|
THE REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT NETWORK LISTS HAMILTON AS THE NUMBER 1 PLACE TO INVEST IN ONTARIO, AND NUMBER 3 IN ALL OF CANADA.
GROWTH ON HORIZON FOR HAMILTON REAL ESTATE
Hamilton’s real estate market is in for another growth year in 2012.
A new report from real estate giant Re/Max says average house prices here should rise another 3.5 per cent after a 7 per cent hike this year.
That increase will bring the average price of a Hamilton-Burlington home to $346,750.
Conrad Zurini, of Re/Max Escarpment Realty, said several forces are driving the local market, including its changing economy and the fact homes here are still cheaper than in Toronto.
“Hamilton has some really great prospects in terms of jobs,” he said. “On top of that, we have extremely competitive prices. There are some great values in Hamilton.”
Specifically, the Re/Max report said 14,000 homes will have changed hands in Hamilton-Burlington by the end of this year at an average price of $335,000, up from $311,683 last year. The average price is up 7 per cent and the number of sales is up 8 per cent — making 2010 the best year on record for the local market.
Re/Max attributed part of the increase in prices to tight inventories. The highest price increases were in fringe communities such as east Burlington, Aldershot, southwest Hamilton, west Mountain and east Mountain.
Another important factor is increased demand from first-time homebuyers making their plunge into the market for small detached houses, condos and town houses while interest rates remain at historic lows. Also important is the impact of empty nesters looking for larger condo apartments and town houses to replace their big houses.
Renovation, infill and redevelopment are also common phenomena in Hamilton-Burlington now, with existing properties being torn down to make way for new custom-built homes. The trend is particularly evident in areas such as east Burlington, along the shoreline of Lake Ontario, Aldershot and old Ancaster. Entire neighbourhoods are changing — with new construction revitalizing older, established communities.
“As Hamilton sheds its steel manufacturing industrial base, a vibrant new city emerges. Coupled with Burlington, the stage is set for another solid year of residential real estate activity,” the report concludes. “Balanced market conditions will prevail throughout much of the year as more inventory comes on-stream.”
Re/Max said the local picture mirrors what’s happening in the rest of the country, with 23 of 26 markets surveyed expecting average prices to rise this year, while 22 expect total sales to at least equal or exceed this year’s totals.
By the end of the year, the company predicts 460,000 homes will change hands in Canada, up 3 per cent from 447,010 units reported in 2010. National sales are expected to climb 1 per cent to 464,500 units in 2012 with an average price of $363,000 this year, up 7 per cent from $339,030 posted one year ago. By year-end 2012, the average price in Canada is forecast to rise 2 per cent to $371,000.
“The Canadian housing market has demonstrated tremendous resilience in recent years, but 2011 stands out,” Michael Polzler, executive vice-president, RE/MAX Ontario-Atlantic Canada, said in a news release. “Instead of responding to economic concerns both here and abroad with a retreat in sales and prices, residential real estate markets actually experienced an upswing in the volatile third and final quarters.”
Backing up the Re/Max outlook is the Canadian Real Estate Association’s recent prediction sales this year will be up 1.4 per cent, half a percentage point better than its earlier estimate.
CRÉA also expects there will be slightly fewer units sold next year than in 2011, but the 0.5 per cent decline is an upward revision. The association is now forecasting 453,300 home sales countrywide this year, up from 446,915 in 2010. The forecast for 2012 is 451,200 homes sold.
With files from The Canadian Press
FIVE REASONS TO MOVE TO HAMILTON
The Hamilton Spectator - August 20, 2011
1) The price is right: You can get a venerable two-storey home on a tree-lined street for $200,000. In Toronto, a $500,000 house may not get you parking;
2) Nature’s autobahn: The escarpment, its walking trails and hundreds of waterfalls;
3) Post-industrial artscape: Refugee artists are fleeing overpriced Toronto for James St. North;
4) We’re not the ’burbs: Downtown lovers won’t find what they seek in suburban Mississauga or Markham;
5) Investment potential: The Real Estate Investment Network released a study this spring calling Hamilton the No. 1 place to buy property.
HAMILTON - HOT PROPERTY
The price is right in Hamilton for house hunters tired of T.O. bidding wars. But that’s only part of the equation.
The Hamilton Spectator – August 20, 2011
A vacant Toronto crack house helped convince Frank Hoedl he might be better off living in Hamilton.
The 45-year-old photographer’s search for an affordable family home in Toronto was already going badly when he and his wife, Elizabeth, wandered into a dilapidated two-storey house north of the Danforth.
The mould, worrisome wiring and sealed-off basement hinted at the building’s history. Helpful neighbours spelled it out: The almost $300,000 house had been more flophouse than home.
“Even then, the place was almost out of range for us,” recalled Hoedl, who looked at “plenty of dives” in his abortive search. “And the contractors told us we’d have to pay half-as-much again to fix it, or basically tear it down.”
The family’s dream of a “character” house with mature trees and a back yard seemed wildly out of sync with their one-income budget — until they took a friend’s advice and checked out Hamilton.
The Hoedl’s looked, loved and snapped up an almost century-old, two-and-a-half storey brick house near Cumberland Avenue and Burris Street for $194,000. Now they have the hoped-for massive maple tree and the grassy back yard for son Francesco, 5, to drive his kid-sized antique fire truck around. If they crave more green, the Mountain looms to the south and Gage Park is just around the corner.
“All I can say is Hamilton is way undervalued for what you get,” Hoedl said. “It has the urban feel we wanted ... Sure, the steel mill does smell every once in a while, but I have to say, I’ve smelled some pretty bad stuff near High Park, too.”
Hoedl isn’t the only former Torontonian talking up Hamilton.
Several Toronto media outlets have recently highlighted the lure of cheap Steeltown houses to would-be T.O. homeowners scared by escalating bidding wars.
That includes Toronto Life Magazine, whose front page this month featured a newly minted Dundas couple who fled T.O.
The Real Estate Investment Network also released a study in May calling Hamilton the No. 1 place to buy property.
But, it’s not all good news.
Local activist Matt Jelly’s vacant building tour, dubbed the Bylaw Crawl, showed up in the national media this month, along with the city’s struggles to keep track of those abandoned properties.
Either way, new Hamiltonian Marc Skulnick thinks some buzz is deserved — and not just because of cheap or vacant real estate.
The magazine editor recently blogged for the Huffington Post about his decision to move from the ultimate downtown — at one point he lived beside the CN Tower — to Grosvenor Avenue South, a short walk from Gage Park.
He also regularly posts photos of his favourite Hamilton haunts online.
“I’ve sort of made it my mission to show off Hamilton,” said Skulnick, who still commutes to Toronto. “The city is still fighting the image that the average Torontonian has of it, basically the view you get driving over the (Burlington) skyway. But if you take (Highway) 403 instead, you see that Hamilton is gorgeous.”
Skulnick’s blog documents his battle with Steeltown skeptics — including his own family.
“I think my mum had visions of her granddaughter living among the city’s two remaining steel mills, perhaps playing hide and seek in the coke ovens,” he wrote in his Aug. 9 post. “Imagine her surprise then, when instead of smokestacks and slag heaps, she was greeted with 100-year-old maple trees (and) gorgeous detached houses reminiscent of Toronto’s High Park.”
Skulnick was thrilled to see the online reaction to his blog included shared stories of fellow 416 emigrants to The Hammer.
But it’s hard to say just how many people follow in his footsteps every year.
The Realtors Association of Hamilton-Burlington doesn’t have statistics on incoming GTAers.
Statistics Canada released a study last year showing three Toronto residents migrate to a nearby municipality for every one moving in the opposite direction.
But the numbers, which date back to 2006, suggest most of those T.O. emigrants between the ages of 25 and 44 go to suburbs like Mississauga, Markham or Brampton. Hamilton is lumped into the “other” municipalities that received about 13 per cent of fleeing urbanites.
Colette Cooper figures we’re higher on the priority list today.
The broker with Judy Marsales Real Estate says the gradual rehabilitation of the downtown and Centre Mall are providing new destinations for homeseekers who don’t want to give up a vibrant city life for the ’burbs.
Cooper also highlighted the ongoing transformation of James Street North into an arts oasis, noting an area art gallery she is selling has attracted mostly Toronto-based inquiries.
“In the past, the North End was always considered a rough area,” she said. “You still have pockets of that … but the city really is changing, and that has really increased the value and desirability of moving here from Toronto.”
Still, Cooper warned that stories about shocking price comparisons between the two cities are “sometimes a little misleading.”
“You might have to look at an awful lot of houses in Hamilton to find your dream home for $150,000,” she said.
Those rare deals will be even harder to find if commuter train service improves and LRT becomes a reality, Cooper predicted. “Then you’ll see a real influx,” she said.
More frequent GO Trains would make a big difference for Kate Broad.
The Toronto bank asset manager bought and gutted a two-storey Victorian in the Corktown area of lower Hamilton for around $200,000 several months ago.
THE ART OF LIVING CHEAPLY
The 28-year-old spent 40 minutes each day on Toronto Transit while renting in Toronto. She reasoned an hour-long train ride from Hamilton wouldn’t be too much worse.
“Without GO, I wouldn’t have done it, period,” Broad said, who doesn’t own a car.
She thinks more frequent GO service and light rail — if it happens — can only help attract T.O. residents used to fast and frequent transit.
In fact, it may be required to keep her. Broad admitted the long commute and infrequent trains may push her back to Toronto, even though she’s barely finished renovating her beloved century-old home.
On the other hand, more job opportunities in Hamilton would cut long train or car rides out of the equation.
Mike Marini, marketing co-ordinator for Hamilton’s economic development department, said the city is more than a far-flung bedroom community.
“Yes, people say the price is right, but that’s not new. What people are noticing is we’re making gains in the arts and the economy,” said Marini. “I think the message is getting out there, for young professionals in particular, that the city is on the way up and you can be part of that change.”
Broad is one of the young professionals the city is targeting for its downtown renaissance.
And she does love Hamilton’s historic core.
“I can walk to the farmers’ market, all around the downtown, and I’m right at the base of the escarpment,” she said.
Whether you see it from the highway or the Bruce Trail, Hamilton’s green space ought to be a selling point, argued Chris Ecklund, a local businessman perhaps best known for promoting Hamilton as The City of Waterfalls.
“Torontonians visit every weekend and they can do math,” said the city booster. “You have the escarpment, plus the waterfront, plus all the rest of the natural beauty we have here — and you can buy a house for half the price you’d see (in Toronto).”
Ecklund makes a point of distributing waterfall-related swag and literature to real estate agents to help spread the message of Hamilton’s “hidden” wonders.
He even takes the message on the road to Torontonians.
His “Waterfall Bus” is primed to hit the Canadian National Exhibition this weekend.
It’s about changing attitudes, he said.
“Hamilton’s always fighting the ‘dirty, stinky thing’ right?” he said. “Our problem has always been image. Well, we’re changing that image.”
|