It’s the morning after the 6th episode in our series of workshops based on the best-selling book ‘The Millionaire Real Estate Investor’, and I realize that this is a great thing that we are doing with these events. We’re providing a much-needed service, to both current investors and people who are just beginning their real estate investing journey.

We’re taking a break from the series for July & Augst, but will be back in full-force with the workshops beginning the 3rd Tuesday in September. Over the Fall, we’ll be offering more classes from the fine folks at The Landlord & Tenant Board, along with bringing in featured guests such as an accountant who works with investors, a real estate lawyer, and a few others.

These guests will be coming in to make special presentations to the members of the Milton Real Estate Investors Club (MREIC), a newly-formed club that is as much a forum for sharing experiences as it is for getting advice and information. MREIC won’t be charging big membership fees, or having all sorts of requirements for membership, in fact, we are investigating the potential for finding places to meet monthly where there is no cost to anyone.

So, thanks for your support during our first 6 months of the Millionaire Real Estate Investor seires; we look forward to seeing you in September.

In the meantime, just give me a call or shoot me an email if you have any questions.

Thanks to all who attended the session tonight; it was great to be in a room full of real estate investors, getting questions answered and learning some ways to protect themselves from unscrupulous tenants.

Personally, I found the entire evening fascinating, and was able to learn some things from some of the attendees as well as the guest speakers. The head of the Investigations & Enforcement division was particularly informative, and taught me something about potential liability that I could easily take on in my day-to-day life as a Realtor.

The basic premise of the evening was that any successful landlord should get to know the Residential Tenacies Act very well, and make sure to work within the rules of the Act. As things were explained, it would seem that the Board is neither pro-tenant nor pro-landlord, but rather, takes the stance that smart actions prevent problems, and to be a good landlord means to act smart.

I’m sure that the tenants of the landlords who attended tonight’s session will be better served by having a more informed landlord.

Look for a follow-up session in the Fall.

Intensification, rent control changes and shortage of stock give rise to new projects

It’s hard to imagine a more challenging time for business and markets than the past half year.

With consumers running for cover and the international banking system imploding, what were developers and builders to do?

If you were Brian McCauley, executive vice-president of Vancouver-based Concert Properties, you were negotiating a deal with Diamante Development Corp. worth close to $20 million to acquire a condo site with approvals in place at Bay and Dundas Sts. His company will build the 26-storey, 448-unit project as a high-end rental.

“From a global perspective, Toronto is still a very strong marketplace in spite of the current softening that we’ve all experienced across Canada,” McCauley comments.

It also must be encouraging that Toronto’s apartment vacancy rate is at a seven-year low of 2 per cent, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. data, while vacancy rates for the subcategory of rented condos, representing newer apartment stock with substantially higher rents, is a microscopic 0.4 per cent, with rents almost 50 per cent higher than those in aging rental buildings.

Read the full story here

Here’s the latest update from the Milton real estate market. As you can see in the first chart, the Total Market Annual Summary, the inventory of available homes is slowly tracking downwards. We now have a similar amount of inventory to what was available before the new construction started back in 2001, yet we have 4 times the number of houses. Sales activity is remaining fairly constant, and as the days on market reveals, things are selling quite quickly. 

Here’s the annual update, showing overall activity:

And here’s the Weekly Price Range Summary

As the Weekly Summary by Price Range (above) reveals, activity is spread across the lower ranges. An interesting note is that, with today’s mortgage rates, money has a much stronger buying power, and I think that is partly why the sales over $375,000 are fairly good.

For example, at 3.6%, the monthly payment on a $100,000 mortgage is approximately $505; if rates were 5.5%, that same payment would only get you $81,000 of mortgage. Double those numbers and your $1010 will now get you into a $200,000 mortgage vs a $162,000 mortgage. More realistically, multiply those numbers by 3.5 and your $1,768 will get you a $368,000 mortgage at 3.6% vs a $284,000 mortgage at 5.5%. THIS IS HUGE!!! This difference alone moves you from the mid-range semi-detached homes and the upper-end row houses (townhouses) into the lower-mid-range detached homes. For the same monthly payment. Sure, your taxes will be a touch higher, and the downpayment required a little bit more, but not by a significant amount. 

And here’s the graphical listings and sales information (listings in green; sales in red):