Real Estate

Trudeau's bashing of real estate investors shows lack of understanding

06/11/2023

Trudeau should be the lead cheerleader in attracting investments to the housing sector, not the enemy

Published Oct 30, 2023  •  Last updated 6 days ago  •  4 minute read

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a news conference in Ottawa. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/THE CANADIAN PRESS files

Housing construction in Canada has not kept pace with population growth since the early 1970s. But despite the evidence and the realization that insufficient housing supply has contributed the most to worsening housing affordability, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is now blaming investors and corporations for contributing to the crisis.

Trudeau believes housing has been commodified by investors and corporations that use “homes as an investment vehicle — rather than families using them as a place to live, grow their lives and build equity for their future.”

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Real Estate

B.C.’s Airbnb crackdown will devastate some real estate investors

02/11/2023
Open this photo in gallery:

Amanda Van Der Lee sits inside one of multiple newly constructed units in downtown Kelowna, which her company owns and operates as short term rentals. ‘You can’t harm one part of society to help another,’ Ms. Van Der Lee said.Artur Gajda/The Globe and Mail

British Columbia’s new legislation that would ban short-term rental in secondary investment properties will cause a whole lot of pain – and without producing the desired affordable housing, says a Kelowna, B.C., property manager.

Amanda Van Der Lee is owner of How to Host Property Management & Design, an umbrella company that handles all aspects of short-term rental, including licensing and bookings, interior decorating and cleaning. Ms. Van Der Lee employs about 15 staff and hires contract workers to run 60 properties for her investor-clients. On their behalf, she rents out mostly condos, but single-family houses as well.

Not only

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Real Estate

Commercial real estate investors risk painful losses in post-COVID world

09/08/2023

LONDON/SYDNEY, July 31 (Reuters) – Commercial real estate investors and lenders are slowly confronting an ugly question – if people never again shop in malls or work in offices the way they did before the pandemic, how safe are the fortunes they piled into bricks and mortar?

Rising interest rates, stubborn inflation and squally economic conditions are familiar foes to seasoned commercial property buyers, who typically ride out storms waiting for rental demand to rally and the cost of borrowing to fall.

Cyclical downturns rarely prompt fire sales, so long as lenders are confident the investor can repay their loan and the value of the asset remains above the debt lent against it.

This time though, analysts, academics and investors interviewed by Reuters warn things could be different.

With remote working now routine for many office-based firms and consumers habitually shopping online, cities like London, Los Angeles and New York

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Forec

Miami Beach condo owners face big costs imposed by investors

25/06/2023

Daniel Fiorda moved out of his 800-square-foot condo in Miami Beach last month, more than two decades after he bought it.

He didn’t want to leave his canal-front slice of paradise. But after a real estate firm purchased six of his building’s 10 units, took control of the board and increased maintenance fees by more than four times — a jump for Fiorda from about $550 to $2,280 a month — he and his wife, Laura Ines Cobos, were in a bind.

Fiorda, an artist and musician from Argentina, began taking odd jobs to try to keep up. But ultimately, the couple moved into a rental in Biscayne Park and found a tenant to live in their Miami Beach home. The tenant is now paying $2,100 a month — still less than the cost of their condo fees, which are on top of mortgage payments.

“They want us to be

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Real Estate

Commercial real estate investors cautious amid office vacancies

04/06/2023

Half of the 12 markets Re/Max surveyed reported efforts underway to help return activity to downtown

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Published Jun 01, 2023  •  Last updated 2 days ago  •  2 minute read

In Calgary, one million square feet of office space has been converted into more than 1,200 new homes, “breathing new life into Calgary’s downtown core,” said Re/Max.  Photo by Azin Ghaffari/Postmedia

Higher borrowing costs, inflation and office vacancies resulting from remote work are prompting investors to be cautious when it comes to commercial real estate, with industrial buildings used for distribution and warehousing providing bright spots in the sector, according to Re/Max.

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