Spencer Group Inc., Realty Brokerage's blog

Would you believe this just one year ago?
The vacancy rate of rental apartment buildings built in the City of Toronto since 2005 shot up to a 50-year high of 5.7% in the fourth quarter of 2020, from 1.1% the year before, reports Urbanation, a GTA rental researcher.
Average rents in the city for these apartments have fallen 10% to $2,337 from the year before.

If you're not in the market for buying or renting a single-family home, a condo or apartment in Toronto is the option for you — and luckily, the city has tons of them, and they're going for cheaper than they have in a long time right now.
But what exactly are the key differences between the two very similar housing types?

Canadians are the most bullish on real estate in at least a decade, weekly telephone polling shows, helping to stoke consumer confidence.
About 52 percent of respondents see home prices rising over the next six months, according to a survey by Nanos Research Group for Bloomberg News. That’s the highest level for this question since regular polling began in 2008.

Vrbo, the short-term vacation-rental platform owned by travel giant Expedia Group, has announced that it's quitting Toronto for good. 
The Airbnb competitor that allowed users to book condos, cabins, and beach houses has decided to exit the market thanks to the City's crackdown on short-term rentals.

The Ontario Court of Appeal (the "Court of Appeal") released its decision in 7636156 Canada Inc. (Re), 2020 ONCA 681 on October 28, 2020. The Court of Appeal clarified the law regarding a landlord's entitlement to draw on a letter of credit where the underlying lease has been disclaimed by a trustee. Overturning the lower court decision, the Court of Appeal held the landlord was entitled to draw down on the entire principal of the letter of credit pursuant to its terms and the terms of the disclaimed lease between the parties.

Tacking the GTA housing crisis?
A Toronto architecture studio is currently working on a new kind of development that just might help solve the city's never-ending housing crisis.

Difficult to understand: despite the pandemic’s punch to the region’s economy in 2020, the average selling price of a home in the Toronto area hit a record high last year of $929,699.
This is the 13.5 percent increase over 2019’s average of $819,279 was led by single-family homes where limited supply helped push prices north.
The 905 areas outside Toronto saw the most pronounced price and sales gains, the real estate board said on Wednesday.

Good news ahead?
Christmas is traditionally a real estate dead zone. But this year — of all years — Realosophy president John Pasalis said the agents at his Leslieville brokerage were busy right up to the holidays.
Some of that activity suggests that Toronto’s condo recovery may already be underway.

Here is your rental market update:
Rents in the city of Toronto continued to tumble in November — down 20 percent year over year.
But it is forecasting a four percent rise in the average Toronto rent next year as the pandemic, hopefully, begins to loosen its grip on the housing market.
Rents for one-bedroom apartments have declined in Toronto every month since January, says the report.

I have mixed feelings about this entire decision wording:
A recent case involving a real estate transaction gone awry confirmed an often-used but seldom successful remedy; namely, that a written contract can be voided based on a prior oral representation. In Issa v. Wilson, 2020 ONCA 756, the Ontario Court of Appeal affirmed that a buyer can get out of an Agreement of Purchase and Sale when they were induced into entering the contract by misleading information.