Housing market

[adam]

I'll gladly cut your lawn and shovel your snow for $400/month!

[BrianE]

St. Clair and Blakely are still selling well. Especially the smaller houses under $200g A house on Cumberland around the corner sold in 3 weeks, two others on my street sold earlier in the sping in just over a month. There's a sweet house on Blake St on for $419g I think this property is a good barometer for the strength of the market. Keep an eye on this one.

The bad times are starting to hit the upper end of the market first however. I drive by 3 houses in Ancaster everyday, 2 on Rousseux and one on Golf Links Rd. They have all been on the market since February - March. One of them is a flip job and could not have been done at a worse time. They don't seem to want to reduce their price, maybe they can't, otherwise they will take a loss on the house.

Oh! BTW, MLS.ca has a new site www.realtor.ca every property is now shown on a map. Very useful tool, fast and well done.

[DC83]

I think you chose the right hood to move into, Brian. St Clair/Blakely is defintately hot'ish right now with the best yet to come (just wait for LRT).

Just a tip: there are ghetto ghetto ghetto condos for sale @ Main/Wentworth. $50,000 each. Mostly reno'd with some that have Washer/Drier stand-ups.

The bldg is pretty ghetto right now, but from what I hear (from one of the unit owners) is that they have been agressively evicting the old tenants and trying to replace with owners and/or decent tenants. Kind of like what most of the mid-rise mid-century apt bldgs along Main are doing (the ones across from Gage Park come to mind too).

So if anyone's willing to sit on a property for a cpl years, or if you're patient enough, buy now. If I were a lil older with an established career I would totally snag up a unit there. By 2015 it may be worth $250,000!

EDIT: My bad! They're actually $25,000!!
http://www.mls.ca/PropertyDetails.as...ertyID=7365114

[raisethehammer]

Originally Posted by DC83

I think you chose the right hood to move into, Brian. St Clair/Blakely is defintately hot'ish right now with the best yet to come (just wait for LRT).

Just a tip: there are ghetto ghetto ghetto condos for sale @ Main/Wentworth. $50,000 each. Mostly reno'd with some that have Washer/Drier stand-ups.

The bldg is pretty ghetto right now, but from what I hear (from one of the unit owners) is that they have been agressively evicting the old tenants and trying to replace with owners and/or decent tenants. Kind of like what most of the mid-rise mid-century apt bldgs along Main are doing (the ones across from Gage Park come to mind too).

So if anyone's willing to sit on a property for a cpl years, or if you're patient enough, buy now. If I were a lil older with an established career I would totally snag up a unit there. By 2015 it may be worth $250,000!

EDIT: My bad! They're actually $25,000!!
http://www.mls.ca/PropertyDetails.as...ertyID=7365114

holy crap... $25,000!!! And WHEN we get LRT, there will certainly be a stop right at that corner.
Wow. I wish I could snag one.

[raisethehammer]

I know someone who just bought a nice home in the Cannon/Sherman area. They offered a few thousand more than asking price, the day before the listing went public.
Two other bidders also put in bids the same day but were only 1-2,000 over asking. Still, 3 offers over asking on a 3-bedroom home near Sherman/Cannon is pretty impressive. I think asking price was 160,000.
There's a beauty that just came up near me on Devenport. 5 bed, 2 baths. Recently reno'd on a 145 foot lot! Asking 220,000.

[DC83]

^^ In Detoit, you can get a detached home in the inner-City for $10,000-$15,000. There may be no windows or houses around you, but it's still damn cheap!

I think I'd take my chances on the Hamilton Real Estate Market tho

[fastcarsfreedom]

DC83--there are a few houses around Detroit in that price range that are actually habitable, but they are for the most part in areas of "prairie" land, where most of the neighboring houses are long gone, where city services such as trash collection and street lighting are spotty--and where you would have to tolerate frequent property crime. On the flipside of that--a large hotel being restored downtown (Westin Book-Cadillac) sold out of it's 500,000-1,000,000 condos in haste...so the inner-city market in Detroit is bizarre. I'm pleased to hear the Hamilton market is relatively healthy--not sure how much news from our little burg here in SW Ontario makes the provincial or national news--but we have an absolutely moribund housing market--probably 2 to 3 years inventory of resale homes on the market and all new home development basically at a standstill. It's essentially the same as the U.S. market--just without the added problem of foreclosures.

[raisethehammer]

nah, actually I'd never heard of your town until I drove to Detroit airport this summer. I passed by just before Windsor.
Speaking of which, what a horrible border crossing...the 401 aprubtly ends and drops you onto this fast food haven like Upper James before hitting the Ambassador Bridge. Crazy.
The Detroit side has huge construction going on right now in the shadow of a 10-15 storey 'Lister Block'. Pretty brutal entrance to the D.
I think I read somewhere that it was the old central terminal sitting there empty in the sky.
I wonder why. Buffalo's is empty too.

[fastcarsfreedom]

An extension of the 401 is being built, to a new border crossing about 1 1/2 miles downriver of the Ambassador Bridge. The current situation of the 401 emptying onto Highway 3/Huron Church Road will be eliminated. Don't blame us--while everyone outside of Toronto has been hard-done by over the years--Windsor has been forgotten/written-off for decades--I guess the thinking when the 401 was completed in the late 1960s was "why bother"...there are residential areas all around that stretch of fast-food joints that are treated to 24 hours worth of truck traffic a few blocks from home.

The 10-15 story "Lister Block" you speak of is closer to 20 floors and is indeed the former Michigan Central Station. When Amtrak relocated it's rail service in the late 1980s it was left to go to seed--tragically, as it was an architecturally stunning beaux-arts station that was once among the busiest of it's kind. It's current situation is complicated--opportunities to revive it have come-and-gone, mostly passing by due to it's ownership by contraversial magnate Matty Maroun--who also owns the Ambassador Bridge...and who has refused to sell it or the land surrounding it. It's failure to maintain status as a transportation hub was in no small part related to the decline of rail travel, but was made worse by it's awkward geographic location, separate from the central business district of the city, in much the same way Buffalo's is.

The reconstruction of the U.S. side of the Ambassador Bridge is, for the record, the largest project ever undertaken by the Michigan Department of Transport.

As a point of clarification, my comments on the local housing market were meant to portray the situation across the Greater Windsor area, not exclusively Tecumseh.

[raisethehammer]

interesting stuff. yea the decline of rail seems to be the reason for both Buffalo and Detroit's terminals falling into decline. Both are removed from downtown, but both are beautiful buildings....especially Buffalo's, but that building in Detroit caught my eye from the Ambassador and made a big enough impression on me to remember it vividly despite it only being the first time I'd ever laid eyes on it. Great building. Yea, I was guessing on the floor height...kind of hard to count from the highway. lol.
STUNNING views of downtown Detroit from the bridge though. Wow. I need to visit.
Is Windsor's housing market tanking because of overflow from Detroit??

[matt602]

MCS is awesome. The view was quite nice. (try to ignore the phallic art - detroit kids are bored I guess)

[fastcarsfreedom]

matt602--you caught a bit of history in your photo--old Tiger Stadium, which is now about 50% demolished. There is a steady vigil of cars pulling off on the I-75 Service Drive to witness the demolition--grown men choking up at the sight, remembering years gone by. A flag is flying on Detroit's famous outfield flagpole--and it does appear now that Federal appropriations will preserve the lower deck from dugout to dugout--as well as the field itself.

I love Detroit--and I find MCS the saddest building in the city--I never get used to seeing it in it's current state--even though I didn't live in the area when it was still active. It remained mostly intact well into the 1990s until Maroun's company finally gave up on having a security presence on site--so the decay/stripping has worsened. Nonetheless, buildings like that weren't built of paper--and the bones are still as solid as hell...all it would take to bring the building back to life would be money--easier said then done. As a matter of note--the tower housed offices primarily of the old New York Central Railway--which eventually disappeared into Conrail. The highest floors were never fully completed/occupied--the leasing market back then was killed by the Great Depression--and the city itself grew outward--but not in the direction of the terminal as it's builders had assumed.

As for our housing market in Windsor--it is really multiple factors. It's important to note that Michigan/Ohio/Ontario--and to an extent Wisconsin/Illinois and Indiana operate as basically a single economic unit as far as manufacturing goes--and while Hamilton and the GTA have a more diversified economy--places like Windsor are more heavily dependent on manufacturing. There have been job losses locally at Ford, GM, Chrysler and a multitude of suppliers--particularly in the tool/die/mould-making sector. Cross-border tourism has been diminished by fears of long border waits (which are rare) and the disappearance of the favorable exchange rate. Important to note that most of the job losses at Chrysler and Ford have been offset by buyouts of workers near retirement age--that has prompted many empty-nesters to list single-family homes for sale with an eye at downsizing. Others, fortunate enough to work in areas that are insulated from the ups and downs of the economy--have listed out of fear. It's really created a glut of properties on the market at a time when no one is really in the mood to buy. I'm perfectly happy in my place and I work in a field insulated from economic malaise--but it would be a great time to buy--the problem being I'd have a bitch of a time selling my place now.

Interesting to note there has been some highrise condo activity more recently--including a couple of prominent riverfront highrises that have slowly but surely sold out--and sold well enough initially to get built. There really isn't a lot of activity anywhere right now though--and a number of new housing developments that were in process are on hold--out in our end of the region there are a lot of those perfect subdivisions with sidewalks, streetlights, curbs, signs--and no houses. Alas, the lack of a foreclosure crisis makes things more managable--and will make recovery easier.

[SteelTown]

Housing construction cools off
But locally, new townhouses and apartments power small boom

August 12, 2008
Eric Shackleton
The Canadian Press
TORONTO

Canada's housing market lost steam in July as the fevered pace of new home and condo construction cooled, especially in Ontario.

That follows a June where prices rose at their slowest pace in more than six years.

Canada's national economy "is flat on its back" after two straight monthly declines in employment, Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, said yesterday. As a result, he said, people are "anxious and worried about the economic outlook," (and) "are not inclined to make big-ticket purchases like homes."

He also said the housing slowdown comes as a kind of payback after "unsustainably strong" building activity in past years and prices being "overly high for too long."

Helene Begin, senior economist with Desjardins Securities, said, "it is possible that poor weather conditions, particularly in central and eastern Canada, magnified the decline in construction."

Both regions have seen record amounts of rain and severe storms over the past couple of months.

Locally, apartment and condominium developments are driving a small housing boom in Hamilton.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reported yesterday that total housing starts in the Grimsby-Hamilton-Burlington area were up 70 per cent in July over the same month last year. Townhouse and apartment starts drove the entire gain, rising 175 per cent while starts of single detached homes were down 4 per cent.

Seven months into the year, CMHC said total starts for 2008 are up 25 per cent with semi-detached, townhouses and apartments leading the way with an increase of 55 per cent, while single-detached starts are up only 4 per cent.

"While single-detached starts in Hamilton remain steady, townhouse and apartment starts have taken off this year," said Sarah Fong, CMHC's market analyst for Hamilton. "Preference for less expensive housing and condominium-style living by some households is the driving force behind the increase in these starts.''

Hamilton's rising market generally matches the rest of Ontario where starts are up 17 per cent from the same time last year. Compared with June, however, they were down 39 per cent in July with apartment and single-detached starts leading the slide.

The Canadian economy has been hurt by the slowdown in the United States, brought on by the worldwide credit crunch, which has savaged Canada's export-sensitive forestry and automotive industries, leading to thousands of layoff announcements.

Softening commodity prices, especially for oil, are also creating uncertainty in the marketplace.

The national economy lost 55,000 jobs in July, with Ontario and Quebec, the country's two most populous provinces and the centre of the manufacturing sector, the hardest hit. Statistics Canada said Friday the national unemployment rate improved slightly to 6.1 per cent in July, from 6.2 per cent in June, but only because many people -- especially the young -- left the workforce.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reported yesterday that July's annual rate of housing starts was 186,500 units, down from 215,900 units in June.

"It was the second consecutive monthly decline, and the most significant since December last year," TD economist Pascal Gauthier said in a note to clients.

He said "the overall level of new residential construction activity recorded in July fell significantly short of expectations for a total of 210,000 starts."

While Alberta and British Columbia sidestepped the national trend in construction activity, up 23 per cent and 5 per cent respectively, "every other province recorded significant reductions in housing starts," Gauthier said.

Saskatchewan fell the most with a 56 per cent decline, "but it was Ontario's 28 per cent pullback in starts that weighed the most on national figures," he said.

The volatile multiple unit segment, including housing such as condos, "took the largest hit, mostly in Ontario as well," Gauthier said.

Urban single-unit starts posted a 7 per cent decline in July, continuing their gradual downward trend, he said.

Meanwhile, Statistics Canada said in June, Western Canada's softening market slowed housing prices to their slowest pace in more than six years.

[adam]

Its insane how oil prices can have such a broad affect on everything. the oil barons have really got us by the... everything!

[raisethehammer]

awesome building.
Maybe we can send LIUNA down there to help you out. Lol.
Yea, I can't believe the stadium is coming down. Man, that's something else.
I hope Detroit comes back someday....a long road though.

[fastcarsfreedom]

LIUNA has nothing on Matty Maroun, trust me RTH--a brief intro on the inner-workings of his conglomerate and you'd be thankful to have LIUNA in town.

As for a "comeback" in Detroit--well...Detroit is complicated, simply put. Despite the economic malaise, the area still has an enviable roster of Fortune 500 companies, incredible wealth, cultural and arts institutions rivalling those of larger cities and great geographic advantages. The proper City of Detroit has enormous challenges--not only 50 years of migration to the suburbs (which have depopulated the City by over half from it's peak in the early 1950s), but a city government ravaged by deep corruption, a failing public school system and entrenched mistrust between city and suburbs. It is difficult to attract/retain viable/prosperous citizens when Oakland County lies immediately north with enviable school systems, per capita incomes in the top tier in the U.S. and a government that has operated as a job/wealth creation machine for the past 40 years...in fact Oakland County is on track to add jobs this year--which is jaw-dropping considering the painful upheavel in the regional economy.

So that's my primer. Downtown Detroit is well on it's way to coming back to life--I mean, there has been an absolute sea-change in the time I've lived in this area--it is the 'belt' of neighborhoods in the proper City of Detroit that separate downtown from the suburbs that are the deep, difficult crisis. It will take a radical shift in development/planning philosophy to really attack the issues of crime, vacancy and disenfranchisement.

Anyway...that's off topic, isn't it? Just some insight. And if you're feeling down on the HSR sometimes--remember this--the city/suburb divide in Metro Detroit is so broad that TWO seperate transit systems exist--DDOT for the city and SMART for the suburbs--two completely autonomous transit systems.

[omro]

Just curious. As I plan to buy a place there in '09. What's the housing market in Hamilton likely to do in '09?

In London UK, my property has lost a lovely £30k, almost $60k in the last 6 months thanks to the credit crunch, so I'm a bit upset about that! It means that when I sell next year, I won't be able to buy as nice a place as I was hoping to buy in Hamilton (assuming prices here haven't dropped further by then!). I've gone from having almost $200k to spend on a place to almost $140k

I have read a few reports that suggest that, thanks to economic conditions, Ontario's housing market will be flat in '09. Will this be true in Hamilton? Or do you think prices will continue to rise in '09?

Are there any sites/sources that people know of which have Hamilton House Price predictions for '09 and beyond? Are there any maps/charts which show the areas which have the most expensive properties in the city and the highest/lowest predicted price rises?

[FairHamilton]

I would expect that houses in the lower city to remain stable with some steady increases in pricing.

I think you'll find greater differences in market conditions (pricing ups and downs) between the lower city and the 'suburban' areas, than market differences between different lower city neighbourhoods.

I think the lower city is somewhat protected from pricing decreases as the prices are already low vis-a-vis what you get for your money. That coupled with higher fuel prices and ready access to services (i.e. transit, healthcare, stores, etc) protect the lower city prices.

$200K would buy a nice sized home in an nice area that is rapidly gentrifying like my neighbourhood just east of Sherman between King & Main. You'd get a south address (more desireable) and be a stones throw from the very nice neighbourhood of Blakely. Close the the King and Main Steet transit corridors.

I think $140K would put in you on the North side of King which has a lot of neighbourhoods that while a little rough around the edges are also gentrifying. My friend paid $97K (I think he overpaid by $6K - 7K) for his home in the Wentworth & Barton area 18 months ago and 2 of his neighbours homes are on the marke to for $135K now. He's thinking of putting his on the market at $139K, but he will only break even after all improvements and fees are taken into account.

It's worth noting that any house, no matter where you purchase, will need a budget of at least $10K for improvements, and more likely $15K - $25K depending on condition. There is all kinds of work being done all over our neighbourhood, new roofs, new windows, new electrical, new porches, etc...... There's hardly a street without at least one house having a dumpster out front.

[raisethehammer]

Originally Posted by FairHamilton

I would expect that houses in the lower city to remain stable with some steady increases in pricing.

I think you'll find greater differences in market conditions (pricing ups and downs) between the lower city and the 'suburban' areas, than market differences between different lower city neighbourhoods.

I think the lower city is somewhat protected from pricing decreases as the prices are already low vis-a-vis what you get for your money. That coupled with higher fuel prices and ready access to services (i.e. transit, healthcare, stores, etc) protect the lower city prices.

$200K would buy a nice sized home in an nice area that is rapidly gentrifying like my neighbourhood just east of Sherman between King & Main. You'd get a south address (more desireable) and be a stones throw from the very nice neighbourhood of Blakely. Close the the King and Main Steet transit corridors.

I think $140K would put in you on the North side of King which has a lot of neighbourhoods that while a little rough around the edges are also gentrifying. My friend paid $97K (I think he overpaid by $6K - 7K) for his home in the Wentworth & Barton area 18 months ago and 2 of his neighbours homes are on the marke to for $135K now. He's thinking of putting his on the market at $139K, but he will only break even after all improvements and fees are taken into account.

It's worth noting that any house, no matter where you purchase, will need a budget of at least $10K for improvements, and more likely $15K - $25K depending on condition. There is all kinds of work being done all over our neighbourhood, new roofs, new windows, new electrical, new porches, etc...... There's hardly a street without at least one house having a dumpster out front.

I know someone who just bought in the Cannon/Sherman area for $159,000...and someone else who bought on the same street/almost identical home (but not nearly as nice inside) for $165,000 3 months later.
Granted, the first house seemed to be a good deal. Apparently it was.

[BrianE]

The housing market is starting to slip off the rails in Hamilton. In Halton Region just down the road things are a down right train wreck. Right now houses that are priced right are taking 2 -3 months to sell. I've been watching a few over priced houses in Ancaster and the Burbs that have been on the Market since Feb - March.

It will be a full blown buyers market by the time 2009 rolls around in my opinion. The real estate company analysts will tell you everything is sunshine and roses for 2009 but don't count on it. If you buy a house in 2009 it will be worth slightly less in 2010, by 2011 you might recoup your loses and by 2012 we'll be looking at a healthy housing market again... these are just my guesses of course, I'm not an expert, I just watch and observe things.