So, what do we see in our crystal ball for real estate next year? The Canadian Real Estate Association says housing sales will moderate next year, but prices aren’t expected to ease any time soon. The association said in its 2022 forecast released on Wednesday that it expects tightening supply conditions to push housing costs even higher in 2022. “While price growth is not expected to be as extreme in 2022, many of the conditions that supported it right up until the end of 2021 will still be there on New Year’s Day,” the association said in a release.
Canada’s Gen Z shows surprising optimism when it comes to owning a home according to a new survey out of Vancouver. Gen Z (born 1997- 2012) is all too aware of pressing affordability challenges in major Canadian cities, notably Toronto and Vancouver. The survey results showed that 75% of urban Gen Z intend to own a primary residence in their lifetimes, with 11% already having done so. Moreover, while 82% of respondents expressed uneasiness about being priced out of their desired neighbourhoods, 70% want to purchase a single-family home during their peak-income earning years. Perhaps unsurprisingly, saving enough money for a down payment and considering other living expenses remains the major concern of more than a quarter of Gen Z respondents.
Auto lovers can soon park their toy in its own condo. This is going to be a luxury item people don’t need, but people are going to want to have this. Metropolitan Commercial Realty is planning to convert a multistorey 1970’s-era industrial warehouse in Etobicoke into a palace for storing cars, appropriately named ToyBx.
A wave of change is sweeping through the profession of city planning. A staff report going before council’s Planning and Housing Committee signals real changes coming to the city’s house-centric neighbourhoods. The report is the boldest and most progressive planning policy to emerge from city hall since the amalgamation of Toronto in 1998, where zoning rules expressly forbids anything except detached homes. The plan suggests “multiplexes” – buildings with two, three, four or more apartments to be allowed on the leafy streets where they are currently forbidden.