Toronto Hot Housing Market

babyme

China is trying to spread out development in major cities to lower housing and transportation peaks.

Case in point, Beijing is moving their Government functions away from city, not sure whether it is Central government or City.  Result is less impact on the city housing and transportation issues.

Then there is another new city being developed in area 130 miles South of Beijing.  Focus on clear air HIGH TECH industries.

Apparently the new Beijing city office complex is built using the FACTORY pre constructed concrete panels to BOLT and NUT approaching putting together in minimal time.


Wonder if Toronto can do something similar to China,  spread out the government offices to less developed areas.  With current broadband speed and technology, proximity is NOT a requirement to be located nearby, unlike the city built 100 years ago that requires office close by to move the people or document to convene meetings or move the documents from office to office.
As some offices moved farther away, the related private offices may follow.  Then the resources to work in those offices will move the same time to less developed area with LOWER rent or house prices, easier and cheaper commuting time.
With the severe cold weather in TO, BOLT and NUT buildings will further speed up the construction and lower the costs of offices, with components manufactured in factories and moved to building site.

Rather than imposing different measures to tax the house prices or increase greenland depletion, just move the people and offices out to make further speculation to die on natural causes.

babyme

Looks like John Tory is thinking about government real estate sale,  how about moving offices out of GTA for Provincial anyway.

Toronto’s mayor won’t rule out selling some of the city’s prime downtown real estate as he looks to make better use of assets amid an unprecedented property boom.

“Would I take that off the table? No, I wouldn’t,” Mayor John Tory said in an interview last week at Bloomberg’s Toronto office. Selling buildings in the city’s costly downtown market probably wouldn’t be “quite as politically charged” as divesting other types of assets, such as the parking authority or power utility Toronto Hydro, he said.

The need for North America’s fourth-largest city to fund critical transit upgrades and housing improvements coincides with skyrocketing property prices in the region. Toronto’s real estate portfolio includes 6,976 buildings with 106.3 million square feet (9.9 million square meters), almost half of which is multifamily, according to a Dec. 6 report on the city’s assets.

With all of the demands on the city to raise money for building transit lines and repairing existing housing, then “might you be looking at the business case for handling real estate in a different way? Because this is the most expensive downtown real estate you could possibly have,” said the mayor, elected in 2014.

The report, commissioned by the city and conducted by Deloitte LLP, estimates the value of municipal real estate including community housing, parks and forestry is C$27 billion ($20 billion), while the annual operating costs in “core” real estate and facilities management is C$1.1 billion.
‘Crystallize’ Value

Tory said he watched with passing interest the federal government’s sale earlier this year of the Dominion Public Building. The historic downtown property beside Toronto’s Union Station sold for about C$275 million ($205 million), according to newspaper reports.

The property was “super underutilized,” BMO analyst Heather Kirk said in an interview, adding the Canadian government has been trying to find ways to “crystallize” the value in some of its property assets.

“What a building is worth to the government in current form is totally different than the value to a developer,” Kirk said. “They are buying density.”

When asked how any properties might be sold, Tory stressed he didn’t currently have any specific recommendations to make to the city council, although “I just know those are things that sit out there still as options that are in front of the city government to raise money to do the things we have to do,” he said.

Tory questioned whether city employees had to work in their current locations. “Is it necessary for them to work there, geographically with technology and all? Is it necessary we need to own that real estate?” Tory said.

babyme

The announcement of policy to stop the speculation of TO hot real estate market is just to SLOW DOWN the purchase of real estate by buyers, especially foreigners.

Increase supply of new land may not be forthcoming either.

How about seriously following China and Federal directions to DIVEST real estate holding of NON essential building and moving out the offices to Farther away area from GTA, a win win situation for workers in work or live in the cheaper and easier commute for all involved.  Also a subsidized new industries like hi tech, hi biotech etc close to hi education area to have a silicon area like Waterloo and Ottawa (too cold) to incubate the new AI, Pharma, Internet even Hi speed train type development.

Anyone moving away from Metro may well enjoy a mortgage free house by moving away from GTA.