Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Tag: housing market

  • Toronto housing market has slowed — do you care?

    If you’ve been following the Toronto housing market and/or following any panicky resale agents/brokers on Twitter, you’ll know that things have shifted over the last few months. Here’s what broker (and my friend) Christopher Bibby had to say about the market in his most recent newsletter:

    As anticipated, April has ended up being one of the defining months of the 2022 real estate market. With the recent fragility we are seeing, it is clear that the market peaked in February. In fact, the Toronto Real Estate Board, in its most recent Market Watch, claims that month-over-month prices could be down by 2.6%—which is very likely. TREB also indicated that the overall number of year-over-year transactions in March was down by approximately 30%. I deferred the release of this newsletter because weekend activity positively altered some of my previous commentary. The key takeaway, however, is that sentiment has shifted in our marketplace.

    But let me paraphrase the conclusion of Bibby’s newsletter with two words: who cares? If you think that Toronto (or some other city) will remain an important global city by 2025, 2030, or even 2040, you really shouldn’t be fussed by what the market is doing over the span of a few months.

    Moreover, I can tell you that my least favorite time to go out and buy real estate is when everyone else is submitting silly offers and clamoring to buy whatever they can find.

  • Over $26 trillion in US homeowner equity

    Last year was a pretty good year for people who own a home in the US (or in Canada and many other places). Current estimates peg the total value of US residential real estate at somewhere around $40 trillion.

    But of course, a lot of this real estate has debt on it. The Federal Reserve considers this in their calculation of “homeowner’s equity,” and so the net number, as of the end of last year, was just over $26 trillion (see above chart). This is up from about $10 trillion in 2012, following the financial crisis.

    Not surprisingly, a lot of these gains are accruing to a pretty specific demographic. According to City Observatory, about 67% of residential real estate in the US is owned by non-Hispanic white people. And about 44% of owners are 55 years or older.

    Oddly enough, this also happens to be a demographic group with a disproportionate say over the kind of new housing that we’re allowed to build in our cities. Scarcity is a very good thing when you already have and own some.

  • All-in-one real estate transactions

    Opendoor just published its 2021 year in review.

    In it are a few interesting figures about the housing market in the US. According to a recent survey that the company did, the average first-time buyer made 10 offers before successfully securing a home last year. The percentage of all-cash offers is also up to 25% from 15% a year ago. What is clear is that demand is currently outstripping supply. Based on these figures, housing supply in the US is at the lowest it has been since the early 1980s.

    But of course, the real point of the year in review was to talk about all of the great things that Opendoor has been doing to digitize the real estate industry. Perhaps the most interesting is its focus on creating “all-in-one real estate transactions.” What this aims to do is consolidate the now separate processes of selling a home, buying a new home, and obtaining financing, into one digital workflow. Whether or not Opendoor is the one to do it, I believe that this is the future.

    And what we have learned from other industries (that have successfully digitized) is that when you make something super easy, people end up doing a lot more of it.

    Full disclosure: I’m still long $OPEN.

  • “As-is” residential real estate marketplace raises $80 million

    Sundae, which is a residential real estate marketplace that connects distressed sellers and/or dated properties with potential investors, has just raised $80 million in Series C funding. Since its founding in 2018, the company has raised a total of $135 million.

    The marketplace is largely targeted at investors looking to buy, renovate, and then flip off-market homes. The company has also said that it is looking to protect distressed and/or uninformed sellers from opportunistic buyers.

    The way it works is that Sundae lists the home and then aggregates demand from qualified local investors. These investors then bid against each other, in an auction, to buy the home. Presumably this is a good thing for homeowners.

    Once a bid has been accepted, Sundae will then advance $10k to the seller to help with moving and other expenses. Supposedly the company delivers, on average, about 10 offers within the first few days of a listing.

    Sundae appears to have a narrower focus compared to other real estate startups like Opendoor. This is a marketplace for “as-is” homes and a solution to “predatory wholesalers” who buy off-market and then quickly assign the paper.

    But perhaps this is just the start of more change in the real estate industry.

  • Canada’s national net worth spiked largely because of home prices

    Here are some interesting figures from a recent Statistics Canada article about Canada’s national net worth.

    In the first quarter of this year, Canada’s national net worth increased by over $1 trillion or 7.7% to reach nearly $15 trillion. This is, as I understand it, record-breaking. National net worth is defined as the sum of national wealth and Canada’s net foreign asset position, the latter of which is assets that Canada owns abroad, minus the value of any domestic assets owned by foreigners. Most of the increase this past quarter was in national wealth.

    Here is a chart that speaks to this (quarterly change in national net worth by component). Again, the light blue is national wealth. It is the biggest bar.

    On a per capita basis, which is much easier to contextualize, national net worth rose from $365,184 to $392,496.

    The other metric that is up is household savings. We’ve talked about this before on the blog, but check out this chart. In the first quarter of this year, it was 13.1%. And at the beginning of the pandemic, back in Q2-2020, it was 27.4%. I believe these figures represent the percentage of after-tax disposable income that is saved. Either way, a double digit savings rate is not typical for Canadians.

    So what is driving this increase in national wealth? A big part of it is the value of residential real estate, which increased 9.4% in the first quarter. StatsCan is calling this “unprecedented” but I don’t know how far back they are looking to make this claim.

    Because of this, increases in net worth have been, not surprisingly, unequally felt. For households that own their home, net worth increased by over $730 billion last quarter. For households that rent their home, net worth increased by approximately $43 billion. On a per household basis, this translates into net worth increases of approximately $73,000 and $8,000, respectively.

    This is a meaningful spread.

    For the full Statistics Canada article, click here.

  • Toronto condos on the rise again

    CIBC Deputy Chief Economist Benjamin Tal was recently interviewed by Larysa Harapyn of the Financial Post about the state of the housing market in the Greater Toronto Area. The message he delivers is pretty clear: “If you think that Toronto is unaffordable now, you wait.” The long-term fundamentals in this market remain strong. Demand is outstripping supply and will likely continue to do so, which is why Tal also stresses the importance of delivering more purpose-built rental housing. If you can’t see the video above, click here. (And with that, I think it’s time to switch topics for tomorrow’s post. That’s enough Toronto housing for one week.)

  • What’s next for Canada’s housing market?

    Rachelle Younglai’s recent piece in the Globe and Mail does a great job summarizing Canada’s COVID-19 housing boom. The title of the article is, “How Canada’s real estate market defied expectations in the COVID-19 pandemic.”

    Non-mortgage debt is down. Mortgage debt is up. Money is cheap. And people are clamoring for drivable vacation homes. Average home prices in places like Prince Edward County and the Kawartha Lakes (both outside of Toronto) are up ~30% from Jan 2020 to Jan 2021.

    But after I sent this article around this morning, I was reminded that this is a good summary of what has just happened. It, for the most part, does not speak to what might happen going forward.

    None of us can travel anywhere. We’re stuck at home. And immigration volumes last year were down some 48% in Toronto, 43% in Vancouver, 40% in Montreal, and 46% in Calgary. The Toronto region went from about 120,000 new permanent residents in 2019 to about half that last year.

    The behaviors and market outcomes that we have seen over the last 12 months, therefore, make intuitive sense. But how about the next 12 months or the next 5 years? I would prefer to use this latter time period for decision making right now.

    Chart: The Globe and Mail

  • Luxury housing surges in San Francisco

    The story of two markets continues. Median rents in San Francisco are down some 27% percent over the last year. Sales of homes priced under $300,000 are down by about a fifth. And yet, according to the Financial Times, sales are up significantly for homes priced above $2 million. For the top 5% of homes, prices ended the year up about 26.5%. Overall, the median home price in San Francisco was up 16.8% last year. It now sits at $718,000. As we’ve talked about before, much of this can be chalked up to the fact that the financial impacts of this current environment are being unequally felt. But I also see it as evidence that, despite all of the media headlines, many/most people aren’t actually betting against cities.

    Chart: FT

  • Average price of a home in the Toronto region increased 13.5% last year

    The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board released its 2020 housing figures this week. And I suspect that the numbers are probably directionally similar for many city regions around the world.

    2020 saw more home sales than 2019 with 95,151 homes changing hands. This represents an 8.4% increase compared to last year. December was also a record month with 7,180 sales — a 65% year-over-year increase!

    The average selling price in the Greater Toronto Area also reached a new record of $929,699. This represents a 13.5% increase compared to last year. Once again, December was a record setting month with an average selling price of $932,222.

    When you look at sales and average prices by home type, the biggest drivers were low-rise homes outside of the city. No surprises here.

    But consider the price spread that now exists between condos and detached homes. In the City of Toronto (“416”), we’re talking about an average price delta of nearly $850k. That would be an expensive home in many other markets.

    Of course, condos tend to be smaller than detached homes. And so different prices per pound. But total price matters a great deal and historically a widening spread has moved many buyers over to the condo market.

    I suspect we will see that happen again this year.

  • I want an expensive condo

    The Globe and Mail published this headline today: “Developers building more small condos, despite people clamoring for more space.” It’s behind a paywall and so some of you may not have read it. But the data looks something like this. Of all the new condo project launches that happened this year in Toronto, studios and one-bedroom suites accounted for 61% of all new inventory, according to Urbanation. This is a higher percentage than what the market saw in 2019 and 2018, and this is despite the fact that many/most people are still working from home and would probably appreciate a bit more space.

    The short answer as to why this is happening is affordability. For years I have been clamoring for a dual aspect oceanfront penthouse on Miami Beach, but that time hasn’t come for me yet. Things cost money. And the downward pressure on unit sizes is a direct result of developers trying to ensure that their inventory is within the reach reach of buyers (there’s a sweet spot somewhere in the range of $500-700k right now). Developers are heavily incentivized to build what sells and rents, both quickly and at the highest price. That tends to be smaller units, especially early on.

    Where this goes in the future is anybody’s guess. But with the dramatic price increases that we have seen on the low-rise side of the market, I suspect that we’ll see a subsequent surge in demand for condos — maybe even larger condos.