Real Estate Toronto Canada

[Renters are lining up to pay $2700/month for a view like this.]

Landlords and would-be landlords take note: the sky is not falling and it is not a bad time to be a landlord in this city. I’ve been watching the rental market more closely than ever these past few months and I’ve noticed some very surprising trends. Rents are going up, and going up much faster than anyone in the mainstream media (those who are trumpeting an impending market crash) would like to admit.

Here are two recent case studies that illustrate the current rental market environment:

1. Some clients of mine who are currently living and working in the U.K. but want to move back to Toronto in a year bought a 2 bedroom semi in Cabbagetown for around $600K. Their plan is to keep their foot in the Toronto real estate market and when they move back, renovate and move into the property. When they took possession of the property, they inherited the tenants who were paying $1900/month. The tenants are set to move out next month. They advertised the property for rent and after the first two showings they had two offers to rent from highly qualified and professional tenants. They ended up taking slightly less than they could have in order to get the tenants they wanted. The property will be rented at $2450/month with the tenant paying the gas and hydro bills. That’s an increase of 28% in rent from the previous tenant! The owners are enjoying break even cash flow with just 20% down.
2. New condo buildings are especially interesting. They are commanding rents never imagined just a year ago. For example, at M5V (375 King), you can get a great example of how rents have been creeping up significantly over just the last few months! If you take the example of a 852 sq ft 2 bedroom unit with parking, they were renting out for $2500 in October, $2600 in November, and $2700 in December! An astonishing increase of 8% in less than 3 months. $2700/month works out to $3.16 per square foot. The $3PSF barrier was until recently usually reserved for Yorkville properties and a few other select buildings downtown only. A studio just rented out at M5V for $1500/month and it was only on the market for 2 days! Prime downtown studios were fetching a max of about $1300/month just a year ago.

The point of this post is to illustrate anecdotally that rents are going up and going up fast for downtown properties, especially condos in brand new buildings on high floors. This is food for thought to the crowd that says the prices like $650-$700 per square foot for pre-construction condos are completely unsustainable because they will never carry themselves with 20-25% down. Three or four years from now do you think rents will be higher or lower than they are today?

If you are ready to take the plunge and become a landlord, or if you are a landlord but would like to learn about how you can maximize your returns in the current market, please contact me.

This condo is launching in early 2012. Contact me for floor plans and pricing and your chance to buy before the public launch!

From the builder:

The rumble of the TTC, the steely chime of streetcars. Cool jazz drifting out from The Reservoir Lounge. That fresh apple smell at the St. Lawrence Market, when you know it’s really fall. Curtain call at the Sony Centre, rush hour on Bay Street. It’s what makes downtown Toronto, well, Toronto – the most exciting, dynamic place you’ll ever live. Ever.

Here, at the downtown core, connect to a true original, conceived from the very essence of what makes Toronto one of the world’s great cities. A magnificent tower fashioned from limestone, glass, concrete and steel, soars from its heritage base to a monumental presence in the cityscape. Spectacular views by day and by night. A pivotal location where the Financial District meets the St. Lawrence neighbourhood. With total access to everything downtown. To the arts, to the sports you love, to work, to food from far away places. To the high life, the vibrant street life and the best kind of everyday life.

It’s Toronto to the core. It doesn’t just surround you, it’s inside of you. In your heart. Because living here defines you, drives you, inspires you.

This condo is launching in January 2012. Contact me for floor plans and pricing and your chance to buy before the public launch!

Are you addicted to checking your site stats? You are not alone. The stats dashboard has always been one of the most popular admin screens. It’s gratifying to know that people are visiting your place online.

With the WordPress.com front page evolving into a one-stop shop for posting, exploring, following and reading blogs, it seemed natural to put your blog stats there, too.  Stats are becoming more and more about interacting with your readers and other bloggers.

You’ll still see your summary stats and chart on your main dashboard, and the full stats page in your dashboard will remain for a while, but the My Stats tab on the WordPress.com front page will soon become the home for the most comprehensive view of your stats.  Stats will also continue to be available by clicking on the sparkline in the admin bar at the top.

While adding the My Stats tab to the front page, we also gave it an updated look by making the panels regularly spaced, using rounded gravatars for your commenters, and giving it an overall lighter feel:

We’ll be adding even more features to your stats and the WordPress.com front page soon.  We’re working on adding country stats of your visitors, which many of you have requested.

If you’d like to attract more visitors to your site, check out these great resources on boosting your blog readership:

• Learn WordPress.com: Get Famous
• WordPress.com Support: Getting More Traffic

(Note to Jetpack users: Your stats will still be available in your wp-admin dashboard. However, you may still enjoy viewing your stats on WordPress.com.)

How’s the Toronto Real Estate Market faring in 2012 so far? Quite well! The Toronto Real Estate Boardhas just released its mid-month resale housing figures for January 2012, which covers Toronto home sales through the Toronto MLS Listings for the first two months of January in 2012.

Toronto Real Estate sales are doing well even early in 2012. Think warm thoughts!

“The market didn’t miss a beat after the holiday season, with robust sales growth continuing and sellers’ market conditions remaining in place,” said Toronto Real Estate Board President, Richard Silver, in a press release about the mid-month housing figures. “Strong competition between buyers continued to push the average selling price higher in the Greater Toronto Area relative to a year ago.”

GTA real estate agents reported 1,506 sales using the Toronto MLS Listings during this time period, which is an increase of six per cent. New listings also increased over the same time period, rising 3.7 per cent over last year.

To see the full press release, including average prices and sales by property type and area code, click here!

Toronto Real Estate Sales In 2012 – So Far is a post from: Toronto Real Estate | Toronto MLS Listings | Toronto Homes For Sale

Renovate Your Toronto Real Estate To Sell

The majority of us Toronto homeowners plan to sell – someday, even if it’s not within the next few years. And some of us may desire a new home, but it’s just not feasible or within our financial goals to move this year.

Which renovations are worth your time - and money?

You can get that new-home feel by renovating, and making your renovations cost-effective by choosing the renovations that will give you the highest return on your investment in the terms of dollars when you sell.

The best way to get the highest return is to give yourself the kitchen or bathroom you’ve always wanted, according to the Appraisal Institute of Canada. When you perform a major kitchen or bathroom upgrade, you can expect to get the highest return: between 75% and 100% of your original investment.

But because kitchen and bathroom upgrades can be the more expensive of your renovation options, here are some other less expensive renovations that also offer a high return on your investment:

Interior and/or exterior painting – 50%-100%
Finishing your basement – 50%-80%
Adding a family room – 50%-75%
Installing hardwood flooring – 50%-75%

Some renovations/home additions surprisingly offer a very low return on investment and might be a bit of a waste of money if you’re renovating with selling in mind:

Installing a swimming pool – 10%-40%
Paving your driveway – 20%-50$
Installing skylights – 0%-25%

If you want to see real numbers, check out the Appraisal Institute of Canada’s RENOVA tool. You can plug in how much you expect to spend on a renovation and see your estimated return.

Renovating Your Toronto Real Estate is a post from: Toronto Real Estate | Toronto MLS Listings | Toronto Homes For Sale

As we mentioned last week, you can like and reblog posts directly from your reader, which displays a stream of all the updates published on all the blogs you follow from your WordPress.com account.

We’ve also brought the reblog button back to the toolbar that appears at the top of the screen when you’re logged into WordPress.com. Note that you’ll only see the like and reblog options while you’re looking at individual posts.

For example, you’ll see this on the left side of your toolbar while viewing http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/read-blogs:

And your toolbar will look like this while you’re browsing the home page of en.blog.wordpress.com:

How does reblogging work?

Reblogging is a quick way to share posts published by other WordPress.com users on your own blog. People have been reblogging others’ posts since blogging started, but our new reblogging system enables authors to retain greater control over their content.

When a post is reblogged, it shows up with a link back to the blog it came from, the first image in the post, an excerpt of the post’s introduction (if it contains text), and thumbnails of any other images that the post contains. It also shows any comments left by the person who reblogged the post:

Reblogs published on blogs you follow will also appear in your reader:

What happens when my posts get reblogged?

An excerpt of your post will be published on the reblogger’s site (with a link back to your original post), and you’ll receive a reblog notification in the post comments (you might need to approve it first):

You’ll also receive an email notification of the reblog.

Do I get credit when someone else reblogs one of my posts?

Absolutely! All reblogs contain a link back to your original post, so the more people reblog your posts, the more likely it is that you’ll attract new visitors (and perhaps new followers, too!).

What happens if I reblog a reblog?

If, for example, Stephane reblogs a WordPress.com announcement on his site and Lori reblogs Stephane’s reblog, Lori only re-publishes any comments Stephane made about the announcement. If Lori wants to share the original announcement, she should reblog the post from en.blog.wordpress.com, not from Stephane’s reblog. But if Stephane leaves a really clever comment, Lori might want to share it by reblogging his reblog on her site.

Can I edit a post I’ve reblogged?

You can go back and edit the comments you left when you reblogged a post, but you cannot edit any parts of the original post excerpt (including the post title). If you like, you can add categories or tags to the post. Reblogs show up under Posts → All Posts in your dashboard, and they can be edited the same way you edit your own posts.

It’s been an extra big week in the news ’round these parts, so much so that the launch announcement of our latest premium theme seems like an extra extra good way to headline our Friday.

Newsy is a versatile business and news-friendly theme that offers up to ten different layouts, four footer columns, custom link and accent colors, and a custom site header. Brand and content-focused editorial teams will love publishing with this theme.

Newsy: Home Page

Designed by Themify, Newsy comes with an impressive set of Theme Options that afford you a great deal of flexibility with how you choose to display your website. Easily control your site’s sidebar positions, home page and archive page post layouts, and navigation bar search box visibility.

You also have the ability to change your site-wide link and accent colors. A few quick adjustments via the options panel will truly have the effect of individualizing your site and making it stand out from the crowd.

Newsy: Accent and Link Color Examples

Up to ten different layouts in Newsy can be achieved by simply altering your widgets and Theme Options. A wide sidebar, narrow sidebar, and two mini sidebars come rolled into Newsy, as well as additional post display and sidebar alignment options.

Newsy: Wide Sidebar Left, Narrow Sidebar Right Option

All of this is controlled either from within Appearance → Widgets or Appearance → Theme Options. The goal with Newsy is maximum flexibility without the headache of manually configuring a thousand theme options. In this case we really can say that less—well, fewer (options)—is more.

Newsy is a premium upgrade for your blog at $85 for a lifetime subscription. Read more about its features on the Theme Showcase or dive right into previewing it on your blog from Appearance → Themes.

If you feel like it’s a chore to keep up with all your favorite blogs, you can now read posts from all the blogs you follow (even the ones that aren’t on WordPress.com!) in one convenient place on the WordPress.com home page:

Your reader displays all the posts across all the blogs you follow in the order they were published, with the most recent content appearing at the top. You’ll see an excerpt of the introduction to each post, the first image in the post, and thumbnails of any other images that the post contains.

You can even like and reblog WordPress.com content directly from the reader (we’re working on bringing reblogs back to the toolbar!) using the icons in the top right corner of each post:

Whether you’re at the computer or using the WordPress app on an Android or iOS mobile device, having all the posts from the blogs you follow in one place makes it easy to find the updates that are important to you, and skip over the ones that aren’t.

Click in the toolbar at the top of any WordPress.com site (you must be logged in to see it) to add new blogs to your reader. For directions on adding blogs from Tumblr, Blogger, and other services to your reader, check out the support document on managing the blogs you follow.

Discover New Blogs, Too

To find some awesome new WordPress.com blogs you might like, check out the Recommended Blogs section of the reader:

Right now you can browse blogs in twelve different categories, and we’ll be adding more very soon.

Use WordPress.com as a Real-Time Information Network

If you want to see what people are saying about your hometown, favorite sports team, or a concert you attended last night, add any topic to your reader to create a stream of all posts published with that tag.

You can add as many topic streams to your reader as you like. You’ll notice frequent updates being published under general topics like “art” and “books,” but you can also add more specific topics like “Picasso” or “J. K. Rowling.”

Want less email?

Each time you follow a blog, new posts from that site will appear instantly in your reader, and you’ll also receive them by email. If you prefer to receive email notifications on a daily or weekly basis, or not at all, you can change your default email settings from the bottom left corner of your reader. You can also change your email notification preferences on a per-blog basis.

Find Friends on WordPress.com

Want to see if any of your Facebook and Twitter friends are on WordPress.com? Give the Friend Finder a try:

So, how will you use the reader, and what can we do to improve it?

This week, Toronto city council approved a 2.5 per cent residential tax increase for 2012. And to follow the example that all major local news outlets are using, this would add $60 to the current Toronto property tax bill for a home that is assessed at $447,090 – or what’s considered average.

Dust off the old calculator - should you get a Toronto property tax assessment?

Now, $60 isn’t a huge pile of money, but it’s still more than you were paying before. And, you might actually already be paying more than your fair share. Your property tax amount is based on your property tax assessment, which can be too high. An appeal of a property tax assessment that is too high can lead to literally thousands of dollars saved.

Homes along the residential streets of downtown Toronto are more likely to experience a tax assessment that is incorrect and too high. This is because in the sometimes monotonous suburbs, all the houses are of similar size and value because they were often constructed at the same time and by the same builder, as is the case with many neighbourhood developments. These homes are likely to all have the same property tax assessment and can be compared to one another easily.

In downtown Toronto, the homes are very unique and different across the board. You could have new construction, a single-detached older home and a small bungalow all on the same street.

If you’re concerned about your property tax assessment being too high, chat with nearby homeowners who live in homes similar to yours with respect to size, age and design. A discrepancy between tax assessments in similar homes could raise a red flag, but keep in mind that things you can’t see inside of the home – such as a brand new kitchen or master bathroom renovation – can also affect the home’s overall value and therefore the property tax assessment.

Note that for this tax year, the deadline to file a Request for Reconsideration (RfR) with the City of Toronto is April 2, 2012. This review is free of charge. Visit the City of Toronto website for more information.

Getting Your Toronto Property Tax Assessment is a post from: Toronto Real Estate | Toronto MLS Listings | Toronto Homes For Sale

Have you been paying attention to all the hubbub online about the proposed U.S. legislation (SOPA/PIPA) that threatens internet freedom? I wrote about it last week over on WordPress.org, but the gist is this: there’s a bill in the U.S. Senate that if passed would put publishing freedom severely at risk, and could shut down entire sites at the whim of media companies. Fight for the Future created this nifty video to sum it up better than I can.

On January 18, 2012, sites all over the internet will be blacking out to protest and try to mobilize more people to speak out against this bill coming up in the Senate next week — S. 968: the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — in an attempt to let U.S. lawmakers know how much opposition there is. WordPress.org, Wikipedia, and even WordPress.com VIP I Can Has Cheezburger? will be participating in the blackout to raise awareness and spur you to action.

Here on WordPress.com, we want to participate as well. Freshly Pressed will be blacked out during the strike.

Sorry to take away your daily fix of yummy web content, but this bill threatens to do that on a much wider scale. You don’t want that, do you?

More importantly, we are making it possible for you to participate in the protest. There are two options: a “Stop Censorship” ribbon and a full blackout. The blackout portion will be in effect January 18 from 8am to 8pm EST, while the ribbon will be displayed until January 24. Here’s how to join in:

1. Go to Settings → Protest SOPA/PIPA in your dashboard.
2. Select if you want to join the blackout or show a ribbon.
3. If you choose to join the blackout, you can edit the message that will be shown on your site during the blackout.
4. Preview what your protest will look like.
5. Click “Save Changes” button to activate your protest.

That’s it! Easy-peasy activism right at your fingertips.

The “Stop Censorship” ribbon will display in the upper corner of your site and links to americancensorship.org. It will display until January 24, 2012 (the Senate vote date).

If you choose to do the blackout in addition to the ribbon, then we will black out your site from 8am to 8pm EST along with the official strike. You can customize the message that will appear on your blacked-out site to tell people why this issue is important to you. Your site will return to just displaying the ribbon after the strike is over.

I hope that a significant number of you on WordPress.com will join in this protest. Publishing freedom is a right we must protect.

And one last pitch: whatever you decide to do about your site, please take a few minutes to head over to americancensorship.org and take action. It only takes a few moments of your time to be an agent of change!

Update, 1/18/2012: For about an hour and a half of the blackout, our blackout option was down because it was not showing the blackout screen and some sites were returning blank error pages. We disabled it until we could make it work properly, which it is now doing, so anyone who chose the blackout option should now see the correct screen. 

So, I’ve written about big house and small houses and the right sized house, but these homes, designed by Tumbleweed Tiny House Company have got to take the cake!

The walk in closet in my new bedroom is just under 85 square feet. 84.84 square feet to be exact. O.k. maybe it’s a little excessive, but the bathroom and bedroom parts of the addition were already oversized, so why not afford a little more space for the closet? We will move into this space in the next few days and I’m sure that by the end of the year, the closet will be filled to overflowing and we’ll be kicking ourselves for not putting in another hanging rack.

Just bigger than my closet!

I don’t know what we would do if we had to live in one of the houses made by Tumbleweed Tiny House Comany. There are fishing huts out on the local lake that are bigger than some of these houses. Jay Shafer, the owner, has lived in an 89 square foot house since 1997. Well, good for him! While I agree that we sometimes are a little (ok, a lot) excessive with the size of house we live in, I believe this is taking things a little too far in the other direction. How do you market this home to sell once you’ve outgrown it? Sure to cause a breakup with your girl/boyfriend after just two dates in! Save on heating oil, just use your own body temperature to regulate the heat. Too cold? Do 15 push-ups and the heat radiating off your body will warm the entire home! Electricity costs are low – only one light bulb to light up the place! Would the words cute and cozy apply to this house?

Looking at the website does get me thinking about how much is too much. Do you really need an entire living room inside your bedroom? If you can fit 4 couches in your family room, is that too big? Though Jay has taken size down to an extreme, how many of us really use the space we live in. If you have a garage, you likely have two of the exact same screwdrivers. You bought the first one so that you would have one in case you ever needed one and you bought the second one when you needed the first one, but couldn’t find it! Maybe we all need to rethink how much is too much, how much is too little and how much is just right. Looks like Goldilocks knew what she was doing all along!

What do you think? Let me know. But if you’re calling, let the phone ring a little; I don’t know where it is!

The big news from last week came out of – you guessed it – Europe. On Friday, Standard and Poors, the same organization that down graded the US bonds (to no real effect) announced the lowering of credit ratings for the bonds of nine European countries, including the second largest economy, France. This wasn’t a total surprise. S&P had hinted that they would do this a few weeks back, and bond yields throughout the continent have steadily been moving higher. But once they made it official more money poured out of Europe and into the relative safety of US bonds, and as a side benefit, mortgage bonds. The European Union is meeting for more economic discussions in about two weeks, and we are likely to see more fireworks then. Greece, whose problems were the first to show up, is not dealing well with its forced austerity, and there is a split among the economic powers of how to deal with this. If they push too hard they are likely to give Greece (and others) reason to break away, but if they are too accommodating this encourages more problems. There are no easy solutions, and this could take a long time to unravel. If problems heat up, the flight to quality will mean a push toward lower rates here.

Over the last months the economic reports here in the US have been trending better. That wasn’t the case last week. Retail sales figures for the Christmas season were released last week, and they came in weaker than expected. Retail sales for December increased .01% over November, when expectations were for an increase of .04%. The Christmas shopping season is a measure of confidence, and this shows that consumers are still feeling strapped. Weekly unemployment claims moved up by 24,000, but this is a blip in a trendline which has been improving. On the good side, consumer sentiment increased from a reading of 69.9 up to 74.0. This is still a weak reading, but much better than expected.

Mortgage rates are hovering at all time lows, but its hard to see that we will go much lower from here. As part of the congressional agreement to extend unemployment benefits which passed at the end of the year, the cost of the extension is being made up with a surcharge to mortgage costs. This amounts to 25 basis points, which points to slightly higher mortgage costs (which is usually factored into the rate. Some lenders are putting it in all at once, others are gradually adding the cost in by a few basis points per day so it won’t seem so jolting. Refinances at this level are likely to pick up again, and mortgage lenders are likely to contol their pipelines by raising rates if they get more volume than they can handle. This is all a way of saying that rates are great, and they may not get a whole lot better unless something drastic happens in Europe. If you are buying a new home or looking to refinance and qualify under the current guidelines, there isn’t a lot of incentive to wait.

Here are the current Chicago Illinois Home mortgage rates for an A+ (740 Fico or above), full doc single family home purchase or rate/term refinance on a 45 day rate lock, with 0 points, and no origination fee, best FHA rates assume a 640 Fico score, but loans are available with credit scores as low as 580. Mortgage rates in other states may be slightly different, give me a call and I will give you an accurate quote for your particular situation. The conventional and FHA rates are based on the highest conforming loan amounts, which give the best pricing. Again, there are many factors which affect mortgage rates and your ability to be approved for a loan, including credit scores, property type, amount of down payment and a number of other factors. These rates may not fit your situation and this is just a sample of the programs that are out there. If you would like a quote for your personal situation, or to get pre-approved for a mortgage, give me a call or contact me (Illinois mortgage company) and I will take the time to find the rate and program that is best for you:

Conventional loans up to $417,000

For Jumbo loans over $417,000

*(Another option is to break your Jumbo loan into 2 parts a conventional to the limit of $417,000 and a HELOC or fixed second mortgage for the rest. The blended rate is usually much better than a single loan would be.)

** 5-5 ARM is fixed for first 5 years, with 2/6 caps it can’t go more than 2% above the start rate for the next 5 years. 2% cap for next 5 years – so a blended rate over 10 years is no more than 1% over the start rate. Super Jumbos available.

FHA LOANS 3.5% down payment FHA Maximum varies by County

FHA APR reflects 3.5% down payment and the effect of mortgage insurance on the loan. Call for information on no-cost FHA streamlined Refinances

FHA 203K Rehab Loans – Call for Current Quote – FHA 203k Rehab and Renovation loans are now available as 30 year fixed or 5-1 ARMs.

VA Veterans Administration 0 Down Loans

These are just a few of the mortgage programs and mortgage rates available. Which option is best for you depends on your own specific goals and needs. If you have any questions or want to go over your situation in depth, let me know how I can help.

Free Home Buyers Guide

You can trust in us to get the job done.

Peter Thompson 630-479-6424

Illinois Mortgage Rates                   First time home buyer loans

Chicago Mortgage Company            Chicago FHA Mortgages