proximity to Toronto (a 45-minute drive) is drawing new residents and investment. On James Street South past meets present. Old world Portuguese bakeries now share the block with hipster cafes, art galleries and vintage clothing boutiques. On Hamilton’s once-barren waterfront, a popular roller skating rink now offers views of the sun setting by the lake. And local food truck owners are now opening brick-and-mortar locations (like Southern Smoke Barbecue House on Ottawa St. South)—proof the city is hopping.

Especially funny that a travel agency is so geographically challenged.

Also: Councillor Ferguson will be thrilled to learn that Cartagena appears just before Hamilton.

[matt602]

I kinda wonder how many lists Hamilton and Detroit have shared now

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by matt602

I kinda wonder how many lists Hamilton and Detroit have shared now

Buffalo too.

Could they not have used a photo of urban Hamilton? I love our major bridges, but come on... that shows nothing of the city itself. (Huff Post though, so go figure)

[thistleclub]

Ontario setting new rules to end era of suburban sprawl across GTA
(Toronto Star, San Grewal, May 10 2016)

The era of sprawling suburban build-out across much of the GTA might finally be over.

With 3.5 million people set to move into the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area over the next 25 years, the province is promising sweeping changes to manage smart growth and curb urban sprawl that’s crippling the region.

“There are challenges that have been before us for the last number of years,” said Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa, who was joined by three other ministers at an announcement in Mississauga to outline broad new measures the province is taking to properly manage future growth. “It was neglected for far too long in previous regimes.”

Sousa called the proposed new requirements, now under review, a “historic” step.

Many of the bold changes which will be reviewed until the end of September, before they can be incorporated into existing legislation, will directly affect how municipalities handle their growth. They include:

• Requiring “pre-zoning” along transit corridors to guarantee dense development if cities want to get future transit funding.
• Ensuring that at least 60 per cent of all new residential developments in municipalities are in existing “built-up” areas.
• Substantially increasing employment density so greenfield spaces within cities can’t be eaten up by things such as sprawling warehouses.
• Requiring municipalities to provide “transparent” calculations to show how they are properly using land to meet smart growth targets.

If implemented, the new measures, created in response to a critical December report on the province’s growth plans by a panel headed by former Toronto mayor David Crombie, could dramatically turn around the sprawling, developer-driven patterns of build-out that have taken place across the GTA over the past three decades.

Read it in full here


Emphasis on "if implemented."

Whether pointedly or ironically, the Star has used the same photo that accompanied this related piece that showed the now-decade-old Places to Grow Act to be toothless:


Ontario Liberals undermined own plan to control sprawl
(Toronto Star, Thomas Walkom, Nov 8 2013)

Seven years ago, the Ontario Liberal government trumpeted its new law to curb urban sprawl as bold and visionary.

“People want to see action,” David Caplan, the province’s then infrastructure minister, said after announcing the province’s fully fleshed-out Places to Grow Act in 2006.

Acting in tandem with the Liberal plan to create a green belt, Places to Grow was designed to protect farmland in southern Ontario’s so-called Golden Horseshoe.

Unless something drastic was done, an earlier government study had warned, rampant urban development would result in an additional 1,000 square kilometres of mainly agricultural land — an area twice as big as the entire City of Toronto — being paved over by the year 2031.

Caplan called the new law Ontario’s “last chance to build the future we want.”

The Liberals were lionized for the new scheme by both press and public. The government even won a prestigious U.S. planning award.

But seven years later, it is as if nothing had ever happened.

A new study by the Neptis Foundation, an urban think tank, calculates that the amount of prime farmland slated for urban development by 2031 has in fact increased since the government uttered its first, dire warning.

That new total now stands at 1,071 square kilometres.

What happened? As the Star’s Susan Pigg reported this week, Neptis found that the Liberal government simply never bothered to implement its bold new law.

That law, Neptis writes in its just-released report, “has been undermined before it even had a chance to make an impact.”

At the heart of the Places to Grow Act was a requirement that municipalities in a belt running from Peterborough to Niagara Falls authorize fewer sprawling subdivisions.

Instead, most municipalities were expected to locate at least 40 per cent of any new residential development in areas that were already built up.

In practical terms, it was a requirement to concentrate on higher-density accommodation — from highrise apartment buildings to row housing.

New subdivisions wouldn’t be banned. But under the law, they had to be dense enough to support public transit.

Because the area covered by the law was so diverse (it includes both cities and cottage country), municipalities were allowed to seek exemptions.

The theory, apparently, was that while the government would grant exemptions that made sense, it wouldn’t allow the act to be subverted.

However, the reality, as Neptis researchers found, was quite different.

In effect, the Liberal government allowed every municipality that wanted to be exempted from the new standards to be exempted.

Read it in full here.

[NortheastWind]

The sprawl in Brampton is sickening. You can drive for miles on Mississauga Rd where there are land use planning signs on every field.

[thistleclub]

Dundas' residential tax base over 95 per cent
(Dundas Star, Craig Campbell, May 11 2016)

More than 95 per cent of the properties located in Dundas that pay municipal taxes are residential, making the Valley Town a prime example of the City of Hamilton's reliance on the residential tax base - and the need for more business rather than continued residential development.

Hamilton city manager Chris Murray said it's a huge issue facing Hamilton - a lot more industrial, commercial and office development is needed.

"If we worry about anything, it's that reliance on residential tax base," Murray said. "We want to attract business."

But, Murray explained to a sparsely attended public meeting at Dundas town hall on local property taxes last Thursday, the city would need the equivalent of three Arcelor-Mittal steel companies setting up shop to drop the residential tax base reliance from 88 to 87 per cent. An average municipality is around 85 per cent - or the equivalent of adding nine Arcelor-Mittal's.

Mike Zegarac, the City of Hamilton's manager of finance and corporate services, said Dundas is seeing growth primarily in the residential sector, rather than the needed business sectors.

Read it in full here

[thistleclub]

Ontario claims more Hamilton land for Greenbelt Plan
(Stoney Creek News, Kevin Werner, May 11 2016)

The Ontario government’s expanded Greenbelt Plan will include two additional parcels of land on the mountain, while also removing some land from lower Stoney Creek.

The recommendations from the province are part of a host of changes Ontario is proposing to the Greenbelt, the Growth Plan for the Golden Horseshoe, the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan and the Niagara Escarpment Plan that was released May 10 in Port Credit.

The Greenbelt document, which already protects about 800,000 hectares, was initially introduced by the Liberals in 2005. It was scheduled to be reviewed after 10 years.

Hamilton councillors last December recommended to the province to remove 104 hectares of tender fruit lands in lower Stoney Creek located on Glover Road and Lewis Road and identified as the E.D. Smith lands, along with one block of land west and west of Fifty Road from the Greenbelt.

Stoney Creek councillor Brenda Johnson supported removing the land within the Fifty Road area to accommodate the expected growth in the Winona community and the expected construction of the commercial development, Winona Crossing, on Fifty Road and the South Service Road.

The city projects by 2031 there will be an additional 15,000 people in the area.

Politicians also agreed last fall to remove 28 hectares of property north of Parkside Drive in Waterdown from the Greenbelt. The idea, staff stated, was to provide access for the construction of the proposed bypass project.

Councillors did support including in the Greenbelt 450 hectares of land located along Book Road, south of Garner Road; between Shaver Road and Fiddler’s Green Road and 570 hectares of land that borders Trinity Church Road, Airport Road and halfway between Nebo Road and Miles Road.

The province agreed with council’s recommendations to include the land on the mountain, but it only supported removing a small portion of the lands in lower Stoney Creek.

The province recommended taking a quarter of the land bordered by Glover Road, Barton Street and Highway 8 and a corner of the land along Fifty Road, near the railroad tracks, near the Winona Crossing commercial development from the Greenbelt.

Read it in full here.

[thistleclub]

Overvalued: Hamilton joins list of cities on CMHC’s real estate warning list
(Hamilton Spectator, Tess Kalinowski, July 28 2016)

Canada's housing agency says there is evidence of increasingly "problematic conditions" in the national home market, prompting it to upgrade its assessment of the country's troubling signs from weak to moderate.

One of those signposts has been planted just down the road from Toronto in the neighbouring city of Hamilton.

A third-quarter report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) on Wednesday said overvaluation in Hamilton was similar to that of Toronto's property market.

That means home prices are higher than would normally be explained by factors such as population, employment and income.

There's no specific data proving Torontonians are moving west on the QEW in search of cheaper housing, said Abdul Kargobo, CMHC analyst for the city of about 520,000 people.

"But if we look back to 2013, we do see that Hamilton is attracting some buyers that are priced out of Toronto because Hamilton is relatively affordable," he said.

The economic development department in Hamilton recently reported its average home price of $451,000 was nearly half that of Toronto's $940,000.

"The sales-to-new-listings ratio was 84 per cent, reaching its highest quarterly level on record and significantly above the 75-per-cent threshold used to identify evidence of overheating," said CMHC's Housing Market Assessment report.


Read it in full here.