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Homes close to transit also good investments, real estate experts say

Whether it’s a condo in the city or a detached home in the suburbs, homebuyers looking for the best bargains should turn their sights to the east and west, industry experts advise.

David and Gilma Simon recently sold a home in Port Hope and moved to Oshawa, which offers the least expensive homes in the GTA.

The average sales price in Oshawa last month was $221,464 – significantly lower than the average GTA price of $394,000 or the Toronto average of $432,000, according to figures from the Toronto Real Estate Board.

The Simon family only has one car and, between David’s trips to work at the Darlington nuclear plant and shuttling Gilma to classes at Durham Continuing Education three times a week, all that driving was getting costly. The couple also felt that job prospects might be better in the GTA for Gilma, who emigrated from Panama.

The couple looked in Ajax and Whitby, where all they could find in their price range were townhouses. In Oshawa, they could get a detached home for the same money.

“We wanted an old-growth neighbourhood with mature trees and a street that wasn’t too active for traffic, as well as access to amenities such as shopping and nature,” David explains. “Transit was another consideration. And Oshawa feels like it has its own identity and sense of community, instead of being just a bedroom community.”

The 1980, three-bedroom backsplit they purchased for $241,000 meets all those criteria: it’s close to three parks, a walking trail, a wealth of stores, a bus stop and good schools for Gilma’s 13-year-old son.

Although it does have the cheapest real estate, Oshawa also has the dubious honour of the highest property taxes in the GTA.

For example, for a home valued at $275,000, a homeowner will pay $4,157 in taxes this year. That’s mainly due to the city’s heavy investment in replacing aging infrastructure.

But Maureen O’Neill, president of the Toronto Real Estate Board, feels Oshawa is an area that is “really going to go, ” noting GO train service offers convenient commuting for downtown workers.

Bowmanville, just east of Oshawa, also offers good value, with an average price of $238,000.

On the other side of the GTA, Milton continues to boom as the fastest-growing community in Canada, according to Statistics Canada.

“It’s popular, not just because of affordability but it’s close to the country. People who buy there like land,” says O’Neill. The average house price there is about $347,000.

However, O’Neill suggests anyone considering a home in suburban areas should test their commute to work for five days before making a decision.

“Burlington’s not bad if you work downtown,” she says. The average price there is $323,000 and sales last month were up 18 per cent over March 2007. “You get a lot of house and good value and you have a GO station. Anywhere near the GO, like Clarkson and Port Credit, is a good bet, too.”

O’Neill is also optimistic about Mimico’s prospects: “It’s going to go and it’s by the lake. The houses are older and you can buy one for about $400,000.”

In the city itself, O’Neill says neighbourhoods such as Corktown, Parkdale and Roncesvalles have become very popular, “when you couldn’t give a house away there three or four years ago.” Areas such as the Beach and Riverdale continue to be hot, although prices there are steep.

For condo buyers, O’Neill says the Bloor Street corridor continues to be popular, as well as Queen and King Streets.

The lakeshore and Harbourfront are also showing “tremendous stats,” she says, as well as the St. Lawrence Market area. But downtown, it’s tough to find anything for less than $350 per square foot, and that would be for low-end, small units.

She says good condo buys can often be found along the city’s border with the 905 regions.

There are also many good condo projects in the downtown west market, according to Jane Renwick, editor and executive vice-president of Urbanation, a research firm that publishes a quarterly report tracking the GTA condo market.

She says first-time buyers might consider looking to Liberty Village, a former industrial area under revitalization, where there’s a mix of new construction and conversion projects.

“It’s perfect for first-time buyers, retail is picking up there and it’s an area with character that has an urban feel,” she says. To the east of downtown, several new projects are underway in Corktown, the Distillery District and Queen St. E.

“The thing about staying a little bit east or west of the downtown is the pricing is a little less,” she says. Just east of downtown, expect to pay about $436 per square foot for a new condo and $491 in downtown west, compared to $674 in the downtown core. (Based on figures from the end of 2007).

If money is no object, suites in the Bloor/Yorkville area are commanding $1,282 per square foot.

For investors, Renwick says the best bets are the downtown core or the North York city centre. “There are a lot of rentals in North York and it’s close to the transportation hub,” she explains.

Scarborough had few new launches in 2007, though it is “a great option from an affordability standpoint,” says Renwick, with new suites selling for an average of $332 per square foot.

Mississauga was also quiet in 2007, with only two new launches, but look for a flurry of activity this year, says Renwick.

Other hot condo markets will be the upscale neighbourhoods of Rosedale, Forest Hill and Summerhill, as empty nesters looking for less maintenance than their detached homes look for alternatives to stay in the area.

What you get for $380,000 in …

MILTON

Three-bedroom, 2- 1/2-bath, two-storey detached brick home with 9-foot ceilings, hardwood floors and 1,990 sq. ft. On a 36- by 80-foot lot directly across from a park.

MARKHAM

Five bedroom, three-level 2,500-square-foot brick and stucco semi-detached home in Cornell. Cathedral foyer, 9-foot ceilings, upgraded cabinetry, single-car garage.

DOWNTOWN

One bedroom plus den condo in the Waterclub, with a solarium, two baths and a walkout to a terrace. One parking spot included. Maintenance fees: $447/month.

OSHAWA

Three-bedroom, two-bath brick bungalow, with crown mouldings, hardwood flooring, double-car garage, formal dining room and interlocking patio on a 50- by 112-foot lot.

– by Tracy Hanes of the Toronto Star

The following post is by Mike Cluett. Please visit Mike Cluett’s Milton blog

I was able to take sometime tonight to attend a Milton Town Council meeting and as the old saying goes…

Breaking news!!!!

Milton CAO Mario Belvedere is making a presentation to council about the proposed education village in Milton. During his report he made official that Wilfred Laurier University has entered into a memorandum of uderstanding to work on bringing a campus to Milton.

The proposed site would be on Tremaine Road south of Derry Road and north of Brittania on the west side.

There’s still a lof of work to be done to get this rolling more but its the first step to bringing a university to our town…

To continue reading this column, go to Mike Cluett’s Milton Blog.

How much tax on a $380,000 house in the GTA? Location plays big part in your tax bill…

Homeowners who live in the aging industrial city of Oshawa pay the highest property taxes in the GTA, while those who live in Toronto and Milton – the country’s fastest-growing community – pay among the lowest municipal taxes, a Toronto Star survey has found.

As Toronto City Council begins final debate today on a budget that includes a proposed 3.75 per cent tax hike, we’re taking a comparative look at tax rates and what drives them in the 25 municipalities that make up Greater Toronto.

The large disparity in property tax rates across the GTA is an indication of the very different challenges faced by the 25 municipalities that make up the most densely populated region of Canada.

The survey showed, among other things:

Oshawa’s high taxes are a testament to the unique difficulties faced by a city best known for General Motors as it grapples with a confluence of aging infrastructure, low property values and increased capital costs.

Homeowners in Durham Region municipalities such as Ajax, Pickering, Whitby, Oshawa and Clarington continue to pay significantly higher taxes than those in Peel, York and Halton – regions that also seem better positioned to draw business and commercial taxes.

Toronto manages to have it both ways, charging both the GTA’s highest industrial-commercial taxes and the region’s lowest residential property taxes.

Many rural municipalities, such as Uxbridge, Scugog and Georgina, struggle with high taxes while facing the problem of a small assessment base (both residential and industrial-commercial) and little prospect for growth as a result of the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan and the newly protected Greenbelt.

The survey also found that Toronto and Oshawa, which represent extremes on the tax spectrum, are grappling with the underlying issues in their own unique ways.

In Toronto, where the financial burden is borne more heavily by the commercial-industrial sector, a 15-year plan that began in 2005 is gradually shifting more of the tax responsibility onto homeowners.

Meanwhile, Oshawa has embarked on an ambitious infrastructure investment plan, especially in its downtown core, hoping to capitalize on growth from new business and families seeking modestly priced homes.

One reason city-by-city comparisons are difficult is that the same amount of money buys “less house” in Toronto than in a place like Oshawa. On the other hand, a home with equivalent assessed value draws a far bigger tax bill in Oshawa than Toronto.

So the Star compared property taxes in two ways: First, by comparing what’s considered an “average” home within each of the region’s 25 municipalities; second, on a single property value ($380,000) applied across all the municipalities.

Torontonians pay taxes to a single entity: the city. In other places, residents pay both a city and a regional tax. For the sake of comparison, we blended those taxes proportionately. (The education tax, which is uniform and set by the province, appears on the municipal tax bill but isn’t included in this comparison.)

Oshawa regards an “average” home there to be valued at $275,000. At that assessed value, the homeowner will pay $4,157.56 in taxes in 2008, the Star found. That is:

$1,350 more per year than for an average Mississauga home ($365,000)

$939.90 more than for an average home in Vaughan ($412,070), and

$1,901.31 more than for an average Toronto home ($369,300).

We also compared taxes based on an across-the-board home value of $380,000, a figure chosen randomly by the Star.

On a home of that value in Oshawa, the owner’s municipal/regional taxes would be $5,744.86. That’s $2,822.01 more than on a similarly priced Mississauga home and $3,423.34 more than on a similarly priced Toronto home.

Chris Brown, Oshawa’s director of finance, acknowledges that residents in his city face significantly higher taxes than others, but says it’s caused by a confluence of events, including low property values and the fact that the city has made a long-term decision to invest heavily in infrastructure projects.

“We are in a major investment time frame right now,” says Brown. “There’s a cost to that, but we hope there’s a payoff down the road.”

The investments include a plan to revitalize the downtown core with the $45 million GM Centre, the $39 million Legend Centre, a provincial courthouse and a new fire hall.

Oshawa has even implemented special incentives to encourage companies to build residential and commercial buildings downtown – waiving lucrative development charges in hopes that benefits will come later.

“This type of investment attracts assessment,” says Brown. “If assessment increases, individual taxes could go down in the future.”

The situation is vastly different in other suburban municipalities, such as Milton, where booming development is helping to pay for new infrastructure. Its location along Highway 401 between Toronto and the U.S. border makes Milton attractive to business.

Milton’s population grew by 71.4 per cent in the previous five years, according to Statistics Canada figures released last year, making it the fastest-growing community in Canada, while Oshawa grew by a paltry 1.8 per cent, only slightly higher than built-out Toronto’s 0.9 per cent increase.

Companies like Magna, which established a stamping plant in Milton, and Whirlpool, which recently picked the area as its new distribution facility for the eastern seaboard, boost the community’s bottom line.

“We feel blessed,” says Milton Mayor Gordon Krantz. “We are well positioned geographically. We are three hours from the Windsor border.”

Ajax Mayor Steve Parish says one reason Durham Region’s suburban municipalities have higher taxes is that the region has not been as successful in attracting a healthy industrial-commercial tax base.

“In the case of places like Mississauga and Vaughan, one real driver that attracts industry is the proximity to the airport,” Parish adds. “It’s a big driver.”

Milton’s commercial business tax rate is just 2.32 per cent, the lowest in the GTA, while Vaughan’s is 2.39 per cent.

Oshawa’s commercial business tax rate stands at 3.58 per cent, much closer to Toronto’s 4.09 per cent.

– by Phinjo Gombu of the Toronto Star

University grads prefer Richmond Hill and Oakville, but Milton has gained the most between 2001 and 2006

The municipalities of Richmond Hill and Oakville have the highest percentages of residents with university degrees, diplomas or certificates in the Greater Toronto Area, according to data from the 2006 census released yesterday by Statistics Canada.

About 42 per cent of the residents in both towns hold university degrees at the bachelor’s level or above. Richmond Hill officials, including deputy mayor Brenda Hogg, expressed surprise at the numbers.

“York Region has always had a high percentage of well-educated residents. I did not realize that so many were situated in Richmond Hill!” Ms. Hogg wrote in an e-mail.

The two municipalities have a greater proportion of university grads than Toronto, where about 37 per cent have degrees. But the big city needn’t feel intellectually inferior - it leapfrogged over Markham for third place in the region.

All four municipalities rank well ahead of the national and provincial averages - only 23 per cent of Canadians hold university degrees, and only 31 per cent of Ontarians.

The booming town of Milton gained the most university grads between the census tallies of 2001 and 2006. About 28 per cent of Milton residents had university degrees in 2006, up from 23 per cent in 2001.

Where the scholars are:

Percentage of residents in 2006 with a university certificate, diploma or degree:

Richmond Hill 42%
Oakville 41.5%
Toronto 37.4%
Markham 36.8%
Aurora 35.8%
Mississauga 33.9%
Vaughan 30.8%
ONTARIO AVERAGE 30.7%
Burlington 30.3%
Milton 28.0%
Newmarket 26.3%
Whitby 24.5%
Pickering 23.7%
CANADIAN AVERAGE 23.0%
Ajax 22.3%
Brampton 21.4%
Caledon 21.3%
Oshawa 12.1%

– By Megan Grittani-Livingston of the Globe and Mail; Source: Statistics Canada

The global movement to step out of the artificial light and into complete darkness – to draw attention to climate change – is snowballing across the country.

Since the launch of the Toronto Star’s countdown to Earth Hour, cities across the country have been signing up. Montreal has announced its intention to join up and Sarnia, Ontario has also been welcomed to the campaign.

“I’ve been a great believer that governments are too slow on moving on these issues,” said Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley. “Here is a way of getting a lot of people involved at no cost.”

Participation is as simple as turning off your lights – between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on March 29.

Bradley pointed out that Earth Hour is not all about sacrifice. “I also think it’s going to have a very positive impact on national unity because Canadians from coast to coast can all shut off Don Cherry all at the same time.”

Among those Canadians are the residents of Halton Region and Mississauga who also officially committed to the project this week.

Mississauga Councillor George Carlson said since the campaign was announced Mayor Hazel McCallion and the 11 councillors were 100 per cent on board.

“In fact some of them wanted to jump in with both feet and do things like turning out the street lights and shutting down recreation centres,” he said.

Their plan is to work with local environmental groups to get the message out and shut down as many lights as possible, including many at City Hall, he said.

“We unanimously supported it, which is a nice change for council.”

Sarnia, as Bradley points out, already has several green initiatives on the go. It has the largest solar farm in North America and one of the largest biofuel plants in the country, he said.

Bradley said if people were really realistic about problems with power shortages and air quality, “I could see an hour every day.”

– by Emily Mathieu of the Toronto Star

The following post is by Mike Cluett. Please visit Mike Cluett’s Milton blog site here:

A couple of days ago, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty released his third budget. This is something unheard of for a minority government being able to have this many budgets without being defeated. In many cases, they’re doing a good job and while most Canadians don’t want an election, they seem comfortable with our MP’s in this minority situation.

Here are a couple of items that I pulled from the budget. All in all, it is a pretty sound plan for the coming years. Some of the big highlights for towns and cities are as follows:

To continue reading this column, go to Mike Cluett’s Milton Blog.

Many municipalities require residents to buy tags if they want to throw out extra garbage bags

Toronto’s user-pay system for garbage is a departure from the way waste is collected in surrounding municipalities.

Unlike Toronto, many 905 municipalities continue to use a system limiting the number of bags you may leave at the curb, with tags required if you want to throw out more.

Some municipalities take a gentle approach.

In Markham, for example, which boasts a 70 per cent diversion rate, residents have a three-bag limit per household, with biweekly collection. Those who want to throw out more -garbage need to get a tag from city hall – but it’s free.

The point of making residents go to the effort of getting the tag is to “make people think” about what they are putting out, said town spokesperson Catherine Harrison.

“Failure to comply is not an issue in Markham,” Harrison said. “We have not charged anyone.”

Other municipalities such as Mississauga, Brampton, Caledon (maximum two bags per week), Vaughan (three bags every two weeks), Ajax, Pickering and Oshawa (four bags every two weeks) force residents to pay for that extra bag, charging $1 to $1.50 per tag.

In Halton Region, residents are moving from a generous six-bag weekly collection system to bi-weekly collection, starting in April with the rollout of a green bin program.

Put out more than six, and city officials gently explain the importance of not doing it.

Ignore the warning and you’ll have to cart your extra garbage to a transfer station yourself. Ignore it further and you could get charged with a bylaw offence with a set fine of $90.

Peel Region’s waste management director, Andrew Pollock, said that in Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon, almost 91 per cent of homes respect the bag limits.

There has been talk, but no decision yet, on reducing bag limits or going biweekly to encourage more diversion.

Durham Region spokesperson Katherine Ross-Perron said Toronto’s approach is to treat garbage like any other utility by forcing users to pay proportionately and taking collection off the tax rolls. She said that in the surrounding regions, it’s likely that garbage collection will continue to be covered by property taxes.

– by Phinjo Gombu

Ron Cauchi, president of Mattamy Homes’ Stelumar Advanced Manufacturing plant, shows off the enormous facility, which can handle the construction of 10 houses at any given time.

Weather problems don’t affect construction since these houses are assembled indoors

It’s a bitter and blustery day on the western edge of Milton; with the wind chill it feels like -18C.

But Brent Bennett is without hat, coat or gloves as he works to install windows and doors in a house under construction.

That’s because Bennett and his co-workers at Mattamy Homes’ Stelumar Advanced Manufacturing plant are building homes indoors, for the nearby Hawthorne Village on the Escarpment site.

Bennett, the lead hand in back framing, has worked in construction for 21 years all over Canada and has had to contend with a variety of conditions, such as “being up to your knees in muck one day on site and then having it all frozen over the next day.

“And we all have to deal with shovelling our driveways, but just imagine having to shovel out a construction site.”

In comparison, he says, building a home in a factory is heaven.

“There are no rain days, no snow days. It’s climate controlled. There’s an advantage to working with dry lumber.”

The cavernous Stelumar facility on Tremaine Rd. south of Derry Rd. produces a new house a day and 10 are in various stages of progress at any one time. Each day at 4 a.m., the moving production line advances the houses – 600,000 pounds worth – to the next work station.

Since it was launched last summer, more than 60 houses have rolled off the Stelumar line and on to waiting foundations. As many as 220 houses a year will be built there over four years.

“Six months ago, this was pretty hot-off-the-press stuff. We didn’t even know if we could do this,” says Stelumar president Ron Cauchi.

There were a few bugs to work out. Initially, the skidding system that moves the homes down the line wasn’t able to handle the weight of 10 houses and needed adjusting, and the roof-hoisting mechanism, which allows for roofs to be fully assembled on the floor and then lifted into place, needed to be developed.

While factory-built homes aren’t a new phenomenon in North America, this facility is a breed apart. Unlike modular builders, which build their homes in sections, then ship the pieces to the site for assembly, the Stelumar homes roll off the line in one piece, with cabinetry, light fixtures, electrical and plumbing systems, and even paint already in place.

“This has nothing to do with modular,” Cauchi says. “These houses are extremely architecturally complex with multiple roof lines, dormers, wraparound porches and lofts.”

Then, there’s the way they are shipped, on a specialized, motorized transporter.

“There’s another difference from modular homes, which are put on a flatbed truck and shipped to a site,” Cauchi says. “This is a pretty complex piece of machinery. It’s like the platform that carries the space shuttle to the launch pad.”

For the one-kilometre, 15-minute journey from factory to building lot, the homes are shipped on a private road within the Mattamy site. The houses could be sent along public roads, Cauchi says, but it would require permits, police escorts and disruption of traffic to accommodate the wide, slow-moving load.

About 200 of 300 homes slated for 36- and 46-foot lots at Hawthorne Village on the Escarpment are being built at Stelumar, and the designs are identical to the homes being built on site. (Homebuyers don’t get to choose whether their homes will be site-built or factory- produced.) Eighteen different models are being produced, each with up to six different elevations.

“There are three, first-floor layouts typically and three choices of second floors, with options like bay or bow kitchen windows and second-floor laundry rooms,” Cauchi says. “It’s pretty darn close to custom building. The choices buyers have are mind-boggling. It’s not at all cookie-cutter manufacturing.”

Cauchi says there are various reasons why Mattamy, the province’s largest builder, has taken to factory building, as well as continuing to construct the conventional way. (Cauchi is quick to add that the site-built homes are of comparable quality.)

“The primary driver is customer satisfaction. It’s (Mattamy CEO) Peter Gilgan’s passion,” Cauchi says. One of the biggest issues with consumers is reliability of closing date, he says, and the factory approach means construction is not affected by weather conditions that cause delays on conventional building sites. “You can keep building even in a blizzard.”

There’s also the issue of quality – in a factory environment, building materials aren’t being exposed to the elements, which may cause lumber to warp. And timing is dead on. Because temperature and humidity can be controlled indoors, drywall mud, for example, dries exactly when it’s supposed to.

The factory approach shaves 70 days off building a house the conventional way – a new home can be turned out from the factory every 11 days. Another two to five weeks are allotted to complete the on-site work, such as bricking the house, steps, porches, hooking up utilities and landscaping. (Building code regulations and weight issues require bricks to be installed on site.)

At the plant, workers have a safe, comfortable environment, don’t have to worry about losing income or making up time due to weather and their tools are in the same location, day after day. The problems of construction site theft are eliminated. And because the workers (100 building crew and 15 office staff) are Mattamy employees, the builder doesn’t have to rely on outside trades.

Currently, it costs more for Mattamy to build the houses indoors than on site, but Cauchi says Stelumar’s mandate is not to cut costs – it’s about improving customer satisfaction and serving as a research and development lab for new technologies and products.

“Today, it operates at a premium but tomorrow, the plan is for a customer satisfaction at neutral cost; to produce the homes at the same cost as on site.”

Mattamy launched a pilot factory in Cambridge a few years ago where homes were built inside an old aircraft hangar.

Those houses were built exactly as they would have been on-site and finished only to the drywall stage before being shipped out. The line didn’t move and trades had to be scheduled, rather than working simultaneously at designated work stations.

Mattamy continues to operate a manufacturing facility in Cambridge, which supplies Milton’s plant with prefabricated wall and floor panels.

The walls are built on 24-inch centres rather than the usual 16, but are stronger because of the rigid polyurethane foam insulation. Value engineering (designing products at the lowest cost while maintaining quality) and computerized design and manufacture allow for optimized load bearing through aligned floor joists, studs and roof trusses, Cauchi says. The timberframe structure itself is more than strong enough to meet requirements. The rigid foam adds a structural strength bonus.

The engineered design also maximizes heating and cooling efficiency as ducts from the basement furnace can be lined up to run straight up to the attic, cutting the distance hot or cool air has to travel.

Rigid foam insulation is usually found only in high-end custom homes, Cauchi says. It would be cost-prohibitive for Mattamy to hire people to spray foam in site-built homes, but the prefabricated panels used in the plant are cheaper. Fewer wall studs and tightly controlling waste mean the Stelumar homes use 25 per cent less lumber. Over the factory’s four-year life span, producing 800 to 900 homes, an estimated 40-hectare woodlot will be saved, Cauchi says.

When Hawthorne Village is finished, the factory will be recycled, disassembled, then set up at another Mattamy site.

Several such factories are in future Mattamy plans, though locations have not yet been announced. Cauchi says they will be large sites with hundreds of lots.

All Hawthorne Village homes are built to Energy Star standard. “In fact, these are better insulated than Energy Star,” he says.

BY THE NUMBERS

220
Number of houses the Mattamy factory can produce annually. Ten are in production at any one time, with one new house produced every 11 days.

76,000
Factory size in square feet.

115
Employees at the plant.

70
Number of days shaved off conventional site building.

1
Kilometre between factory and building lots.

600,000
Weight in pounds of a fully loaded production line.

25
Percentage of lumber saved over site-built homes, due to tight control of waste and reduced need for wall studs.

5
Similar plants Mattamy is considering for the GTA over the next five years. Milton plant will be disassembled and moved to a new site.

Written By: Tracy Hanes of the Toronto Star