Toronto City Council today considers a budget proposal to hike its land transfer tax (LTT) from 2.5 to 3.5 per cent on house transaction values in excess of $2 million. The proposal is projected to raise $18.7 to $26.7 million in 2021, a minuscule amount compared with Toronto’s $14-billion municipal budget. It would affect almost 40 per cent of Toronto sales this year (based on Feb. 12 listi...Read More

Toronto’s vacancy tax may have a big impact on real estate investors, according to a local board survey. The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) released the results of their survey, conducted by IPSOS in the fall. More than half of investors said they’ll either sell or rent their unit if a vacancy tax is implemented. Toronto Vacant Home Tax  Shortly after the s...Read More

A report from Lowestrates.ca with an alarmist headline predicts that housing prices will “correct” sometime this year, but according to a mortgage professional in Vancouver, a fundamental misunderstanding is at play. “It’s as simple as this: basic, unreported inflation,” Dustan Woodhouse, president of Mortgage Architects, told CREW. “There’s an ...Read More

  Toronto Life’s Top Real Estate Stories of 2020   During the chaos of 2020, when nearly everything in the city came to a grinding halt for long stretches at a time, the one thing that never stopped churning was the real estate market. Torontonians, it’s fair to say, are obsessed with the comings and goings of the market, whether they’re looking to buy, sell or stay p...Read More

Aggregate price of a home in the Greater Toronto Area forecast to rise 5.75% Tech and government sector expansion to drive Ottawa prices up 11.5% Canada’s priciest city to experience 9.0% rise as housing demand in Vancouver surges Halifax and Greater Montreal prices forecast to rise 7.5% and 6.0%, respectively Calgary, Edmonton prices buck regional economic drag, to show modest price g...Read More

  Canadians are about to get an update on the state of the housing market and the latest resurgence of COVID-19 has only added another layer of confusion to a year of uncertainty over where real estate prices will go in 2021. On Tuesday, the Canadian Real Estate Association is expected to roll out its latest sales figures and prices for resale homes, and while most property watchers see a&n...Read More

Make Your Home Office Happen   Working at home has become the new norm in recent months for hundreds of thousands of small business owners around the world. Whether you are new to the work-at-home phenomenon or have been doing it for a while, there has never been a better time to establish a home office. As you think about options for a home office, there are three factors to consider. &nbs...Read More

DECEMBER 5, 2020 Toronto may finally start taxing vacant homes. City of Toronto staff recommended a vacant home tax to council this week. The tax would place a penalty on those that use residential property in the City for less than half the year. By doing so, the City hopes to join other major cities like Paris in curbing housing speculation. This comes after Toronto has been bleeding millenni...Read More

Canada’s getting serious about housing supply… or at least trying to make you think it is. The Government of Canada (GoC) made its economic statement yesterday, including a plan to tax non-resident homeownership. The tax, which may be rolled out within the next year, sounds aggressive. However, two of the country’s most populated regions already have non-resident taxes...Read More

  This year no one could predict what would lie ahead for the housing market during the novel Coronavirus pandemic that spread across the globe like wildfire. For many, Canadians lost their jobs and were trying to live off government-assisted programs while trying to juggle their bills, but for others, they were presented with a great opportunity to dip their toes in the real estate market ...Read More