After spending the pandemic living and working in a 550-square-foot apartment in Toronto’s Junction Triangle, Ian Cable and his girlfriend Amy Stewart began searching the neighbourhood for more living space.

“We just looked at what it would take to buy a house, and it would have been within our means, but very, very stretched,” Mr. Cable says. “We would have been house-poor.”

Instead, the couple – who are both in their early 40s – moved two-and-a-half hours north to Ms. Stewart’s hometown of Owen Sound, settling into a modestly-sized three bedroom home on a one-acre lot. While the house cost a fraction of a similar property in Toronto, Mr. Cable says they’ve run into a few costs they hadn’t expected.

Since the pandemic struck, thousands of Canadians have left big cities in search of more room and affordable real estate. But moving to rural areas comes with unanticipated changes in living expenses, such as higher transportation costs, repairs and insurance

Read more: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/household-finances/article-moving-to-a-small-town-for-cheaper-housing-prepare-to-pay-more-to-get/

Toronto area condo rentals and sales have seen “a dramatic resurgence” from the pandemic in which condo sales initially slumped and tenants fled their apartments leaving landlords to struggle to fill the vacancies, reports the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB).

Citing the return of a seller’s market, the board said condo sales climbed 10.3 per cent in the last quarter, compared to the same period last year. Listings plummeted 31 per cent, however, pushing the average selling price up about 9 per cent to $689,831.

Read more: https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/10/29/condos-are-back-to-being-a-sellers-market-as-sales-rentals-rise-says-toronto-real-estate-board.html

The Canadian real estate slowdown is getting started, as another leading indicator fades. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) data shows building permit values fell in August. Since permits are for future activity, a decline means less building is coming. All the declines were due to a drop in residential permits, which has fallen sharply from its peak. While the drop is sharp, there’s no need to worry about supply concerns yet. Even at this reduced volume, the value of permits still exceeds pre-pandemic levels.

Read more: https://betterdwelling.com/canadian-real-estate-sees-another-leading-indicator-crash-over-20-from-peak/

Vancouver has been a presence on various lists of least-affordable housing for years, and now tops a survey released this month by Oxford Economics considering North America’s most expensive cities.

The group’s Housing Affordability Indices report concludes that “affordability deteriorated in nearly all U.S. and Canadian metros” in the second quarter of 2021. A typical Canadian house price hit 35 per cent above the borrowing capacity of median-income households, and in fact, results show a “more rapidly worsening affordability in Canada than in the U.S.,” Oxford says.

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-has-four-of-the-10-most-affordable-and-four-of-the-least-affordable-cities-in-north-america

The fact a Vancouver restaurant is offering $50,000 a year for a dishwashing job illustrates just how desperate some restaurants owners are for staff, said the director of the Richmond-based BC Asian Restaurant Café Owners Association.

A recent job posting titled “Effects of labour shortage, $50K per annum to wash dishes,” has gone viral on Reddit and WeChat. The job posting states, “pay per hour will be $25 for 40 hours per week. No experience or education is required, and training will be provided to the eligible candidates.”

Read more: https://www.richmond-news.com/local-news/50kyear-dishwashing-job-illustrates-desperation-in-restaurant-industry-4533006

Hypothetically asking, what will you do when it all over? I’m sure many of us have an ongoing to-do list for the end of COVID-19. Common entries among my peers are getting a haircut. dining out, travel and so on. Some are planning on taking advantage of the market, and investing before the prices bounce back.

My plan is to get my mind back into the game, while retaining all of the good habits I built up.   It will be a weird or hard transition from working from home to the co-called distant past of the regular work life.

The purchase of a home may be one of the biggest purchases and significant milestone for an individual especially when you are a first-time Home Buyer. If you are wanting to own a property, you will need to understand mortgages and regrettably in the world of mortgages for first-time Home Buyers, it may be a little intimidating. Just like you, we’ve been there.

April 2020 is definitely an unparalleled segment in history. The world economy has been dampen with sudden breaks due to a virus we can only hope was not synthetic. The paradox of human herd like cognitive decisions have left grocery stores and pharmacies nation wide with a shortage on Toilet paper on the racks, why?

It really originated from Australia, who imports $214.1 Billion USD in product a year. They don’t have many natural resources and lumber translated into toilet paper was definitely first on Aussies mind during a pandemic in case Imports were minimized or halted. How that even crossed Canadians as a need to hoard during a pandemic beats me and many more when we are the 2nd Largest Export Producer in the World for Lumber. Enough of the toilet paper talk, clearly and absurdity of “ #herdmentality ” definitely shouldn’t be a topic of comparison of currency, to stocks, and real estate investment. So which one in the GTA is a winner ? Lets take a closer look.

The TSX/S&P 500 and the Toronto Real Estate market has both be progressively positive on the long term landscape. The last 30 YRs Stocks have shown an avg positive appreciation of 8.3% and Real Estate 5.4%, straight off the bat you might think stocks out do real estate, lets put all my savings in stocks.