Toronto Condo and Real Estate Blog

By Roma Luciw - Globe and Mail

A majority of home-owners still want to have paid off their homes by the time they retire, according to a survey that pegged the national average left on Canadians’ mortgages at $105,557.

A Royal Bank of Canada poll of 2,404 people taken in January by Ipsos Reid found that two-thirds think it’s “very important” to be mortgage-free by the time they stop working. Younger Canadians were more concerned with paying off that debt, with roughly 75% of respondents between 18 and 34 saying this was very important, compared with 59% of those over the age of 55.

The survey found that older Canadians are successfully paying down their mortgages leading up to retirement. Just over a third — 37% — of the over-55 age group still have a mortgage on their homes, down from 71% of those aged 45 to 54.

“Most Canadians still think it’s important to pay off their mortgage by the time they retire, and we see a huge jump in those that have paid it off once they hit 55,” said Catherine Adams, vice-president of Home Equity Financing for RBC.

Canada’s real estate market has been booming for five years, and although it has now passed its peak, prices have risen sharply across the country. RBC and the other Canadian banks have benefited from the sizzling pace of home buying, pulling in substantial profits from their mortgage lending businesses.

The poll also found that while the national average remaining on mortgages held by Canadians is $105,557, there were vast differences in the amount owed by the various generations. Not surprisingly, the largest amount, $144,056, is owed by those between the ages of 25 and 34. The boomers, many of whom bought their first houses decades ago, have an average remaining mortgage debt of $80,331.

The youngest Canadians were most likely to say they expected their home to be a primary source of retirement income — around a quarter of respondents between 18 and 34. That compared with just 13% of those over the age of 55.

Boomers with mortgages have the highest comfort level of all age groups with variable rate mortgages, the poll found, with 30% of respondents over the age of 55 saying they would choose a variable rate over a fixed. However, the vast majority of people of all ages said they preferred the security of a fixed rate.

As expected, boomers are also less likely to want to upsize their homes when considering a future property purchase. The poll also found that youngest and oldest Canadians are most likely to think about buying a condo or loft.

“We’re definitely starting to see the influence of boomers on the housing market,” Ms. Adams said. “Boomers may well be seeking the lifestyle flexibility to do some of the things they’re looking forward to in their retirement years, without the property upkeep concerns of a larger home.”

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By Carolyn Leitch - Globe and Mail

People who buy a house in downtown Toronto without parking quickly become contestants in the cut-throat game known as hunt for the perfect on-street spot.

Car owners who are able to nab a space on crowded side streets will then go to extraordinary lengths to keep it with aggressively positioned chairs, pleading hand-painted signs and barricades of mops and brooms.

Eventually their minds become so warped by the intensity of the competition that they perversely refuse to use their cars for fear of having to surrender the hard-earned spot.

That’s when installing a front-yard parking pad starts to look like a great idea. But caveat emptor: Homeowners and potential buyers should be aware that the city of Toronto is much less accommodating on the issue of paving over lawns to make parking pads than it used to be.

“I think the message that is being sent is that we want to preserve greenspace,” says Angie Antoniou, who carries the unwieldy title of manager, right-of-way management, in the city’s transportation services department. “A parking pad is a last resort.”

Bureaucratic Red Tape

Ms. Antoniou says only a handful of wards in the city will even accept applications for a permit to build a parking pad.

And a recently harmonized bylaw, which was passed on April 16, imposes stringent conditions in the few areas where parking pads are allowed.

Requirements include having a proper setback, working with existing trees and maintaining an open landscape.

If there is permit parking on the street, it must be more than 90% subscribed for the application to even be considered, and neighbours must be polled in rounds of petitions.

Ms. Antoniou says the city hopes to have an Internet website running soon to explain the rules.

The homeowner must pay an application fee of $288.30 including GST, plus the cost of installation and access and other fees.

The annual renewal fee is $131.82 but the city is looking at raising that in 2008.

Councillor Gord Perks of Ward 14 directs his staff not to issue permits for new parking pads in Parkdale-High Park.

The pads actually have the effect of reducing total parking spacestreet parking because the necessary curb cut takes away a spot on the road, he says.

“For 24 hours a day, the only person who can park in front of your house is you.”

Mr. Perks points out that pavement is bad for the environment because more dirty water ends up in sewer systems and flooded basements instead of being absorbed into the lawn.

While trees and grass cool the air, asphalt and brick reflect the baking sun.

“You’re heating the city up with every new parking pad.”

The councillor says one pad benefits one home but a row of parking pads is actually a detriment to all of the neighbouring houses. “The whole character of the street is changed.”

Mr. Perks says his office has fielded a few complaints but the majority of people in his ward are in favour of his stance.

He hopes that more wards will ban parking pads.

“It’s certainly my hope that all the councillors wake up to this issue.”

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By Heidi Sopinka - Globe and Mail

If you feel as though no one else understands your overly close relationship with the cat, you’re not alone.

The kingdom of one is the fastest-growing type of household in Canada, climbing from 2% to more than 14% in the past 50 years, with the figures steadily rising.

The new solo-living cohort are young (25 to 44), far more flush than the thrifty jar-reusing widows that once ruled the one-person roost and, as it turns out, the biggest consumers of energy, land and household goods.

Now that their numbers are shooting up, people who live alone represent what Joanna Williams, a sustainable development professor at University College London, calls “an environmental time bomb.”

From washers and dryers to toasters and television sets, singletons burn through just over twice as much energy per capita as those who live in a four-person household.

According to the Recycling Council of Ontario, every Canadian throws away almost half a kilogram of plastic packaging a day - a figure that snowballs in the one-person household once the increased per-capita consumption and the gobbling up of takeout and single-serving foods are factored in.

For the eco-minded and unattached who aren’t looking to bed down to do their part for the planet, Penny Gurstein of the school of community and regional planning at the University of British Columbia points to the Canadian Cohousing Network (cohousing.ca), modelled after a 1964 Danish community-based project that had residents build individual homes clustered around a “common house” with shared amenities, thereby reducing the ecological footprint.

Ms. Gurstein also recommends the Vancouver Community Kitchen Project (communitykitchens.ca), which offers “a way for people to get together to cook in large quantities and then parcel it out. You get something like seven meals doing it as a group, or you can eat together.”

The communal Kumbaya life is a tough sell for your average single urbanite. Besides, shoehorned into their 600-square-foot lofts and often living close to the office, they in some ways actually have a leg up on the smug marrieds with children living out in the sprawl. As professor William Rees, a population ecologist at UBC and originator of the phrase and methodology behind the “ecological footprint” suggests, having loved and lost might be worse for the planet than never having loved at all.

“Let’s say a professional family breaks up with mom and pop going their separate ways but sharing the kids. Now there are two households, but the same number of people. With a doubling of households, the energy needed per capita to manufacture, operate and maintain twice as many appliances and automobiles increases. This means that the per-capita eco-footprint rises even faster.”

Short of mating for life or joining a commune, if you happen to be unattached and environmentally conscious, it may be time to test your horse sense and peruse the classifieds: Eco-friendly person seeks like-minded roommate to lessen ecological footprint. Must be cat positive.

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