Richardson GMP’s Hilliard MacBeth sounds the housing crash warning http://t.co/8CETR2eVhr
— Landlord Relief (@LandlordRelief) December 11, 2014
The above tweet references an interesting article about the real estate market. What I find interesting is the part of it that recognizes that the Toronto real estate market is the sum of many different parts. Condominiums are one part of the market. Because rental properties are rarely built in Toronto (that’s the problem of rent controls) condominiums do provide a source of rental housing. Furthermore, those “rental condos” put into service after 1991 may not be subject to rent controls. Bidding wars have erupted to “rent” premium Toronto condos. But, the question remains:
Are Toronto condos a good investment?
The article includes:
What’s your advice to consumers?
It’s kind of radical, yet in a way not radical at all. You have to talk different demographics in Canada. There’s a demographic which isn’t the millenials and isn’t the baby boomers, they’re people in between 30 and 50 years old, and they have the highest debt level. So the advice is that people who have a lot of debt should sell and rent. The number one advice would be to sell the condo, because condos are a terrible investment, they’re not even an investment at all. The houses are going to correct obviously, perhaps even more than condos, but there’s always a market for single-family homes – at some price you can always find a buyer for any single-family home in Toronto or Edmonton or Calgary because there’s always going to be a shortage of those. You might not like the price, but you could sell. But condos, literally, I could see a situation where you just can’t find a buyer.