What's With Toronto Condos?

Hey, I am not in the prediction business but I am in the observation business

Simple facts: downtown Toronto rents are falling steadily and if they continue to fall prices will errode

That's facts and math not prediction

And rents will fall

2/
This is simple stuff all Covid related

1) No foreign students, turns out this was big, rarely talked about and looks like they're gone till Fall 2021
2) No Airbnb, not just no tourists, no sporting events, weddings, proms huge list, Fall 2021 for return but slow even then

3/
3) Too many renters in Hospitality lost their jobs and moved back with parents or doubled with friends: Fall 2021 or never
4) For people with ongoing jobs, downtown offices empty, WFH but HATED cooped up experience, bought Towns or Detached likely NEVER back

4/
5) Plain old immigration to Toronto (not students but workers) stalled till Fall 2021 soonest

Basically: RENTAL APOCALYPSE, this is frigging bad

Now the simplest economic principles take over, keep dropping rents till someone signs lease

Concept simple but problematic

5/
Because some investment condos were cash flow negative with top rents already, reduced rents are a disaster

Why is the S**t just hitting the fan now?

3 words: Mortgage Deferral Ended....... Nuff said

As @mortgagejake correctly point out a growing issue is:

6/
People who bought houses can't sell their condos at a price that allows the down payment to work on the new purchase, this is a emerging issue but will dissipate quickly, Realtors will make adjustments

Important to remember that these investment properties are a matrix

7/
We may think all are doomed but no: we are closing a North Etobicoke 1 BDR condo this week bought pre-sale in early 2015: $244K appraised at $470K today and with low mortgage rates only needs $1185 rent to breakeven

As always location and product but now vintage is key

8/
If bought 10 years ago and never refinanced PERFECT, bought pre-2015 likely fine, bought resale 2017 and up for investment 80% mortgage: likely No Bueno

And when more and more need to sell: we all know what will happen

Not prediction, not theory: MATH

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More from @ronmortgageguy

27 Sep
Some Things Are Simple

I have been Blocking folks lately over a general opposition to simple Covid measures

Anti Maskers, sorry, its the most minor inconvenience, you all put clothes on when you leave the house but the law in Ontario is that only shorts mandatory so?

2/
Really just Social Niceties and the mask is so easy, please just give anti masking a rest

If fun is made of the insanity of Trump holding huge rallies with unmasked participants who needs 25 replies about outside is fine and look at the BLM marches

Sweet Jaysus,

3/
Can't we just agree a political rally is not the same as desperately trying to put an end to senseless murder?

Or Strip Bars must stay open?

Or booze must be served till 2:00 AM or rights are being violated?

Hosting 30 people in a home is required?

4/
Read 4 tweets
13 Sep
Canadian RE Bears: Just Wrong?

To paraphrase Kermit: its not easy being a RE Bear

Particularly in some big Canadian cities

Prediction is a crap business at the best of times

Economists build careers on being wrong alot or at least not right alot

The RE Bear thesis:

2/
Residential property prices in key cities: Vancouver, Toronto and their surrounding areas are over inflated and will fall dramatically

Its not hard to find general agreement home prices are too high, most folks outside the RE industry and quite a few insiders will say it

3/
"Prices are crazy!" "Who would pay that?" "Wow, that little dump got that much!"

That's common

People inside the RE industry will say: "World Class!" "No Supply!" "Immigration blah, blah"

And there are elements of truth in those comments

Canada is a great country

4/
Read 8 tweets
6 Sep
Mortgage World is Upside Down

So much about the last 4 months in Canadian finance has been weird

In previous economic disasters those in trouble did a couple of things, some people sought insolvency protection and those with houses often refinanced to pay debt

2/
As @ScottTerrioHMA and @doughoyes will tell you Insolvency work is at an incredibly low ebb

And in mortgage world refinance for folks with debt problems has effectively vanished

It is best observed among the companies who specialize in sub prime mortgage lending

3/
The federally licensed B lenders, the large and small residential Mortgage Investment Corps, right down to individuals who do private mortgages: all profoundly not busy

Dead serious: way, way below last year's business

During an economic catastrophe?

Why would that be?

4/
Read 7 tweets
1 Sep
The End of Mortgage Deferral

I said many times, Deferral on the massive basis we have been experiencing had to end

This was a coordinated, organized program that was designed to instantly create calm and stabilize the system

And it worked perfectly, better than expected

2/
With the support of OSFI, CMHC, the private insurers: Genworth and Canada Guaranty, the Bank of Canada and the DoF a solution was developed overnight

Banks and other lenders quickly moved from phone calls and reviewing applications to a Portal that just approved deferral

3/
Up to 5 mortgages deferred

Primary residence and up to 4 rentals

Essentially no questions asked

Some had no income loss and most could easily have continued payments, they were worried or just didn't understand interest compounding

It seemed bad: 20% of all mortgages

4/
Read 7 tweets
26 Aug
Economic Recovery based on Parking Space Count

I guess we all use our own internal measures of life's return to normal

I use a couple:

Traffic on the Gardiner and the 427 on my way to work (we were always an exempt industry, day one)

2/
And I would say we are back to about 65% of Summer normal versus Zombie Apocalypse level in April

And I use office parking lot numbers in my corner of Toronto at Eglinton and Renforth

This is nowhere near 50% of normal

Some lots are big regional offices of TD and Bell

3/
And those are super empty, likely all still working from home because elevators

The rest which are a mix of 6 story offices and ground level entrances mainly small businesses

Pretty empty still, buildings without elevators below 50% full and they were all packed Pre-Covid

4/
Read 4 tweets
22 Aug
The Real Estate Gods Must be Crazy

Stealing the title of a charming 1980 movie about a Coke bottle falling from the sky, I am giving some thought to nearly 3 months of a really odd real estate market in Ontario

Some of what's happening is really easy to understand

2/
Pent up demand is obvious

Lock people up for nearly 2.5 months and they need to buy stuff they couldn't

A bank exec told me July was an all time record for their car financing division

Couldn't buy cars for 2 months need to catch up

Guess same can be said for houses

3/
What else drives this RE market?

Crazy low mortgage rates
Desire to have more space
Work from home forever
Can't travel = need cottage

Combine these factors with the RE supply issue in parts of Ontario and prices go up

But there are some crazy parts to this boom

4/
Read 9 tweets

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