NOTES FROM THE PRESIDENT: The Weekly CP Meeting Recap

Each week The Glenn Team provide highlights from the weekly CP office meeting to provide a balanced overview of the Toronto and GTA markets and relevant issues affecting real estate markets. Meetings are overseen by Chestnut Park's CEO and Broker of Record, Chris Kapches, LLB, who provides weekly analysis and commentary. Additional input is provided by the CP Toronto office Realtors who give a day to day, real life perspective of the local markets.

MARKET UPDATE

As we typically do, we began this week's meeting with an update of the Toronto (read 416 area code) stats. Though the media is reporting on most negative aspects of the market, this last week (Jan 22 - 29th) saw the best sales average for the month of January at about $759,000. That makes the current average sale price for the month around $736,000, up 1.2% since last year. Despite prices having begun to sky rocket in January of last year, we're still seeing increases in the average sale price. Inventory, or lack thereof, seems to be the primary contributor to these price increases; especially in the condominium apartment market. The number of sales in total is down by about 20-25% from January 2017. 

The 905 hasn't faired as well. Though condo sales are also leading the way in both sales and prices, they are still down overall from last year; 8% from April to Jan. 1. Freehold properties are doing even worse dropping 20% since April 2017. 

Despite the new stress test rules, some condo owners may do well to attempt to get into the freehold market now, while demand for condos is high and freehold prices are softened. 

WHAT ARE YOUR QUALIFICATIONS?

Speaking of stress testing, Karlee Kusnierczyk from Hanley Mortgage Group stopped by to discuss the current climate of the mortgage market under the new stress test rules. They did a random sampling of 50 clients looking to renew their mortgage and found that 15% of those clients wouldn't have qualified for the fixed rate they obtained 5 years ago under the new stress test. Karlee stated that if a larger sample size was used, she estimates that number would have gone up to 20%. This falls in line with what many economists predicted the stress test would impact. Karlee felt that this wouldn't take people out of a buying position so much as it would knock their price point down. 

Anyone needing to renew their mortgage is likely best to stick with their current lender, as any new lender will use the new stress test rules for qualification, effectively making shopping around a moot point. 

RENT RELIEF

Though it's not well advertised by the city, landlords should be aware that if they apply for a reduction in property taxes and the reassessment results in a reduction of 2.49% or more, their tenants have the right to seek an adjustment to their monthly rental amount. The City of Toronto website details the calculations for this law. I expect that most new landlords, and likely many seasoned landlords are unaware of this law, so it's important to be aware of. Though the reassessment might only result in a 1-3% reduction in monthly rental income, new landlords may depend on those amounts to keep their investment sound, so it's good to know it's at least on the table for landlords. It's not clear as to how the city knows when the property is being rented but the rule nevertheless applies.

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