Stephen Dupuis – Toronto Sun

When the world’s most influ­en­tial lead­ers gath­ered in Toronto for last weekend’s G20 sum­mit, I couldn’t help but won­der how they view our city’s eco­nomic struc­ture, par­tic­u­larly the hous­ing market’s impact on the national econ­omy, assum­ing of course that they can see any­thing over the fences and barricades.

While I’m not an expert on the real estate indus­try in China or Saudi Ara­bia, I can bet that their hous­ing mar­kets dif­fer con­sid­er­ably from that of Toronto.

Solid invest­ment

So much, in fact, that it’s no won­der that a lot of the new devel­op­ments in our city are viewed as solid invest­ments in coun­tries in Europe, Asia and the Mid­dle East.

While some inter­na­tional buy­ers can invest in mul­ti­ple prop­er­ties in their home coun­tries, many opt for the much more afford­able option of invest­ing in new homes in Toronto.

For­eign investors see the value of hav­ing a healthy, sta­ble Cana­dian hous­ing market.

In fact, I wouldn’t be the least bit sur­prised if some of the attend­ing finance min­is­ters might be tempted to snap up a pent­house or suite in the down­town core.

Pric­ing is afford­able, while construction-related job cre­ation is aver­ag­ing around 170,000 per year over the last five years in the GTA alone.

Tax bonanza

In fact, by the end of this year, the fed­eral and provin­cial gov­ern­ments will col­lect $4.5 bil­lion in tax rev­enue thanks to the hous­ing indus­try, which is no small pota­toes no mat­ter what coun­try you’re from.

I expect that num­ber to grow with the newly imple­mented Har­mo­nized Sales Tax (best known as the HST) tak­ing effect next Thursday.

Despite the finan­cial impact this tax will have on new home buy­ers, the demand was still strong as buy­ers snapped-up 3,004 new homes and con­do­mini­ums in the GTA in May.

While I don’t know how many of these pur­chases were made by for­eign investors, I can tell you that some of the newly launched high-rise devel­op­ments in the city have surely gar­nered some inter­na­tional atten­tion.

Among world’s best

This is evi­dent by the tremen­dous out­come of this year’s National Sales and Mar­ket­ing Awards in Las Vegas, where Toronto home builders picked up 25% of the awards, over­tak­ing a pre­dom­i­nantly Amer­i­can ros­ter among other inter­na­tional nom­i­nees. This just goes to show you that our indus­try can take on the best in the world and still come out on top.

Where other coun­tries have strug­gled, Cana­di­ans have flour­ished and despite what some sources will tell you, expert analy­sis has shown that there is no bub­ble on the horizon.

A strong recov­ery from the global finan­cial cri­sis a few years ago was a sturdy indi­ca­tor that our hous­ing indus­try is well reg­u­lated to a point that it can sur­vive an eco­nomic decline and bounce back rel­a­tively quickly, lead­ing the way to a sta­ble econ­omy.

Healthy relationships

Orga­ni­za­tions such as the Canada Mort­gage and Hous­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, Tar­ion War­ranty Cor­po­ra­tion and BILD have a healthy rela­tion­ship with indus­try lead­ers and var­i­ous lev­els of gov­ern­ment to ensure a good work ethic. The end result is a hous­ing mar­ket that pro­vides a pos­i­tive impact to not only the econ­omy as a whole, but to all par­ties involved. This weekend’s guests bet­ter take note!

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