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The overall mood about the current state of Torontos real estate market typically depends on the two most commonly reported statistics in the press, average price and sales volume. Average price is a popular measure but can be easily skewed by changes in the housing stock being sold.

I often have clients ask me for a list of the best and worst performing neighbourhoods in the city, based solely on changes in average price. The problem with this approach is that average prices can be very easily skewed. For example, if a new condo with average priced units is completed in a neighbourhood well known for expensive detached homes, the average price for that neighbourhood will fall not because house values have dropped but because the condominium units are having a negative effect on average prices.

The other commonly reported figure in the press is the change in sales volume calculated by comparing the current months sales to sales in the same month in the previous year.

In March 2007 the Canadian Competition Bureau, the country's equivalent of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Justice Department's Antitrust Division, met with limited-service real estate brokers in the U.S.

The meetings were part of a bureau examination (see Inman News) that eyed passed and proposed multiple listing service-related restrictions on limited-service and flat-fee brokers and whether those restrictions limited competition within the real estate industry.

There are signs that life is returning to Toronto's depressed real estate market.

Numbers released Friday show only slightly fewer homes were sold in Toronto during the first two weeks of April 2009 compared with April 2008.

There were just under 1,500 homes sold in the first half of the month or about one per cent fewer than the same two weeks last year.

"In lock-step with the favourable March results, resale housing market conditions in the first half of April were markedly improved compared to the winter time," said Toronto Real Estate Board president Maureen ONeill in a prepared statement.

There may be some light at the end of tunnel, as far as real estate is concerned.

The Canadian Real Estate Association says the recent free fall in house sales and house prices is slowing down.

The CREA's chief economic Gregory Klump tells 660News the number of new listings across Canada was lower in March than in the previous month. He says sales are picking up as well, as homes continue to become more affordable.

Klump says there is still lots of downward pressure on prices in Calgary. He adds it could be another year before the Calgary housing market is back to what is considered a balanced market.

(CEP News) - The pace of home sales declines in Montreal eased in March, while real estate prices continued to remain above year-ago levels, the Greater Montreal Real Estate Board reported.

Sales in the month were down 12% from a year earlier, much less than the 30% year-over-year drop seen in February.

The median price of a single-family home rose to $227,000, up 1% from a year earlier and up from $225,000 in February. The median price of condominiums rose 2%, while plexes were up 3%, the real estate board said.

"Spring is the busiest time of the year for the resale market, and 2009 should be no exception," said Michel Beauséjour, FCA, Chief Executive Officer of the GMREB.

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Toronto real estate market appears to be stabilizing
Posted: April 06, 2009, 6:58 PM by Rob Roberts

By Danna Zabrovsky, National Post

The average price of a GTA home dropped about 5% in March, compared to the same month last year, to $362,052. But the Toronto Real Estate Board says thats the lowest decline year-over-year in five months.

What we saw in February and again in March was a bit of a pick-up after sales had dropped off quite strongly in the December-January period, said Jason Mercer, TREBs senior manager of market analysis. We have seen more interest in residential real estate in the Toronto area over the last couple of months.

March Starts Increase to 155,000 Units Annualized

How much of a fuss should be made over the fact that housing starts in the country jumped up from 136,000 units (annualized) in February to 155,000 units in March, according to the latest report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)? Some, but not much.

The current level is about the same as it was in January and lies well below the 200,000-units per month levels that were achieved during most of the preceding seven years. Furthermore, about 150,000 units is what many analysts have been expecting for the year as a whole anyway.

CALGARY -- The final piece of financing for Calgary's landmark new Bow tower provides a much-needed vote of confidence to a city struggling with thousands of layoffs and a frozen real estate market.

H&R Real Estate Investment Trust HR.UN-T, the firm building the $1.5-billion Bow tower, said late Wednesday night that it has secured $425-million in financing from a consortium of six Canadian banks.

With that in hand, H&R said it now has sufficient money to complete the 58-storey, two million-square-foot "trophy" that will be the tallest Canadian tower west of Toronto.

"It comes at a very good time simply because we have been barraged with continuous bad news about many aspects of the economy," said Stephen Carruthers, the Calgary managing partner for Zeidler, the architecture firm that teamed with Foster + Partners to design the tower. "People consider it a talisman of continued confidence in the western economy."

"We are very pleased with our 2008 financial results; we achieved
continued growth in our markets despite the general economic turmoil and
credit crisis. Our fundamentals remain very solid, as reflected by our stable
occupancy rate of 94.6%, our ability to renew and arrange financings, and our
conservative interest coverage ratio of 2.7:1. Cominar is well positioned to
maintain a sound financial performance through an economic downturn, given its
quality real estate portfolio, solid and well-diversified tenant base,
disciplined cost management, healthy financial position and growth potential,"
indicated Michel Dallaire, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cominar.

Operating revenues totaled $235.3 million for the fiscal year ended
December 31, 2008, up 29.4%. This significant increase is due mainly to the
contribution of the acquisitions completed and integrated in 2007 and 2008.

YOU'VE PROBABLY never met Brad Lamb. So why do you feel like you know him? Easy. That's him, emblazoned on billboards and trash cans all over town, paired with a handful of non-sequiturs ("this lamb sells condos;" "we stand out in a crowd"). There he is again, glowing on HGTV as the centrepiece of his own reality show, Big City Broker, now in its third season ("I thought the idea was absurd," he says. "But here we are.")

He is the name, face and marketing shtick of two local real estate powerhouses, Brad J. Lamb Realty, through which he sells condos, and Lamb Development Corp., through which he builds them.

Over the course of the evening at thekingeast, 47-year-old Lamb, six foot five and wiry, glides from one clutch of investors to another ("I have about 300 guys who always buy apartments from me when I call them up," he says), regaling them with war stories, TV cameras trailing his every move.

For a resale house priced at $360,000, a HST could add over two thousand dollars in new taxes to closing costs. In total, a HST will add $313 million annually in new taxes to resale home transactions.

"In the last decade, Ontario's homeowners have faced a barrage of new costs," said Aunger. "From municipal land transfer taxes to sky rocketing property taxes, homeowners are being pushed to the brink to accommodate increasing demands from government. A harmonized sales tax is yet another cash grab on Ontario's already overtaxed homeowners."

The Ontario Real Estate Association represents 47,000 brokers and salespeople who are members of the 42 real estate boards throughout the province. Members of the association may use the "REALTOR(R: 28.26, -1.5492, -5.2%)" trademark, which identifies them as real estate professionals who subscribe to a high standard of ethics and service.

Vancouver is still Canada's wealthiest city despite a huge drop in real estate values, according to a new study by Pitney Bowes.

Although house prices in Vancouver fell an average of 11 per cent in 2008, or nearly $57,000, the city's average household net worth was $592,851, still $30,000 greater than in its nearest rival, Toronto. Cities with high real estate values were ranked highest in the study, despite also having the most debt.

Calgary was hit hardest by the stock market crash, because it has the highest rate of stock ownership in Canada, at 14.4 per cent of households, and the highest average value of equity investments. Those investments, if they mirrored the decline in the TSX, shrank by nearly $30,000 in 2008 to just under $55,000, the study says.

Property investment in Canada could see a rise in 2009 due to a combination of relative economic stability and natural allure.

According to the company behind one major real estate development in French-speaking Quebec, investors from the US and UK in particular could soon be flocking to the country, Homes Overseas reported.

Developer of the Rabaska resort, George Lathouras, told the website: "The eastern part of Canada, with its snowy peaks, winding rivers and lush forestry, represents fabulous value for the money."

Mr Lathouras also reassured investors that the economic situation in Canada was far milder than that seen in many of the world's other developed nations.

"Our economy cycle never swings as far up or down as the UK or USA," he added.

With British Columbia's resource sector in decline and capital spending related to the 2010 Olympics dwindling, Vancouver's office vacancy began to rise in the first quarter, a major commercial realtor reported Thursday.

CB Richard Ellis Canada, in its latest office report, calculated that Metro Vancouvers office vacancy rose to 7.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 from six per cent at the same point in 2008.

Downtown Vancouver's notoriously tight vacancy rate, which approached rates of 2.3 per cent in the third quarter of 2008, has crept up to 4.2 per cent.

However, CB Richard Ellis senior analyst Nicholas Westlake, in an interview, said the amount of additional office space downtown tenants hold, but are willing to turn over into subleases, is the more important statistic.

It's another sign that Greater Toronto's real-estate market may be stabilizing: Sales are still declining year over year, but not as steeply as they have for the past five months.

In the first two weeks of this month, 2,565 houses were sold in the GTA, down 19.4 per cent from the 3,183 sold the same two weeks in March, 2008, according to Toronto Real Estate Board figures released yesterday.

But the 19.4-per-cent drop marked the smallest rate of decline in volume in five months.

December and January posted sales declines of 45 and 47 per cent, respectively, from a year earlier. Last month, sales were down 32 per cent from a year earlier.

Using my new recession-era rule for good news that its the absence of new bad news Canadian homeowners had some reason for optimism on Monday.

A sharp deterioration in this countrys real-estate market that began last year is showing signs of tapering off.

The number of home sales, which had been declining month after month since last September, turned upward in February, which saw 8.6 per cent more sales than in January.

While this improvement might have been helped along in some cities by mild temperatures last month following bitter ones in January, there are also other indications that the real estate market is showing more stability.

VANCOUVERCanada's housing market is about half way through a cyclical downturn that began in late 2007, says the president and CEO of Royal LePage Real Estate Services.

"Starting back in the end of the third quarter of 2007 we saw unit sales peak in Canada and we've been in a downhill slope ever since," said Royal LePage's Phil Soper said Thursday in an interview

"We're in the fifth quarter of correction now."

Soper said he expects unit sales to flatten at the end of this year or in early 2010.

While the general public is focused on home prices, the real-estate industry concentrates on sales activity and revenues, he said

The uncertain economy over the last few months has had a drastic effect on the real estate market, which has seen local listings reduced by 1% a month for the past seven or eight months, said David Nicholls, broker and owner of Prudential Lifestyles Real Estate on Coldwater Street.

The market is also seeing a large reduction in the number of sales.

The real estate market has been troubled to say the least, Nicholls said. "You get dressed every day, you come to work and there's just not a lot happening. It's been difficult for a lot for real estate people."

From 2005 to 2006, the average prices in the Orillia area increased by 4% to $240,519. In 2007, the average building sold for $258,718, an increase of 7.5% from the year before. The year 2008 saw an increase of only $97 to reach an average cost of $25,8815.

In Canada, CREW chapters have sprung up in Toronto (187 members), Montreal (150), Vancouver (60) and Calgary (50), and they earn an average of $125,800.

CREW serves the purpose of building business relationships between women who are involved in every aspect of the commercial real estate transaction real estate brokers, mortgage brokers, lawyers, construction workers, bankers, property managers, landlords, developers and interior designers, to name a few. The general criteria for most chapters is that to join, a member must be involved in the real estate transaction, and she should have several years' experience. There is a mentorship and education component to the mission statement, so that senior members can guide the junior ones.

It creates power for you, it's really strong, says Ms. Kraus, who is the Toronto chapter president and has been with it since it began 12 years ago. That's the basis for success, really. With any group, the more you put in, the more you get out.