Toronto Real Estate Investing

Buying real estate as an investment is fraught with potential pitfalls. The time you spend doing your homework now could be the difference between success and failure later on while you take a dig at Toronto real estate investing. To help you make the right decisions in Toronto real estate investing, consider this article.

Buying real estate as an investment in Toronto can be a great option for both professional and savvy homeowners alike. Toronto real estate investing has been booming for years. It’s understandable because Toronto’s real estate investing market has been consistently one of the most valuable in North America. Most established residential real estate markets have boomed so people from all over the world have flocked to Toronto to invest in their future homes. In 2019, The Economist Intelligence Unit named Toronto the number one international city for investors.

If you are thinking of purchasing your first home in Toronto, I want to help you understand that buying a home in the Greater Toronto Area is not exactly like buying a house in many other places. In this article, I will debrief you on how a Toronto real estate investing works, what you can expect when shopping for a home when you should ask family and friends for a multiple, and much more. Please be patient while I go through the basics since the objective is not only to inform you on Toronto real estate investing but also to answer any questions you may have.

Like the vast majority of residence buyers, buyers considering Toronto real estate investing have to deal with multiple real estate agents who have different fees and commission rates. If bargain hunting your potential suitor, you must ask them about these fees. If you are buying a property as Toronto real estate investing, you should have a real estate agent representing you. Any agent that takes a fee exceeding 10% of the sale price will not be considered a reputable agent and you should immediately determine an alternative real estate agent while searching for Toronto real estate investing.

Unless you are buying a condo unit where all the units share the same entranceway as the common area, you should consider buying separate properties for each of the major characteristics of your Toronto real estate investing property:

Some people intentionally buy multiple properties for a variety of reasons. For example, people living overseas often purchase multiple properties in Toronto or Toronto real estate investing for tax purposes. I can’t discuss any of these theories about buying multiple properties without sharing some information about the locations where these people buy their properties.

If you are an overseas investor, I hope that by the end of this article you can learn about the best locations that represent a long-term all-cash rate. If you simply want to use this information to help you with your search for property rentals, I suggest you continue reading the article later.

Home prices went parabolic after Nexon bought up more than 5% of the total supply of land in the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) last week. This caused a bidding war between incumbent agents who want to stay put and tiny upstarts like Nexon trying to up their foothold in the booming market with aggressive bidding tactics and to sell their stock as fast as possible.

Last week, Consumerist reported unprecedented bidding wars between residential realtors, putting even the wealthiest GTA property owners at risk. Like all good business people, Nexon used its guerrilla tactics to outbid its competitors without paying a dime. And they did so without the Board even knowing they were in escrow or seeking buyer instructions. Fast forward to this past week and we found out how they did it…

Nexon launched their bidding war on July 20th, declaring they had reached their 151% reserve by July 23rd, mid-day hours, and without even consulting the Board. That evening, they reported their bid price for the TREB land to their investor relations team, who instructed them to sell their stock and stop the bidding war, as per board policy. On the morning of July 24th, Nexon’s spokesperson confirmed to the Ontario Superior Court, that their bid had received approval from TREB’s negotiating team. On the morning of July 25th, Fleet CEO Rob Brind laid off 73% of his staff and resigned after it was revealed that the company just lied to the Board in their investor relations email.

And that the lying started almost from the very beginning. Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. Not everything a company tells you can be trusted; generally, people are too lazy to check facts, or just don’t have time to check them. Especially an activist investor in real estate who sees their problem as:
Have you ever watched an auction for a car, jewellery or a house, and seen bidders jump around the lot, jostling each other, touching bags, shaking hands, acting like they’re the hottest guy in town all whilst nod-hink-ing like they are well-acquainted? Yeah, that’s what it’s like buying real estate in Toronto.

First, the mother of all proxy fights took place between TREB and the “Nexon Hostile Auction Block”, led by whistleblower Sam Ma. They tried to negotiate a settlement, for an amount supposedly totalling $2 million. Ma and his fellow agents had plenty of legal work to do and shopped around to make sure rules would be bent in their favour. That left TREB defenceless to negotiate a fair price that is more profitable now that the city has slashed brokerage commissions in half, raising questions about the viability of flipping properties amid tight mortgage finance and gentrification pressures. If flips don’t become the new normal, competing with other investors eroding equity in historic properties could become more challenging.

The city has divided the fee it pays brokerage companies for short-term and long-term rentals into two ratios: a 4% floor and a 10% floor on short-term rentals. In a city with skyrocketing home prices and tight mortgage finance, the movement sought to close the gap between supply and demand for rentals. “It brings in a lot more efficiency from our end and we see it as having a positive effect on our bottom line,” said Anthony Hearn, a spokesperson for Colliers International, which owns a brokerage in the city.

The changes have sparked speculation that flipping could become the new normal, a shift aided by investors like nightclub and bar entrepreneur Alireza Vakhshband, who in March flipped property in North York for $6.8 million. “We haven’t seen that level of demand from people who want to get out of their homes,” Vakhshband told Insider. Instead, his office is seeing more and more investors with less than $30,000 in their pockets — just enough to get the business done.

The CBC reported that people are paying up to $400 a night to stay in Marie Curtis Hall, a former bowling alley in the city, while physical therapy student Grace Katopp saw $2,000-a-night rentals in her dial-a-flat completely refurbished in August. Katopp, who is also an investor, said she liked being able to personal-izure a home for her disabled roommate, with professional help. When she leased the room back in March, she didn’t expect to make a profit.

However, after the short-term rentals became more profitable, she decided to flip her Girl Scout Woods condo. The conversion has been a hit, she said, largely because of the “upgrade” factor that comes with short-term rentals, compared with traditional purchases. The renovation, she added, doubled her profits.

Combined, the period of airdropping and renovations, compared with buying the condo outright, drove the $6.8 million transactions in Marie Curtis Hall. But Vakhshband, the Colliers spokesman, said the increased inflow could hurt brokerages if investors choose to neglect to flip and instead invest in rentals that lock-in long-term value.

“I think a lot of people who see those gains are looking at them as a method to diversify their income stream, but you know it’s not a good road to take if they flip every property,” he said.