In an economy beset by exponentially rising debt, rising interest rates are a ticking time bomb. Higher rates force the marginal borrower to forgo purchases, while the marginal entrepreneur is forced into insolvency. This is particularly true for the Canadian real estate market, and it’s noteworthy that even the leftist media is starting to pick up on this.
Take a look at this housing development in Kitchener Ontario.…The project got city approval in 2020 and the first tower was supposed to be moving ready by 2024 but that didn’t happen. Instead only one of the four towers was started and it wasn’t finished. This project is one of more than 200 housing developments that went insolvent just in the last year alone that rate of insolvency is nearly 50% higher than the 10-year average.
I have always preferred to buy a “fixer-upper” whether it is a semi-detached, detached or condo unit. You know what you are getting.
There was a development at the corner of Albert Street and Victoria Avenue in Regina which went bust after digging out for the foundations. Eventually, the city had the site filled in and a chain link fence put up around it. It was a very sad time for those who had paid deposits on various units. This may be wrong, but the developer left town in a hurry and left the city to pick up the costs for the site remediation.
The site has been up for sale since before the Covid lock-downs.
Ohhhhhhh mommmaaaaa … here is what happens to new buildings under construction here in the SF Bay Area.
https://sfist.com/2024/08/21/hayes-valley-building-destroyed-by-fire-full-of-squatters-again-stoking-fears-it-could-be-destroyed-by-fire-again/
There have been dozens of these “unexplained” … “unsolved” … fires in Oakland and San Francisco. But the burned-out shells make for great homeless and drug dens.
No comment about the number of construction workers lost due to the jab mandates combined with adverse reactions. A glancing mention of taxes but nothing about the carbon tax.
It’s the Corpse, so nothing is allowed to be mentioned that hints that the problem, is government and its ever increasing hunger for everyone else’s money.
The decapitation of the Corpse can’t come soon enough.
Currently the building next to me is offering a 3 year 0% mortgage on their remaining units, and they aren’t getting buyers.
Government caused this, with the carbon tax, the devaluation of money by printing, the increase in interest rates to deal with the inflation they caused, onerous regulations on new constructions, “development charges” that have no basis in reality, and now this year, the changes in capital gains taxation.
Another thing that might turn off some in Kitchener – Waterloo – the city and developers keep building / approving new apartment buildings with less than 50% of the units having parking capacity. Sometimes much less
Did you know that it’s written into the development rules for some locations to limit the number of parking spaces in order to “meet climate change commitments” It wouldn’t be surprising at all that there are parking limits in the KW official plan.
Something that skews this particular example is that Kitchener-Waterloo is home to two universities and a college, and is Ground Zero for phony student visas from third-world shitholes. There are entire new-build neighbourhoods in K-W that have no white residents. This on top of the everyone-must-go-to-university pressure and K-W has been overbuilt for a long time; this has more to do with local market correction.
To paraphrase Richard Nixon, we are all Brampton now
Stop yer whining Daniel. We just don’t have enough “qualified” (won’t work cheap-enough) high tech workers here in the US. So we have a generous H1-b Visa program … that the UniParty want to expand dramatically … as part of … “comprehensive immigration reform”
We NEED those students …
A few rate cuts in the next year will lock a Liberal majority in the next election. The GTA will think Justin lowered their mortgage rates for them and forgive all sins.
Ah…..no. The globe is in a recession, unemployment is increasing at an increasing rate. Rate cuts will change nothing, This will be really bad in 6 months, if the Turd had balls, he’d go now before it gets worse, thankfully he has none, so it will be an historic crushing of the Laurentian elite.
the majority of voters in the GTA are brain dead, have you seen the deputy mayor
Government lot taxes per unit in the $60,000 + range. Why not drop that?
Eight and a half minutes of content and not once did he mention the Liberals either federally or provincially.
No mention of uncontrolled imigration swelling our poplulation by 5 million people in the last 5 years.
I wonder where those people are living?
This “reporter” seems like a nice guy. Too bad he can’t make the leap from “oh my!” to “who caused this?”
If you come from small-town west of K-W, it has really changed. Listowel used to be far enough away that it stayed the same size more or less. Now it is a bedroom community for K-W. Couple weeks ago I drove past the farm I grew up on and trying to cross over 23 on the Third of Wallace was nearly impossible (yeah it’s all North Perth now, stupid amalgamation), traffic both ways was non stop.
Good lord. Dad bought a home, and paid 6 and 3/4% interest on it in 1960. Houses were being built everywhere at the northern edge of Toronto, and the building spree has continued until the pandemic brought it to a halt. So, all you economic gurus, please explain to me why we could build houses like gangbusters with 6 3/4% rates in 1960, but the market stalls out at 4.5% today.