Two hot button topics in the world of real estate recently intersected in British Columbia’s Small Claims court, as the Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT) made its decision on a case where the use of virtual staging and edited photos in real estate listings came into conflict with BC’s Home Buyer Rescission Period Regulation (HBRPR).

The case was centered around a buyer named Braden Messenger and a seller named Mary Jonina Margaret Bell, who entered into a contract of purchase and sale (CPS) on May 18, 2023 for the purchase price of $490,000. Both parties do not dispute that Messenger did not view the property in-person before entering into the agreement.

The Greater Toronto Area real estate market is in turmoil with a glut of homes on the market and houses across the region selling at shocking losses.

The math here is grim: Our population went up by nearly 200,000, yet we started less than 38,000 homes, with the most common type being a one-bedroom or studio apartment. 

In June, Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) reported more than an 80% year-over-year increase in active condo listings. This month, the market continued in its lopsided fashion with July seeing a nearly 64% increase in active condo listings compared to the same month last year.

Active condo listings totalled 8,979 in July, reported TRREB, up from 5,416 in July 2023. On a broader scale, just last week, quarterly numbers showed that listings in Q2 2024 jumped a staggering 83.6% from the same six-month period in 2023.

At the same time, sales have been on the slump for months while condo prices have remained “sticky,” experts say. The result is that there is a surplus of inventory that isn’t becoming more appealing to would-be buyers anytime soon.

An increasing number of Quebec apartment listings ask potential tenants to disclose whether they have a file with the Tribunal administratif du logement, the provincial body created to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants.

Tenants’ rights advocates say landlords openly using records from Quebec’s housing tribunal against prospective renters is cause for concern.

CBC News has reviewed dozens of postings specifically spelling out that having any record with the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL) will influence your shot at getting the place.

Some landlords are considering any interaction with the TAL as a potential red flag. The TAL enforces housing law and protects both tenants and landlords’ rights.

For example, tenants often take landlords to the TAL if necessary maintenance isn’t done or to contest abusive rent hikes. Landlords can open a file at the TAL to evict a tenant.

All these records are available publicly.

Checking records is completely legal, but Lyn O’Donnell, a community organizer with the Verdun Housing Committee, says it can lead to a form of discrimination.

Real estate investment is a way of life in Vancouver, with investors – people who don’t reside in the homes they own – representing close to half of the condo market.

In recent years, Toronto has pretty much caught up, with a 28 per cent increase in all investor-owned condos from 2019 to 2022. Vancouver held steady, with a 10 per cent increase in the same time frame, according to new data from the Canadian Housing Statistics Program. In 2019, the CHSP began releasing data on properties that were “not owner occupied.” According to the new release, 43 per cent of Toronto condos are investor-owned. In Vancouver, it’s 46 per cent.

In raw numbers, Toronto’s investor-owned properties outnumber those of Vancouver. In 2022, Toronto investor condos numbered 140,435. In the city of Vancouver, the number was 47,585.

The extreme volatility experienced in global financial markets over the past week is having an immediate impact on Canadian interest rate forecasts—they’re falling like autumn leaves in a gusty wind.

TD, CIBC and BMO have led the way with their revised forecasts, with all now expecting the Bank of Canada to cut interest rates faster and deeper over the next 16 months.

Just a couple of weeks ago we reported on CIBC and TD’s interest rate forecasts, which predicted an additional 175 basis points (1.75 percentage points) worth of Bank of Canada rate cuts by the end of 2025.

Well, both banks have updated those forecasts and are now predicting 200 bps (two percentage points) worth of easing by the end of 2025. This would bring the overnight target rate down to 2.50%, a level last seen in the fall of 2022.

Updated forecasts from RBC, NBC and Scotia in light of last week’s market volatility have not yet been released but are expected to include downward revisions to the Bank of Canada’s overnight target rate.