Steve Ladurantaye

Bank of Nova Scotia’s landmark red tower in downtown Toronto has been sold for $1.27-billion, the highest price yet paid for a Canadian office building.

After several months on the market and rumours of international interest, Toronto’s Dundee Real Estate Investment Trust partnered with H&R Real Estate Investment Trust to buy the 68-storey Scotia Plaza. The building will be two-thirds owned by Dundee, with H&R holding the remaining interest.

The sale is a sign of the continued strength of the Canadian office market, which has rebounded soundly since the recession. The value of high-quality downtown buildings across the country has been rising, as the same low interest rates that are driving home prices higher help property investors outbid competitors for marquee properties.

Full story at the Globe and Mail

Tens of thousands of homeowners are at risk of break-ins and assaults if their personal information is made available online when they sell their homes, the country’s largest real estate board charges in a blistering attack against the country’s competition commissioner.

The Toronto Real Estate Board will launch a major public relations campaign on Tuesday against a Competition Bureau demand to include more detailed information in online listings, arguing that making information such as a seller’s name and phone number available to casual browsers endangers lives.

Read the story in the Globe and Mail

While competition commissioner Melanie Aitken has levelled charges against several high-profile organizations such as Air Canada and Visa since assuming the job in 2009, this is the first time one of her targets has launched a public counter-attack rather than wait for its day in court.

“Easy access to information online is a huge safety issue,” said Von Palmer, the real estate board’s chief privacy officer. “There is a real possibility of break-ins and assaults; you only have to read the headlines to imagine what might happen. You hear stories about realtors getting attacked and killed. Can you imagine if we put that information out there about consumers? You can only imagine the headlines.”

A spokesman for the Toronto Police Service said he wasn’t aware violence against real estate agents was a problem in the city.

At the heart of the fight are websites launched by real estate agents that allow their clients to browse homes on their own. These listings are enhanced versions of what they’d find on Realtor.ca, the industry’s main national site for listings that saw 456,749 homes listed and sold in 2011.

These personal micro-sites are password protected, and are accessible only to clients. Anyone who wants the detailed information can still get access – but they must ask an agent.

Ms. Aitken argues this model perpetuates the traditional real estate model in which customers interact with agents at a time when competing services are trying to offer lower prices by eliminating the middle man. She wants any consumer to have access to the information, which includes prior selling prices, whether they have an agent or not.

The case is expected to be heard at the competition tribunal in the fall. But TREB – the largest of the country’s real estate boards, representing about 32,000 real estate agents – is going on the offensive with a website (protectyourprivacy.ca) warning consumers that the Competition Bureau “is trying to dismantle the safeguards for consumers’ personal and private information.”

It also hired polling firm Angus Reid Vision Critical, which undertook a phone survey of 800 Ontarians to gauge their views on privacy. It found 75 per cent of Ontarians don’t want their name and the sale price of their home made public, and 70 per cent don’t want their contact information provided to prospective buyers.

“Commissioner Aitken wants to release this information,” TREB states in a draft release of the poll obtained by The Globe and Mail.

The Competition Bureau bristled at the suggestion that it wants to force information into the public domain. Spokesman Greg Scott said TREB is trying to “distract from its anti-competitive conduct” in a bid to hang on to its market share.

“TREB is trying to have it both ways as the identical information is routinely provided today by real estate agents to consumers, either by hand, mail, fax, or e-mail,” he said. “TREB has for years permitted member agents to share this same information with their customers and they continue to do so today.”

The details are also available to anyone who visits an open house. A phonebook would provide the same information, as would a visit to any land records office in most cities. Mr. Palmer said it’s more dangerous to have all of the information online, because criminals would be “one-stop shopping.”

The hot housing market that powered the country’s post-recession recovery is slowing to a crawl.

The Canadian Real Estate Association said sales dropped and prices moderated in January, with the weakness spread among more than half of the country’s cities. Sales in Vancouver and Toronto slowed to a crawl, with few houses available to would-be buyers.

Read the story in the Globe and Mail

The low number of listings means there could be a rush of sellers trying to capitalize on the spring market, keeping a lid on the bidding wars that have driven prices sharply higher in some of the country’s largest markets.

“There is really a lack of product,” said Phil Soper, president of Brookfield Residential Real Estate Services, which operates Royal LePage. “We expect that to pick up considerably, and by the end of March Break you’ll really be able to gauge the Canadian market’s health. Or lack of health.”

Canada’s sizzling property market has made headlines around the world, and so far defied some predictions that it’s a debt-fuelled bubble bound to pop. Forecasts for home prices for the next several years vary wildly – with economists and analysts predicting everything from a 25 per cent drop to modest gains.

The latest figures suggest a levelling off. Home sales across the country were down 4.5 per cent in January from December, the sharpest monthly decline since July, 2010.

Average prices were 2 per cent higher than a year ago at $348,178, the smallest year-over-year increase in the past year.

It’s not the first sign that the much-talked-about slowdown may have arrived.

The Teranet-National Bank index, an alternative measure of price gains that lags CREA by several months, showed prices dipped 0.2 per cent in November, marking the first drop since the fall of 2010.

In Toronto, the bidding wars have largely given way to a market where houses sit longer and sell for closer to their asking price, said Richard Silver, president of the Toronto Real Estate Board. But hot neighbourhoods continue to fetch top dollar, especially considering the lack of listings.

Matthew Slutsky, chief executive officer of real estate site BuzzBuzzHome.com, has been trying to buy a house in one downtown neighbourhood for months. Along with his wife Carlie Brand, he’s been popping letters in mailboxes imploring their owners to consider a sale.

“I really hope it’s the calm before the storm and more listings pop up,” he said. “Right now it feels like we are auditioning for a house, and I don’t know if I want to wait and see what happens in the spring.”

There’s been a sense of unease surrounding Canada’s housing market for more than a year. The federal government tightened its mortgage qualification requirements to try to prevent buyers from taking on too much debt in a low-interest-rate environment, and the Bank of Canada has issued a steady stream of warnings about high levels of household debt.

The fear is that rates will rise as the economy improves, and many people who could afford their house when interest rates were low may find those same houses unaffordable as rates rise. Financial turmoil in Europe also has many market watchers concerned, with any default in Greece expected to have ripple effects around the world.

Lenders such as Gerry Soloway, CEO of Home Capital Corp., have cautiously tightened their lending standards in recent months as the economy wobbled. But he doesn’t see prices crashing any time soon, even if things slow down considerably.

“I just don’t see the catalyst for a big price drop,” he said.

It’s a theory echoed by Ross McCredie, CEO of Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, who recently had 16 buyers check out a $2.5-million home in Toronto.

“We are finding if the home is priced right and a quality home, it is moving fairly quick,” he said. “Too many people who are listing are expecting prices well above the market. We are spending a lot of time with our agents to ensure we are only taking on listings at the right price.”

The Canadian Real Estate Association is trying to provide a different way to interpret Canadian home sales.