Kaillean,

There is now a tax on foreign buyers, yes? I hear the Chinese are now buying in Toronto instead. Robo, can Halifax be far behind? : )

As I mentioned above, Denver has been crazy but we are in the high plains. There is room to spread and grow so I think eventually prices should level out. Denver is a huge place but we are unfortunately locked into certain areas by my husband's commutes to the airport and work. Trying to keep them under an hour. Not sure how people with mid range salaries - teachers, store managers, etc. are able to afford to live in many parts of Denver.

Ontario just announced plans to impose a 15% tax on nonresident foreign buyers, too. There are some reports that it is had a bit of a chilling effect already. In Halifax we'd probably welcome them with open arms! We need the new blood especially if it comes in green.

Toronto house prices

Halifax

It sounds to me like they must be back to giving loans to people that can't afford them just like they were before the recession.

Not here. It's still pretty hard for the average person to get a first mortgage. There's almost no way to get into the housing market because the low end is being snapped up by large corporate entities looking for rentals (what other investment can produce north of 15% a year these days?) and corporations and individuals looking for properties for sober homes (what other investment can produce north of 45% a year?).

But unless you can produce cash for more than the stupid crazy asking price on the first day of listing, forget it, at least on low to middle priced properties.

NJ here. We custom built in 1999 the house has almost tripled in value. However we built before the boom in the market. At the height of the market homes similar to ours were going for 4 times what we built for, prices have not recovered to that level. Our property taxes are high here $20,000 - $30,000 is normal for our town. Our public schools are excellent though. We also own two shore properties that have appreciated tremendously but we were lucky enough to buy low. The shore market is coming back with multiple offers, etc but only in mid priced homes.

Writers, those sober homes are scary if you know the complete recovery rates. People don't realize how much of a problem it's becoming down here. You are not safe in a gated community or very very high-end neighborhood either. The Sober Homes have all the rights.

Yes, I know, justerrilynn. There are multi-million dollar oceanfront homes down in the south county that are sober homes. And it's all such a scam, for the most part, just preying on those poor people. Did you know that Lake Worth and Delray are considering running ads up north urging families not to send their relatives down here for "treatment", or that there are realtors on craigslist in PBC who specialize in properties with landlords who don't care if you want to use their houses as sober homes?

They must have bought Joe Negron, since he quashed the last bill that would have given municipalities the power to use what few rights they have in dealing with them, which is now harder in FL than anywhere because of the bills the legislature has passed removing the rights of local govts to establish any zoning more strict than the weak state rules.

My HOA management is readjusting wordage and rules in my community as I speak. It's all pretty useless as far as I'm concerned because Sober Homes are within the disability act and can't be discriminated against. There was rumors one was coming into my community but so far it does seem just a rumor. If it did happen it would kill our Realestate. This is a small-ish community so it's not like it would get lost in a maze.

My lot is slightly less than 800 sq feet.

My yard is 152 square feet.

Housing inventory is the central zipcodes is low, especially for houses more toward the entry level for certain neighborhoods. Some very expensive houses will be on the market for more than a year unless they are new construction.

My house appraised for more with a giant hole where two bathrooms had been and a single bathroom in the basement than it did intact three years earlier.

Those things said there is very rarely a bidding war unless it is a house of interest like several that I have posted in the past year. Houses my get more than one offer but people don't go crazy.

Very interesting about sober houses. Thank you all for sharing. Something else to keep in the forefront of our minds if and when we move south.

Sober homes? Is that what they're called? I know a couple who live in my mid-size California city (different neighborhood, different property value). Their home is worth upwards of $1 million. Quiet street of similar homes. Across the street is a home with 6 bedrooms that is a "sober house." Up to 4 people can reside in each bedroom. Do the math. They have cars. They have visitors with cars. Or maybe it's 4 bedrooms that can house 6 people. It's a LOT of unrelated people.

Our town is for sale and not only are prices still dropping. Houses that before were easily selling for over $1 mil, are now starting out at a 30% or greater discount to that and they're lucky if they get even that. A recent article says that while surrounding towns are getting about 97% of the asking price, our town is only getting more like 87% of asking price. I've seen houses on the market for literally years with little to no action. Fortunately, we won't be selling any time soon!

Jterri, (sorry OT)

I've wondered about this phenomenon; did not know they were called Sober Houses. Is this why it seems that nowadays whenever anyone needs rehab, they go to Florida? Why?

Is this why it seems that nowadays whenever anyone needs rehab, they go to Florida? Why?

Yes. It's totally illegal but there are brokers who offer all sorts of incentives ranging from free flights to cash payouts if you come down here. Don't forget that our much-loved governor is only not in jail because he did a plea bargain for scamming medicaid out of millions for urine testing, so he's all on board with this.

What is supposed to happen with a sober home is that's where you go after you finish the first stage of rehab, to try to get your life back together again. You should have counseling, help getting and keeping a job, etc. What actually happens at most of these sober homes is that you get a bed in a room with other people, a urine test every day, and get put out on the street with all your stuff if you test positive. That's all. But the insurance payouts for the home operator are enormous and families pay staggering amounts (up to 60K a month for the deluxe ones) hoping to get their relatives a second chance. It's a huge racket--HUGE! and like most, preys on the most vulnerable people in our society. And unfortunately, many of these become places where people have access to hard drugs, do prostitution to get drugs, etc.

Linelle, the number of people is restricted by whatever the local ordinances are for maximum occupancy. In Palm Beach county it's bathrooms, not bedrooms. You can't have more than four people living in a house for each bathroom, so in a 3-bath home, you can park 12, which would bring in close to 20K a month just for the urine testing.

ETA There is no oversight for these homes. There is a certification available, but it's totally voluntary. The state of FL has 9 people to oversee congregate homes of all sorts, and there are more than a hundred official sober homes just in in Palm Beach County. And oops, just saw you meant this question for justerrilynn. Sorry, justerrilynn.

I might add that this is something we're on the front line for, but don't kid yourself--they're coming to your neighborhood in the not-too-distant future, too. None of us had heard of them two years ago, either. These days I take my overdose location map when I go looking at real estate. :(

Why Florida, though? It has almost become suspicious when anyone goes to Fl alone for a few weeks, like Florida has turned into a buzzword. And this is from all the way up here in the NYC metro.

Because of two things: 1. People like the idea of sending their friends and relatives to a bright, sunny place for a bright new beginning, and 2. FL already had a big network of slimy health care scammers already in place, all set to jump on this.

Also real estate in FL was supremely cheap from 2012 till very recently, so you could make something like 450% the first year on a house you bought here for that purpose.

ETA If you were an investor, the stupid Obama-admin rules about Fannie and Freddie foreclosures in FL and NV meant that you got a big old gift, too, in that those properties could not be offered on the open market till they had been offered as part of a bundle and rejected. So corporate entities have been cherry picking their way through all the big bargains in RE since the crash, leaving only the houses that needed more work than they were worth to go on the open market. And once you've got all those properties in your portfolio, the urine testing alone brings in more than you could ever hope to get in rent.

Wow-I'd never heard of Sober Houses before. I live in our state's capital so the State Hospital is located here. Near the hospital (and the State Penitentiary) are half-way houses where people are released to, but they're nearly indigent and those places are really scary. But there is nothing like those Sober houses.

We have a HUGE homeless problem in the Portland area, and it's coming to Salem too. I've seen more and more caravans of shopping carts with homeless people sleeping by them. I think a lot of it has to do with the dearth of affordable rentals, at least here in Salem it does.

We sold our very ordinary four bedroom home (divorce) in the Bay Area for $900,000. As is and for cash.

i took my money and ran. To Charleston SC. Bought a little town-home, two bedrooms, two baths for cash. I know nobody here, Leo, my pup, drove with me from California. Housing in this country is insane. As is healthcare. I am just staying quiet, living a very quiet life. I am half way to Ireland, I can get to Shannon in six or so hours. If I need to get back to my parents it will only take a third of the time that it would normally take from California. My kids are scattered and my granddaughter is in Michigan so SC fills the need for right now.

Eventually I may just head back to Europe. Having that EU passport is quite the advantage these days.

Another voice from the SF Bay Area. We paid $296K for 1200sf/6000sf lot in 1995. We have remodeled, increased the number of baths to 1.5, and added about 250sf to the house. It would sell for about $2,000,000 now. A tear down across the street recently sold for close to 2million, 1/4acre lot. We are walking distance to a top public high school and 5 miles from Google headquarters, but the neighborhood is 1940's-50's ranch houses. There is no way we could live here (retired RN and librarian) if we had to buy now.

Sara

"I'm curious ... is California the only state with a law that protects homeowners from big property tax hikes due to rising home prices? I'd be a nervous wreck if I had to worry about my taxes rising along with these crazy home prices."

New Mexico has a property tax cap that limits valuation increases to 3% annually while you own the home. But when you sell the home, the valuation is trued up to the market for the new owner. It's sometimes referred to as "Lightning Tax", because of the big hit a new owner can take, particularly if purchasing a home that was in the seller's hands for many years. There's actually a "tax estimate" disclosure form included in the home purchase transactional documents to make sure a buyer is on notice of what the tax will be once purchased.

The scheme was designed to protect those old families who lived in areas like central Santa Fe where property values were run up by new money coming in -- the families couldn't afford to stay when their humble homes grew in value in association with new builds, remodels and plain speculation. Of course, it created a new disfavored class of taxpayer -- the newcomer. It passed muster with the state Supreme Court, though, so it's the system we have.

Here's an interesting article about how the out of control housing prices are affecting seniors, retirement communities and the middle class in the Bay Area.

I think we have something like that where I live, because neighboring houses will have different tax burdens and one that has had fewer owners will have lower taxes than one that has been sold and resold. But we also have tax abatement so the gigantic new builds that sold for $2M on average down the block have lower taxes for ten years than older modest houses. Then the people who buy them tend to sell them right before the abatement runs out.

We live on Singer Island, Florida and we are having a huge problem with sober homes. Our neighborhood home prices range from $600,000.00 off the water to 3 million on the water and several sober homes have moved into the neighborhood. Nothing we can do as they are protected by the Americans with Disability Act. It is so upsetting. Sunshine and water are huge attractions in making the sober home ads look attractive.

I'm curious ... is California the only state with a law that protects homeowners from big property tax hikes due to rising home prices?

FL has this too, the same 3% cap others have mentioned, for homesteaded property.

@pipdog -- that's an interesting and heartbreaking article. That double whammy for those mobile home owners is just so tough -- others have been able to sell and move elsewhere, or benefit from Prop 13. The linked article on Palo Alto (and the 2.5m homes and the two couples sharing an apartment) was also interesting. Way out in the foothills near BILs place there are huge retirement communities (new SFH) filled with BA seniors that cashed out of the Bay Area, bought a new home, and are living off the rest. No such option for the people in that article.

My neighbor in the "country" commutes 80 miles to his job as SF firefighter. It works out great for him -- a long commute but a place to stay when he is on shift, a nice home he could never afford for his family. Another single friend took a job in Palo Alto and shares a house with five roommates.

It's a sellers (dream) market where I am right now and not so good for buyers, as homes for sale are fewer than I have seen in quite some time. I live outside a bigger city and because our little city is between there and another big city (resort/entertainment area also), our market is pretty good. However, in the city I work in, there is not much on the market. Friends put their house on the market on a Monday and on Tuesday they had 3 offers. They just moved into a rental house this past weekend. Nothing at all in the area and price they are looking for. They don't want to build, so are just playing the waiting game. I'm hearing that most houses that are offered for sale lately are usually bringing in multiple offers.

Acdc6869, I used to own a home on Singer Island (the Shores section) in the early 90's. We had a problem then with the small mom and pop hotels renting to NOT sober individuals in the summer. They took what they could at a low price to make ends meet. I am sorry you are going through this with the addition of Sober Homes.

Writer, no problem answering for me. I do not explain things anywhere near as well.

BTW, where did you get that overdose map?

BTW, where did you get that overdose map?

PBSO makes it available, I think. I got that part of it from Wes Blackman's Lake Worth blog. He posts whenever it gets updated, usually quarterly, IIRC.

Thanks for the info on sober houses. I live in FL on the west coast and never have heard of them. Strange concept.

I am in recovery and many sober homes are not run very well. But some are. When folks come out of that first week of medical detox they are incredibly vulnerable. And not always toward the message of recovery. It really is a killer disease. One of my friends, back in California, 58, highly educated, just passed away from alcoholism. I count my blessings.

DC suburbs here. Just in the last two years it seems home prices in my neighborhood have started going back up since the bubble. One neighbor sold their small split foyer two years ago in two days....they had kept it up and bathrooms and kitchens had been redone. Last year the house across the street sold in a month as a fixer upper for way more than I imagined. As far as I could tell the only thing they had ever done was replace some flooring, maybe carpet in the 32 year old house. Cheap builder grade kitchens and baths, crumbling deck. Our model up the street with upgraded kitchen and baths sold for $18,000 more than the fixer upper. We've done a lot to our house so I'm hoping we will get even more when we sell in the next few years. Got my fingers crossed that prices at least remain stable.

We plan to spend some time looking at Florida when DH retires, but this Sober House business now has me worried.

ETA.....are the sober houses concentrated in particular areas of FL or are they all over?

Mpls suburbs here. We bought out home for 217,000 in 2001, now it is around $250,000. It is modest 4 level split, well built, 4 bdrm 3 bath, large yard, 2 car garage home with no major remodeling within the last couple years.

We moved from far NE MN in 1998 to our fist Mpls area home in the same neighborhood and paid 189,000, sold it three years later for 204,000 to the first people that looked at it.

Our first home purchased in 1990 in far NE MN was custom built with 14' vaulted post and beam ceilings, 3bdrm 1 bath and 20 acres for 55,500. We sold in 1999 for 89000 and kept 10 acres. It listed now for 214,000, and has been on and off the market for about 4 years.

I remember being taken back that our quality first home up north was 55,000, and our "new" modest rambler was 189000. I knew then that it could not last, just as I know now that unless we get some considerable wage inflation, home prices are being set up again for a major correction.

. We've done a lot to our house so I'm hoping we will get even more when we sell in the next few years. Got my fingers crossed that prices at least remain stable.

****

Same area, and we've done a lot; kitchen, bath, deck, hardscaping...

We are really glad to see the market tighten, homes on the market for far shorter periods and higher asking prices being met.

We'll probably be here for another 8-10 years, depending, and would like to see prices continue to recuperate from the bubble bursting.

We have a family member who is in recover (doing the sober houses) in Lancaster, PA, and it is drug central: using, OD'ing and recovery programs ga-lore.

(I think he actually might have done a stint in FL)

We used to think of bucolic Amish scenes in Lancaster, but PA has been hit HARD with the opioid epidemic.

It's beyond sad.

I think people are going to need to rethink sober-house zoning. It is not akin to single-family in anyway, just by dint of the density, and level of activity.

In the meantime, maybe I will go back to my Montreal retirement fantasy, esp now that T may have blanked-up healthcare and i am far away from Medicare.

I think people are going to need to rethink sober-house zoning. It is not akin to single-family in anyway, just by dint of the density, and level of activity.

There's not a municipality in FL that hasn't tried everything, Mtn, but there is nothing they can do. It's discriminating against the disabled, period, the way federal laws are written, to try anything.

The problem is that it is supposed to be exactly the same as a single family. It's just that it isn't, because they can do whatever the hell they want with no interference. There have been dozens of task forces and commissions and so on. The only, ONLY thing that is being done is that Rubio did recently agree to try to get a specific definition of what a sober home should be.

Austin, TX is still a seller's market. We bought our 3,200 sf home in 1998 for $210k, and could sell today for about $800k. Many people who grew up here cannot afford to buy a home. Our kids are now grown-just wish we were ready to retire and move to something smaller!

Writer, I am also interested to know where you locate that overdose map? My HOA board, which I am a part of, have done everything we can think of to try to halt the sober homes moving in to these neighborhoods. We hired an attorney but we simply don't have the huge dollars it takes and we were forewarned that other HOA's who have tried to fight it have lost a lot of money doing so. So sad.

HERE is a publication from the California Research Bureau/Oct 2016 regarding sober living homes and government regulations (or lack thereof). Those dealing with this issue might find it interesting and/or enlightening.

Yes, our Toronto housing market is only second to Vancouver's, in that children who grew up in these cities and are now trying to buy their first homes, often have to move away, to afford anything decent. This is an example of the disparity between what you can get in Moncton, New Brunswick http://www.royallepage.ca/en/property/new-brunswick/moncton/89thorncastle-street/5729153/mlsm109599/

and what you'd have to pay almost $30,000 EXTRA to buy, in Toronto.

http://www.royallepage.ca/en/property/ontario/toronto/178-prescott-avenue/5957187/mlsw3775583/?ref=1

Writer, I am also interested to know where you locate that overdose map?

That particular map is courtesy of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's dept.

In Louisville, the average price of a home sold this spring was approx $192,172 with the median price $155,000. Homes selling for less than $300,000 are now subject to bidding wars. Homes between $300,000 and $1,000,000 are selling well but not as hot a market; homes over $1,000,000 are slow to sell.

Many houses in my neighborhood have been reassessed in the past year or so, including mine. We do have a Homestead Exemption for those over 65, but it maxes out at an exemption of $37,000 off the appraised value, not much. My taxes have gone up far faster than the value of my property due to other houses in the neighborhood which are worth more than mine. Protest is futile. No, we pay no where near what people pay in super high property tax states such as NJ and NY, but it's still a lot.

I think that lots of middle class residents are trying to get in on the lower mortgage rates before they go up again, which I think they will, so they're desperately trying to get into the housing market.

Toronto just recently introduced a "Fair Housing Plan" to combat the frothy real estate market. I think it psychologically cooled some of the fervour; in April, a detached in my neighbourhood averaged over $1.5 mill and this month it's just over $1.4. Time will tell. As a GenXer, I'm painfully aware that if I was 10 years younger I would not be able to afford a detached in my city. This housing market has terrible socio-economic ramifications for my city's future.

We just walked an open house in a historical area of Long Beach, south of Los Angeles. 1924, 2br/1ba. Looked like a flip, a nice one, but with a nod more toward hgtv than the era. 1038 sq feet on what was probably about a 6k sq ft lot - which is a good size. $625k. Needed landscaping

Our neighborhood in northern Orange County is similar. Since we added square footage, I don't have an apples to apples comparison, but the area overall is at historic highs.

1929... .... Just curious, what area/street in LB was the open house? I grew up in LB. The house my parents bought in 1959 for $15,000 is probably in the $600's now. The current owners have done a lot of remodeling....I hardly recognized it when we were there last year.

We were in California Heights, on the Bixby end of the neighborhood. It had been years since I was there and the surrounding business area is improving.. It was a pleasant surprise as this was one of the areas I was looking at when I moved in 2004. At the time, there wasn't a decent "downtown" and that was a top priority for me when I moved.

1929......Thx... The Bixby Knolls area was considered upscale in the 60's but I had heard it had gone downhill. We did a quick drive by in that area last year and it wasn't how I remembered, naturally.......it looked like it was in the process of being revitalized. Some gorgeous old homes there.

Here in the Carolinas we are are a rapidly growing part of the country and have to deal with all the ramifications: congestion, pollution, affordability, and gentrification.

In the city where I live, 100 people move here every day. In the county where I work across the border, population is expected to nearly double in the next 20 years to nearly 450,000. Many of these people cross the border and work in the downtown/uptown area.

I get regular emails from an agent for our neighborhood. Out of a neighborhood of 1400 homes, there are 4 homes for sale. We were a bit concerned after the recession because values dropped dramatically, but we have gotten hot due to our proximity to the light rail, and there is so much built up within the city area, most new development is outside the county. OTOH, we have been involved for a zoning for a parcel across the street from us, where they want to develop 90 townhomes about 1500 sq. ft. that would sell for about $225-250K. So, basically, the homes on the other side of the street from us would back up to this development. City council was not happy with the entrance from the main road (it is landlocked by houses in our neighborhood so right now there is no planned entrance from here), lack of open space, and parking when often they pretty much give developers what they want, so the builders are going to have to re-examine their plans. There is also a plot right next to the light rail that was started to develop during the recession and it had been abandoned, but another developer is resuming it. No additional zoning is required for that.

That being said, we would love to move to California. Linelle, if we could move by you, that would be a dream. But still, housing here is not hot enough to afford there like it is vice versa.

"“There are no bad guys in all this,” Goldman said of Carlyle and Plaza del Rey. “When I see people saying ‘It’s really expensive for me,’ I say if you’re not working in high tech, which requires you to be here, why are you here? If you’re here, you’re making a decision every minute you’re here that the cost of being here is worth it.”

what an incredible idiotic thing to say. what if you feed the ones who work in high tech, teach their kids, nurse the sick and the elderly? A city can't exist if it's populated only by X people. It needs the whole alphabet array of folks functioning properly

you know the numerous strikes of different unions in Jerusalem where I lived for many years showed me who's the really more important to the infrastructure-and you'd never tell.

teachers-can go on strikes until everybody's blue( which they do. lol). nurses..reach agreements a bit faster. still might take a couple of weeks. i remember them being on strike even longer once. doctors-goes faster with them than with nurses

city bus drivers-couple days and their requirements are met

waste management? all it took was several hours of not picking the trash ..in 35 C heat.

they were all set by the evening of that very day lol

thank you for sharing that article..and I read each and every response with great interest

here in Southern OC young families can be outbid for months in a row on the most affordable homes in 400s-500s and such..usually these will be small attached condos in okay parts of the cities with okay schools, nothing remotely fab.

New construction-no lot, stupid layout, probably costs like our remodeled fixer upper( maybe including the cost of remodel)..tons of association fees, and I'm not even sure what these associations do

Our condo we sold-yeah they were PITA sometimes with their constant repairs maintenance and beautifying..but on the other hand they did repair maintained and beautified:)

(except for a big miss when they decided to paint exteriors a new color. without consulting me ahahaa. or anybody for that matter)

The rental for my MIL is already approaching 2K for a tiny one bedroom apartment, built in 60s, nothing to look at, the complex looks like my life lol, maintained but not updated in any way, very basic, laundry outside(and you need to pay for it. the nerve of these people)..the only good thing about it is its location-close proximity to us, to shops, library, parks..especially to one of the parks that she loves that's several steps away. Gives her some independence, us-some peace of mind knowing that we can be there in 2 min pick her up for whatever, and she has her room in our place if needed.

Still I remember coming here from Stamford CT where we lived, on and off, for seven years altogether, and being somewhat pleasantly surprised by the prices:) It was 2010.

(some cities in CT are very upscale and look that part but Stamford even though it's right there surrounded by them, could use..I don't know..could use something LOL. Some revolutionary thought. Like, clean the damn ice in the winter?)