TORONTO – Ontario will start tiptoeing back to normalcy Monday, allowing a small list of mostly seasonal businesses to reopen as the spread of COVID-19 slows. Premier Doug Ford announced the plan on Friday and said it should be seen as a “glimmer of hope” that the province’s efforts to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus are working. The businesses include ...Read More

The real estate industry is now in a state of paralysis with households among the world's most indebted, poorly placed to weather the storm Canadian housing once seemed so infallible that the head of the world’s biggest asset manager in 2015 described Vancouver condos as a better store of wealth than gold. The coronavirus is putting that theory to the test. While lockdowns, job losses...Read More

Canada’s largest real estate market “hit the brakes” in the last full week of March as sales plunged and sellers pulled listings in the face of the COVID-19 crisis, according to a Toronto-based realtor. What had been a gradual softening in Greater Toronto Area sales after a strong February turned decidedly negative last week, with sales down 37 per cent compared to the same peri...Read More

Best case scenario forecast shows Canada’s aggregate home price could grow a modest 1% by the end of 2020 If the pandemic continues to heavily restrict business activity through late summer, a national home price decrease of 3% is expected by the end of 2020 The aggregate price of a home in Canada climbed 4.4 per cent year-over-year in Q1 2020 High demand and low inventory in Toronto, M...Read More

Data released earlier this month by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) gave us the first glimpse of the huge blow the COVID-19 pandemic would deliver to the city’s housing market. After a strong showing in the first half of March, Toronto home sales fell 16 percent in the second half of the month when compared to the same period in 2019. While the market still emerged from March...Read More

Normally practicing a 'nesting' arrangement with ailing ex-wife, failure to be candid on health practices gets dad temporarily ousted An Ontario man has effectively been barred from his matrimonial home after a family law judge found that he was not taking the risks that COVID-19 posed to his children seriously enough. The case, heard March 31 by Justice Adriana Doyle of the family divis...Read More

TORONTO -- An Ontario man said he was relieved to learn that his 89-year-old mother, who is living at a Markham, Ont. long-term care home in the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak, has recovered from the virus. Margaret McCormick, who suffers from dementia and is living in Markhaven Home For Seniors, started to develop a mild fever and cough early last month. The family learned she had been placed in i...Read More

Real estate listings are drying up, open houses have been canceled, and buyers are staying home. One more pillar of the Canadian economy is under threat from the coronavirus pandemic. What was a roaring start to the spring house-hunting season has ended in a whimper. By the time the dust settles on what's likely to be months of disruption, Canada could see resales plunge 30 per cent to a 20-...Read More

Even as COVID-19 pushes Toronto-area home sales off a cliff, real estate experts say that while prices may stall as people stay home, they will pick up where they left off once the crisis passes. No one disputes the virus’s unprecedented shock to the economy, but how long it lasts depends on how long the market is in lockdown, said Royal LePage CEO Phil Soper. “Typically if...Read More

  Canada’s spring house-hunting season — typically the busiest time of the year for home transactions — will be effectively canceled this year. The strict social distancing measures that are critical to the fight against COVID-19 will make it all but impossible to follow through with the activities that the conventional home sales process necessitates. That’s the ta...Read More