TrueCondos.com - The Best Source for Toronto Condos

Have you been up Jarvis lately? Quietly rising from the pavement is X The Condominium by Great Gulf Homes. Even though the building is not even close to being a finished product, it is obvious that it is destined to be a beautiful building and an excellent addition to the developing east side. It was designed by none other than Toronto’s resident Starchitect, Peter Clewes. The tower has a Mies van der Rohe look and is reminiscent of the world-famous TD Centre.

The project has been selling for about 3 years now, and occupancy is slated to begin in the spring of next year. There are only a handful of units still available at X. Prices are about $550 per square foot. The penthouse level has yet to be released, but will be shortly.

For all the latest chatter and construction images on “X”, check out the discussion over at one of my favourite websites: Urban Toronto.

If you have any questions about X, or if you are interested in buying or selling in the building, please contact me.

Description coming soon.

Recently I listed for sale a house on Crawford Street, near Trinity Bellwoods park. The property was previously listed for sale with another Realtor for a number of months and had no offers. I took over the listing and after devising a marketing plan for the property, the property sold in a week with multiple offers and for approximately $50K over the asking price.

My clients were so elated with the results they put together a video.

If you’d like to hire me to sell your property in Toronto, contact me today. (Post-sale video production not required!)

BuzzBuzzHome.com has just launched in beta. What is BBH? In their own words:

BuzzBuzzHome’s mission is to give people the power to search, research and connect to directly new home developments.

Many of you have perhaps been following the BuzzBuzzHome blog, or following BuzzBuzzHome on Twitter for the past few months and like me, have been wondering what exactly they were planning. Now that they have launched their website it’s clear that they are aiming to build a comprehensive online database for buyers to be able to research new condo developments as well as sign up for updates on their favourite developments. It’s all based on Google maps and users can search and compare the various condo developments quickly and easily with the click of a mouse.

It’s also aimed at developers themselves so that they can reach their potential customers and make their information about their developments available in a user-friendly way. Developers are encouraged to ’sponsor’ their listings so that they stand out from the rest and so they can add more premium content.

It is still in beta, so the data is somewhat limited at the moment, but it looks promising.  Here’s hoping developers will be willing to share their data with the site to make it a truly useful tool for condo buyers.

The provincial government is proposing to harmonize the GST with the PST. This new tax will be known as the HST. This would underlying principle is to increase efficiencies by having just a single tax, however, some goods (like housing) that have never been subject to the PST, suddenly would be.

This has many people inside and outside the Real Estate industry very concerned. The cost of a new condo or home in the GTA could jump overnight by tens of thousands if this new tax was implemented with no concessions. (Resale properties are not subject to the GST or PST).

The province just announced some new proposed changes to be made to how the HST is implemented as it pertains to new housing. Continue reading for the full press release from TREB.

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OK, did all the developers in the city hire the same marketing company or is common sense finally making a come back in the Toronto new condo market?

Liberty Market Lofts by BLVD and Lifetime Developments is the latest developer to announce that they are:

• Lowering prices
• Reworking the building plans to introduce new floor plans
• Having a one-time sales event to launch the new prices and plans
• On top of these 3 items, they are offering 5% deposit (certain conditions will likely apply)

LML launched back in April 2008 and like many projects that launched in ‘08, they have yet to reach their sales targets to begin construction. Given the current pace of sales these developers realize they have to do something drastic (or at least seemingly drastic) to boost sales and meet their lenders requirements to get these buildings built!

Details are limited at this point, but the sales event is set for June 27-28. No word yet on whether there will be a broker’s event prior to that. BROKER’S SALES EVENT SET FOR THURSDAY JUNE 25. Contact me if you would like to attend.

I always liked this project with it’s 2-storey loft units and boutique size located in the heart of Liberty Village. I hope they get the sales they need to get this thing to break ground.

For floor plans check the developer’s official site.

Questions? Contact me.

It’s no secret that the Fly Condos relaunch last month was a resounding success. Empire Communities lowered their prices and made some new floor plans to attract investors and first time buyers and the crowds came out in droves with their cheque books ready.

Now it’s California’s turn. Camfrost-Felcorp seems to be taking a page out of the Fly Condos playbook by lowering their prices, creating new floor plans, and starting a mass-marketing campaign billing California Condos as the lowest priced condo building in Toronto. Prices are starting at just $149,900.

On Friday at 10am they will be having an agents-only sale (for agents and their clients) and sales will be on a first come first served basis. Floor plans are not (as of time of posting this blog) available on the California Condos official website. Word is that the $149K units will be 455 square foot, north-facing, 1 bedrooms (not studios), and they will also have some other floor plans starting in the $150s. Moving right on up to a 975 square foot south-facing 2 bedroom starting from $369,900.

They have jumped on the web 2.0 / social media bandwagon and have started Twittering and they have a Facebook page as well. Good for them and I hope more developers get on this trend and increase the transparency in this consumer-facing industry.

The mainstream media is doing their part to drive the hype including the CBC and Global news who both recently featured stories on the new prices. The clips are available on their website.

Please contact me if you would like more information.

June 19th Edit:

Check out this video that California just posted on their official site.

The Modern on Richmond is set to break ground on construction this month. June 24th will be the official ground-breaking ceremony. This is great news. The Modern started selling right at the peak of the insanity surrounding the pre-construction condo market in Toronto and it was actually the same month as 1 Bloor East - November 2007. So it has been a long 19 months for purchasers who have been patiently waiting and wondering when this project would get off the ground (or under it!).

Originally The Modern was scheduled to occupy in March of 2010. With construction set to begin shortly, that date will likely be pushed back significantly. That may be shocking to some, but in actual fact it is far better than the current state of several other projects downtown which were also launched in Q4 2007  - Q1 2008 and have yet to break ground.

The Modern is about 80% sold out but there are some good units still available with pricing in and around the low to mid $400s per square foot. In my opinion, the Modern has some of the best floor plans in the city and the standard features are quite good. Several of my own clients have purchased in this project. For more info on The Modern, please contact me.

I’ve been telling my active buyer clients this for the past couple of weeks, but for those of you who are just readers and subscribers to this blog, get your application for pre-approval in ASAP because mortgage rates are definitely going up this week. Remember that most pre-approvals last for 90-120 days so if you get in your application in the next 24 hours then maybe, just maybe you will get locked in to today’s rates.

One of the mortgage brokers I work with informs me that rates on 5-year fixed mortgages will be bumping up by 40 basis points. So that juicy 3.79% rate that many lenders are throwing around will now be a slightly less juicy 4.19%.

Of course, this should come as no surprise as when it comes to mortgage rates, what goes down, must come up! Rates have been at all time lows for a few months now, and bond rates have been on the rise (fixed rate mortgages are usually tied to the bond market).

For a good blog on Canadian mortgages, check out Canadian Mortgage Trend. Check out this great chart they have right now on the 5-year posted rate trend over the past couple of years. Pretty revealing and it looks like we have already hit the bottom and are coming back up.

Looking for a mortgage broker or wondering about the pre-approval process? Contact me.

The Stats are out for the month of May from TREB, and as I predicted in my last post, they show May as being the busiest month of the year so far.

Let’s break down the numbers for downtown condo sales:

In C01 (downtown west), there were 325 sales compared to 302 in May ‘08 which represents an increase in sales of about 8%.

• Average prices were down from $372K to $327K BUT the median price was only down from $320K to $304K. Clearly the high-end of the condo market has been hit hard over the past year.

In C08 (downtown east), there were 134 sales this year versus 120 last year (+12%).

• Average prices in C08 were $298K versus $314K last year, and median price was $280K versus $293K last year. Again showing the trend that the average price has been hit harder than the median price.

Also of note, the Sales:Active Listing ratios for condos for C01 and C08 in May were 48% and 50% respectively. Clearly May was a seller’s market. This is a huge change from just a few months ago when we were seeing Sales:Active ratios in the 13-15% range.

Still that is nothing compared to the absolute frenzy that is happening in some areas of our city like East York, Riverdale, The Danforth, Leslieville, and the Beach. In these areas May had Sales:Active listing ratios in the 70-100% range.

Why the temporary insanity in the market? In my opinion it boils down to one simple reason: Supply and Demand. Supply is way down because seller’s feel a recession is no time to sell, and Demand is up because interest rates are at all-time lows.

Questions? Comments. You know what to do.