Blog Archives

For one slender cadre of house hunters in the Canadian real estate market, the landscape is about to change. On Feb. 15th, the federal government’s new rules requiring higher minimum down payments on certain properties will come into effect. The looming deadline appears to be one reason why recent bidding wars have been so …

We’re getting richer – and the biggest money maker is our homes, says a new Statistics Canada report. The median net worth of Canadian families of two or more people was $243,800 in 2012 — up 44.5 per cent from 2005 and almost 80 per cent more than the 1999 median of $137,000, adjusted …

Canada’s housing market isn’t as frothy as some pessimists warn. A Globe and Mail analysis has found that a key measure, used by economists, underestimates the degree to which rents have been rising in the market. That inflates what is known as the price-to-rent ratio, feeding into fears that the market is overheated. New …

The average price of a Toronto home climbed by 10.1 per cent in April 2014 to $577,898, with both condominium and detached homes sales springing back from low levels a year ago. There was an 85 per cent increase in numbers of new condominiums sold compared to last year, according to real estate market research …

At City Hall there is often very little agreement about property taxes, other than the fact that they are confusing. People will debate the merits of a 1.75 per cent or 2.5 per cent property tax increase for weeks and months, but if you stop and ask them to explain how property taxes actually …