Low factory-built homes are shedding their ‘cheap’ label and exploding

Armina Ligaya | January 20, 2014 | Last Updated: Jan 20 6:36 PM ET
More from Armina Ligaya | @arminaligaya

After more than three decades in her Toronto bungalow amid growing mildew problems in the 1940s-era home, Ruth Wiens decided it was to start fresh.

She still loved her East York neighbourhood, so the IT professional decided to demolish her existing house and build a two-storey, three-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot home from scratch.

But instead of hiring a builder to construct her new home, piece by piece, Ms. Wiens ordered one from a factory, based on a design she saw in a magazine. She didn’t want the harsh Canadian weather to pummel the shell of her home during construction, as her neighbours’ new homes had been over the years.

Ms. Wiens wanted a house that was constructed indoors, under controlled conditions.

“There would never be in an unexpected rainstorm that just soaked everything,” Ms. Wiens said. “And having watched my neighbourhood over the years, I just thought, there are alternatives. You don’t have to be the lucky one that has the two weeks of good weather.”

Most new homes are built stick by stick, brick by brick, by a construction crew on-site, but a growing number of Canadians are buying homes right off the factory floor to be assembled on the lot within days.

However, the stigma of the earlier, shoddy iterations of these prefabricated or modular homes still lingers and the Canadian construction industry is reluctant to change, industry insiders say.

http://business.financialpost.com/2014/01/20/how-factory-built-homes-are-shedding-their-cheap-label-and-exploding-in-popularity/

 

How To Make Your Home Ready for Retirement

The majority of seniors live in conventional housing, as opposed to a senior citizen facility, according to science writer Rachel Adelson, author of "Staying Power: Age-Proof Your Home for Comfort, Safety and Style". Some of the benefits of staying in your own home, or aging in place as it's sometimes called, are: It costs less, keeps you in familiar surroundings and offers greater independence.

The tough housing market of the past few years has led many older homeowners  to stay in their homes longer than they'd originally planned. As a result, many people are remodeling rather than moving, not to improve the market value of their home, but to individualize their home and make it more suitable to their own needs.

Many baby boomers are simply not interested in moving to a traditional continuing care retirement community. Boomers have redefined a number of lifestyle areas over the years, and the process of aging is no different. So many boomers won't want to live in the same community as their parents or grandparents did. They feel younger, they're working longer and they're considering other options.
The paradox is that in order for seniors to stay in the same home by aging in place, they must embrace change: their changing bodies, changing capabilities and the modifications to their environment necessary to accommodate those changes.

The time to think about aging in place is not after you retire , but before you retire. One preliminary step is to research the services available in your own community. Often there is more than meets the eye, including support for transportation, nutrition, fitness and entertainment. Then long before you need to, you should start age-proofing your home, like we baby-proof our homes when we're expecting a new child.

If you're moving or remodeling, consider living on one floor, so you won't have to negotiate stairs. Yes, running up and down stairs is good exercise when you're younger, but stairs can be a hazard for older people.

Some people plan ahead. My own parents moved to a one-story house when they were in their early 60s. Then they both lived comfortably through their 80s. Another couple I know remodeled their home and turned their second floor into the kids' bedrooms. They moved the master bedroom down to the first floor, complete with an oversized shower and wide doorways. The couple did this when they were in their 40s and in good health, and their plan is to use the upstairs for guestrooms as soon as the kids grow up and move out.

But if you do still find yourself going up and down stairs, be sure to improve lighting in the area to make the stairs more visible and less hazardous. Another idea: install traction tape along the front edge of each stair, in contrasting colors, to outline the stairs more clearly and prevent falls. While you're at it, improve the lighting in your bathroom and kitchen, outfit the kitchen with easy-to-use tools and utensils and get rid of scatter rugs throughout the house. Also consider installing grab bars in the bathroom, as well as a raised toilet seat to help people with bad knees or a bad back.

Again, there's no reason to wait to make your changes, as I found out recently myself. I took a nasty spill in my own shower. I slipped as I was stepping over the side of the tub, grabbed for the soap dish and pulled it right out of the wall. I tumbled over the side of the bathtub onto the floor and gave myself a big bruise. This was several weeks ago and I still have an ugly brownish splotch as big as a basketball from waist to armpit.

So you don't have to be old to start making your home a safer place to live. It's better to plan ahead than fall on your head. But one last point. Figuring out how and where to live in old age isn't necessarily a one-time decision. You can do a lot in your own home for a long time, even if it has stairs. Then, if and when things do change, you can reassess your options, and still go the way of your parents and grandparents if you want to.

By Tom Sightings | U.S.News & World Report LP – Wed, 19 Jun, 2013 3:04 PM EDT

A Great Product for Seniors to Access Home Equity without increased Payments

CHIP is rapidly gaining popularity across Canada, and it is easy to understand why. The senior population is the fastest growing group in the country and they are living longer than ever before. CHIP offers secure and flexible access to an otherwise illiquid asset. Plus, since becoming a schedule 1 bank the provider of CHIP, HomEquity Bank, is able to offer increasingly competitive rates.

CHIP is often used to help seniors stay in their homes, but you can also use it to provide your clients with creative solutions when they are moving. Here are some ideas of ways CHIP could benefit you
:
1. Downsizing


Many seniors choose to downsize to pay off debt and increase retirement income. Unfortunately, this often means relocating to a different neighborhood or an inferior house. CHIP can help you help your clients down size financially, without harming their quality of life.

Example: You help clients sell their $500,000 home, which leaves them with $300,000 after paying off their debt.

They want $100,000 for retirement income, which only leaves $200,000 to buy their new property and limits them to a small apartment. So, you suggest a CHIP for $100,000 which would allow them to buy a townhouse. They have no payments, keep their $100,000 in cash, and you sell a higher priced home.
2. Upgrading


You can help clients who want to upgrade but cannot with their current income level. By applying the proceeds of their sale as a down payment, and using CHIP to complete the purchase, your clients can have the upgrad e they did not think was possible without ever having to make monthly payments.

Example: Your clients own a $600,000 home that is becoming too much work. They want to move to a Vancouver water front condo, but the price is $1,000,000 and they cannot afford a $400,000 mortgage. After selling the house, they put $600,000 on the condo and use CHIP for the remaining $400,000. You help your clients upgrade their lifestyle without increasing their expenses.
3. Purchasing a Vacation Property
 
Retirees may rent a vacation home because their income is not high enough to qualify for a mortgage on a second property. You can use CHIP to help them buy the vacation property of their dreams by using some of the equity in their primary home.

Example: Your clients own a $950,000 home and want to buy a $275,000 cottage. You help them utilize CHIP to unlock just under 30% of their home’s equity and use it to buy the cottage. They have improved their quality of life and you have gained a sale.


4. Providing a Down Payment for Children Buying a Home
 Often, parents would like to help their children financially but cannot do so without decreasing their quality of life or incurring debt with monthly payments. CHIP can be a great way for parents to assist their children, without making sacrifices, when it will be the most beneficial.

Example: A 30 year old couple wants to buy a rental income property worth $400,000 but they need a 20%

down payment. Their parents have a $450,000 house, so you help them use CHIP to access $80,000 to give to

their children for a down payment. This helps the couple purchase the property, and gives you a purchase that

may have had to wait until when, or if, they have more money.

For more information on the CHIP Program contact me elwells@telus.net

  

Low-rate pledge revives fears of hard reckoning for Canada’s housing market

Andrea Hopkins, Reuters | 28/10/13 | Last Updated: 28/10/13 1:50 PM ET

TORONTO — The Bank of Canada’s surprising signal last week that it will not raise interest rates any time soon will lift the housing market and give indebted households breathing room, but it leaves many apprehensive there will be a hard reckoning.

Canada sidestepped the worst of the financial crisis because it avoided the real estate excesses of its U.S. neighbour, and a post-recession housing boom helped it recover more quickly than its Group of Seven peers.

But the housing market began to cool last year after Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, worried about a potential property bubble, tightened mortgage rules.

Debt is at record levels, and we know consumers are biting off more than they can chew

The prospect of lower-for-longer interest rates, needed to help a struggling economy, has revived those bubble fears.

“This is a double-edged sword,” said Laurie Campbell, chief executive at Credit Canada, a nonprofit credit counselling agency that is funded by banks and other lenders.

“It’s going to keep more home buyers in the market, but … I worry. Because, fine, interest rates are going to be stable and (home buyers) can get a good rate, but are they getting into the market only because of that? Debt is at record levels, and we know consumers are biting off more than they can chew financially, so does this lead to more problems down the road?”

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Monday he intends to get more directly involved with players in the housing sector to ensure the market doesn’t over heat.

Flaherty says the responsibility of keeping the market stable falls on his department.

The central bank’s position comes amid signs home sales and prices are regaining momentum after cooling last year when Flaherty clamped down on mortgage rules.

Flaherty says he speaks regularly with market players, but is going to do more of it now to ensure the recent pick-up in sales and prices is a temporary phenomenon, and not the early signs of a housing bubble.

He says at the present time he has no intention of intervening by clamping down on borrowing.

Most analysts say he could take the steam out of the market by increasing the minimum requirement for a down payment to buy a new home.

BROKERS SEE FRESH BOOM

The Bank of Canada has underpinned the housing market by holding its key policy rate at a near-record low of 1% since 2010. But early last year, worried by soaring household debt levels, it began warning its next move would be a rate hike and that Canadians should plan accordingly.

But even as it continued to acknowledge the problem of soaring debt levels in its latest report on Wednesday, it dropped that language, putting more emphasis on the risks of weak inflation and an economy still operating well below potential,

The bank’s omission of the rate warning left players in the housing market anticipating a renewed surge of strength.

“What is going to happen is rates are going to be lower for longer, and that means it is more appealing for buyers to get into the market,” said Kim Gibbons, a mortgage broker in Toronto.

Already, brokers are seeing borrowers shifting back to variable rate mortgages as home buyers bet rates will stay at ultra-low levels for a few more years. When rates had looked like they were on the rise, fixed-rate mortgages seemed the safer bet, locking in a low rate before costs rise.

I would suspect that we’ll see a significant trend away from longer-term fixed into shorter-term variable rates

A five-year variable rate mortgage at 2.5% allows a borrower to lower the early cost of a loan, compared with a five-year fixed rate at 3.5 or 4 %. Effectively, that allows them to borrow more and buy a more expensive house.

A Reuters poll published on Thursday showed primary bond dealers, who work directly with the central bank, now expect interest rates to stay on hold until the second quarter of 2015.

“With the BOC keeping rates low for a long period of time, I would suspect that we’ll see a significant trend away from longer-term fixed into shorter-term variable rates,” said Toronto broker Calum Ross.

“What we know in the housing sector is people don’t buy prices, they buy payments. So if the payment shock isn’t there … they’ll buy a payment today not having realistic expectations about what the long-term budget implications are.”

The long-term implications of Canada’s huge household debt burden is part of what had driven Bank of Canada policymakers, along with officials at the Finance Department, to repeatedly warn Canadians that their debt burden will become harder to bear when interest rates rise eventually.

Canada’s debt-to-income ratio reached a historical high of 163.4% in the second quarter, meaning Canadians owed C$1.63 for every C$1.00 they were bringing home.

Low interest rates were partly to blame as Canadians reached for ever-larger mortgages in a booming market for residential real estate.

The federal government has tightened mortgage lending rules four times in the past five years in a bid to cool the market and prevent home buyers from taking on too much debt. And the Bank of Canada did its bit by using the threat of rising interest rates to remind consumers that cheap money would not last.

No longer. Having dropped the threat of raising interest rates, analysts said the central bank has pushed the consequences of higher levels of borrowing well into the future.

“(In the parlance of) Monopoly, we picked up a ‘Get out of jail free’ card, and managed kick that can down the road several months and probably not before 2015,” said David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff, who famously predicted the last U.S. housing crash.

“Household debt ratios are problematic, and the central bank knows it, but … the good news out of bank is we’ve been told we have a little more time to get our finances in order before the debt to service ratio starts to play some catch-up.”

© Thomson Reuters 2013, with files from the Canadian Press

Canada Won't Interfere in Housing Market - For Now: Flaherty

 Louise Egan, Reuters | 28/10/13 | Last Updated: 28/10/13 3:52 PM ET

OTTAWA — The Canadian government has no plans for now to clamp down on the housing market even though prices are rising again, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said on Monday, but he pledged to investigate whether the price uptick looks to be more than temporary.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says he will not only balance the budget in 2015, but the surplus will be significant.

Speaking to reporters after meeting economists in Ottawa Monday, Flaherty said the surplus that year won’t be “tiny.”

Flaherty said that it would be his department’s responsibility to act on housing prices since the Bank of Canada has “basically no room to move,” but added: “I have no intention of interfering in the market for the time being.”

In its latest report last week, the central bank removed any reference to raising interest rates, saying the economy has too much slack and inflation is too low.

Flaherty, addressing reporters after meeting private-sector economists to get their views, also repeated his pledge to balance the 2015/16 fiscal-year budget, and said he would deliver “not a tiny surplus.”

I want to ensure that this isn’t just a temporary bubble

The minister has intervened in the mortgage market four times since 2008 to cool the housing sector, and had expressed some satisfaction that his moves had worked.

Some of the economists he met on Monday suggested that he have some more conversations with people in the building industry, Flaherty said, “because of what we’re seeing in certain parts of the country, a reacceleration of housing prices.”

One theory put forward for the recent rise in housing prices is that people who perhaps should have been waiting to buy a house have been rushing to purchase to lock in low interest rates.

“But this is speculation and we’re going to have to look into it more, but I have no intention of interfering in the market for the time being,” Flaherty said.

He said the projections of economists he spoke to on Monday  were close to those released by his department in July, forecasting modest but real economic growth over the next few years.

Flaherty said he sees some pressure on government revenues, but added this will be offset by the government’s plans to freeze its operating budget.

Canada’s independent parliamentary budget office said on Monday that by its calculations the government will meet its target of eliminating the deficit in 2015, but subsequent surpluses will likely be smaller than it projected in April.

Flaherty said the parliamentary budget officer did not take into account the government’s planned operating budget freeze.

He has ruled out balancing the budget earlier than 2015, and some economists told reporters that such a move would be unwarranted, given the substantial fiscal drag it would impose.

“It could happen earlier if the minister really wanted it,” said Carlos Leitao, chief economist at Laurentian Bank.

“I don’t think that is desirable, nor do I think it is the government’s plan. So 2015/16 the budget will be balanced, and as the minister said, not only balanced but in surplus territory.”

Bank of Canada cuts Economic Outlook, Drops Rate Hike Signal

BARRIE MCKENNA

OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Oct. 23 2013, 10:02 AM EDT

 

The Bank of Canada has abruptly abandoned an explicit warning that its key interest rate is headed higher in the face of a much gloomier economic outlook.

Cautioning that Canada is likely to grow much more slowly than it thought in the summer, the central bank now acknowledges that its next move is just as likely to be a rate cut, as an increase.

The surprise decision Wednesday to drop its so-called tightening bias – in place since April 2012 – coincides with a significant downgrade of the bank’s forecast for GDP growth in Canada.

The bank is cutting its forecast for both the Canadian and U.S. economies – not just for this year, but for 2014 and 2015 as well.

The bank pointed to an economic environment that is now “less favourable for Canada” – most notably, the painfully slow recovery from recession in the United States, Canada’s main trading partner.

“Uncertain global and domestic economic conditions are delaying the pick-up in exports and business investment, leaving the level of economic activity lower than the bank had been expecting,” the Bank of Canada said in a statement.

For the moment, Canada’s export problem is that it is still far too dependent on the U.S., which is grappling with a sluggish recovery and poisoned budget politics in Washington.

The bank left its overnight interest rate unchanged at the one per cent, where it’s now been since September 2010. The bank’s next rate-setting decision is Dec. 4.

Many economists now don’t expect a Bank of Canada rate hike until late 2015, or even 2016.

The Bank of Canada has been anticipating that exports and business investment would pick as the consumer-driven domestic economy cooled, along with the housing market.

But that isn’t happening. Business confidence remains weak and exports are still weak, failing to regain pre-recession levels.

That means the economy isn’t likely to return to “full production capacity” until the end of 2015, according to the bank, or six years after the recession ended. The bank had previously estimated that the so-called output gap would close in mid-2015.

The bank slashed its closely watched forecast of annual GDP growth in Canada to 1.6 per cent this year, down from the 1.8 per cent it forecast in July, and to 2.3 per cent in 2014, down from its earlier forecast of 2.7 per cent. In 2015, it expects growth of 2.6 per cent, versus 2.7 per cent previously.

The bank also said it expects the U.S. economy will grow just 1.5 per cent this year and 2.5 per cent in 2014. That’s down from its earlier forecasts of 1.7 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively.

Bank of Canada deputy governor Tiff Macklem previewed the GDP downgrade in an Oct. 1 speech in which he highlighted the country’s declining share of global trade.

Dating back to April of last year, former Bank of Canada Mark Carney and his successor Stephen Poloz have insisted the bank would raise the overnight rate to a more normal level “over time.”

That important caveat has now been stricken from the bank’s statement.

“The fact that inflation has been persistently below target means that the downside risks to inflation assume increasing importance,” the bank said Wednesday.

Inflation has been consistently below the bank’s 2 per cent target since early 2012.

Beyond the U.S. and Canada, the economy is generally doing better than expected. In its statement, the bank said the nascent European recovery, “while modest, has surprised to the upside.” And China’s economy is showing “renewed momentum,” the bank said. And the Japanese economy is also doing better.

At home, the bank said consumer spending is holding up better than expected and remains “solid.” The Bank of Canada also continues to expect a “gradual unwinding of household imbalances.”

Many economists have fretted about Canadians’ soaring level of debt to income as low interest rates spurred a long housing price boom in much of the country. Higher mortgage rates could put many homeowners under pressure. But it’s the export sector that really worries the bank.

In its quarterly monetary policy report, also released Wednesday, the bank said the export sector has been “lackluster” in the second and third quarter, with the exception of autos and forest products.

“The recent weakness in exports is indicative of a broader trend of slower-than-expected export growth that began in early 2012,” the bank. It said this is due to “shifts in trade linkages” and ongoing competitive challenges.”

Former CMHC competitor petitions for mortgage insurance fees to drop

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/10/18/former-cmhc-competitor-petitions-for-mortage-insurance-fees-to-drop/

Garry Marr | 18/10/13 | Last Updated: 21/10/13 8:51 AM ET

A former senior executive at one of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s competitors says it’s time for mortgage default insurance premiums to drop because the Crown corporation doesn’t have the same percentage of risky clients due to tighter loan regulations.

Brian Bell, who used to be vice-president of private insurer Canada Guaranty and now runs his own real estate brokerage, is calling for a 15% reduction in fees that can easily top $13,000 on a $500,000 home — a move he says will provide much needed relief to the beleaguered first-time home buyer.

“The risk has been lowered, the mortgage insurance industry has been so profitable and they haven’t done a review in…I can’t remember the last time they reviewed their rates,” said Mr. Bell, who is now president of iPro Realty Ltd. and runs a website called townhouses.ca. He used to work for CMHC where he learned about the mortgage default insurance industry.

By law, any consumer with a downpayment of less than 20% and borrowing from a financial institution regulated by the Bank Act must get mortgage default insurance. CMHC controls about three quarters of the market with Genworth Financial and Canada Guaranty splitting the rest.

All insured mortgages are backed by the federal government, in the case of CMHC for 100% of the value of the loan and 90% for private players. Ultimately the government could be on the hook for close to $1-trillion, a price tag that makes some think there should not be a shrinking of fees.

“They have room to do it,” said Mr. Bell, about lowering fees. “Insurance is all about risk and losses. If you’ve changed your risk and underwriting criteria and made it tighter, you’ll have lower loan losses.”

He points out the Crown corporation has averaged $1.1-billion annually in net income over the last five years and estimates a 15% reduction in fees would have amounted to $194-million in 2013.

“I work with first-time home buyers every day and that’s the group that has been hurt,” said Mr. Bell. “I’m putting my name and reputation on the line after being in the industry for so long. I’m not going to be getting any friendly emails [mortgage insurers].”

Not everybody is convinced it’s time to lower fees.

“To the extent that it assists first-time buyers it is a good thing,” said Jim Murphy, chief executive of the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals. But he wouldn’t endorse the petition.

Rob McLister, editor of Canadian Mortgage Trends, said he doesn’t think a petition to lower fees will gain much traction in the marketplace.

“The risk has gone down but the fact is I don’t think [fees] are egregiously priced. I’d rather see them higher than lower and CMHC have a buffer in case things go bad,” said Mr. McLister. “If you don’t like the fees, put 20% down.”

Financial Post