• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

Excuse me, did you leave this here?

Share this page

JPSmit

JPSmit

Moderator
Staff member
Country flag
Offline
Some of you might know that Toronto is currently in the midst of a massive building boom - especially condos. In fact, it currently has 132 high rise buildings under construction - the most of any city in North America (Canada largely escaped the housing issues experienced south of the border - in fact the market slowed for a month in 2008 and picked up steam right away - for a number of reasons) Anyways, driving downtown today and passed a new construction site - except there is an old building there, and, the builders picked up the old facade and set it in the street! Not sure how long it will be there, but, it was amazing.

Not a great picture but you can sort of see it.

 
JP - that is one interesting photo! Reminds me of some of the new "faux nouveau" buildings which include 19th century facades as simple decoration.

Say, do the builders expect all those new residential buildings to be occupied? Are there enough folks looking for up-scale housing in Toronto?

Tom
 
NutmegCT said:
JP - that is one interesting photo! Reminds me of some of the new "faux nouveau" buildings which include 19th century facades as simple decoration.

Say, do the builders expect all those new residential buildings to be occupied? Are there enough folks looking for up-scale housing in Toronto?

Tom
Click to expand...

Interesting question. No consensus on the answer. Canada largely dodged the bullet of the housing meltdown - largely because of mortgage rules in this country - really no re-financing/ no sub par/ no lines of credit worth more than the property - and the federal government has actually tightened regulations a few times. They have been predicting a bubble burst in Toronto for some time, but, I am not sure, partly because interest rates are still historically low, partly because the provincial government created a greenbelt around the city - that can't be developed, meaning that property inside the greenbelt continues to be prime. Another factor is that for many, condo ownership is actually the only affordable way to get into home ownership in this city. Average price of a detached home - 856k while the average price of a condo is 363k. As well, there is a constant supply of immigrant money flowing into the city - in fact, some of the real high end condos aren't even being marketed in Canada but Asia and the Middle east.

Interesting times.

an article here: https://www.thestar.com/business/re...tawas_efforts_to_cool_real_estate_market.html

Chinese ownership: https://torontocondos.com/_media/_newsletters/Newsletter_Dec2011.pdf
 
Thanks JP. If the builders sell to a management company, and the management company sells to residents - then all is well. But ...

The recent stories of whole cities of empty high-rises in China send shivers down my spine. Yikes.

https://www.news.com.au/travel/trav...17s-ghost-cities/story-e6frfqd9-1226716277487

277135-414baf78-19d9-11e3-8bc3-d925041fcc82.jpg


Nice view of a "Faux Paris" - but not many people.
 
Bizarre - thanks
 
Back
Top