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Tackling a home decorating project in 2021? These are the hottest paint colors this year.

Celebrate the spring of 2021 by giving your home interior a refreshing colour update. Nothing says new year, new you like a splash of colour on an accent wall. Or maybe you’re looking at warm, earthy neutrals throughout to bring grounding to your life and space. Whatever your reasons, whatever the room to redecorate, this year’s colour trends are ready to help you say goodbye to 2020 and embrace a hopeful and happy year ahead.

Take a look at this list of the hottest home paint colours of 2021 according to trusted home-style guides like Better Homes & Gardens and Good Housekeeping and the official Colours of the Year by paint colour kings like Behr and Benjamin Moore:

Walls
It’s unanimous–2021 is about warmer whites and grounding, earth-tone neutrals contrasted with bold, dare we say audacious, hues. Which do you feel best represents and inspires you in your space? We’ve highlighted this year’s colours of the year by category below, neutral and vibrant.

If you’re looking for a calm, inviting base to use absolutely anywhere, check out these trending neutrals:

Ultimate Gray
Named one of the two colours of the year, Pantone calls Ultimate Gray a “dependable” colour. And certainly, this versatile colour works in any home setting, especially in rooms where you want to evoke a sense of strength and solidity. (Pantone’s second colour of 2021 was “Illuminating,” a warm, happy yellow that pairs nicely with Ultimate.)

Urbane Bronze
Sherwin-Williams chose this nature-inspired colour as their 2021 colour of the year. Its deep bronze warmth creates a soothing, earthy backdrop designed to bring you back to nature and highlight other organic elements in your interior design.

If big colour is what you’re after, check out these vibrant hues:

Aegean Teal
This blue-green paint, named colour of the year by Benjamin Moore, is calm but bold. Both its name and its hue bring to mind the waters and the spirit of the Mediterranean.

Passionate
As part of HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams’s “Delightfully Daring” colour collection, Passionate plays its part in bringing boldness to your space. This rich, warm red is perfect for those spaces where you want to bring your passion.

Behr’s Color Trend Palette
This is a selection of 21 colours, including earthy and comforting browns and yellows accented with adventurous colours like “Euphoric Magenta” and “Saffron Strands.” Keywords to convey the spirit of this collection include “warm,” “restorative,” and “evocative.” So whatever balance you want your 2021 to strike, they’ve got a colour to help you achieve it.

Accent Walls & Accessories (furniture and more)
As you know, paint isn’t only for walls. Refinishing a dresser or table with a bright coat of paint can create an inspiring statement piece and quickly rejuvenate a stale or tired atmosphere. Try these trending colours to bring some spice and daring to your space.

Satin Paprika
This red by Rust-Oleum, the spray paint giant, is another warm earth tone, but with just the right depth to add modern zest to your home accessories.

Aqua Fiesta by Glidden and PPG’s Misty Aqua
These aquas are joining 2021’s sea-inspired blue-greens. Bring some of your beach-vacation anticipation to your home with these bright, happy aquas that simultaneously evoke energy and calm.

This year’s trending paint colours seem to reflect a collective desire for grounding, reconnecting, and asserting our strengths. They add warmth and stability with inviting neutrals, and they inspire and impassion with vibrant, dramatic hues.

Whatever your project, a couple of cans of this year’s trending colours will reinvigorate your home’s ambiance and give you the boost you want when walking into your favourite rooms!

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Professional home stager and real estate agent Kim Gaston gets candid about Pantone’s 2021 Colors of the Year, Illuminating and Ultimate Gray.

Each year, color matching company Pantone announces a color, or colors, that set the tone for current events, social happenings and design trends for the year ahead.

For 2021, Pantone chose the colors Illuminating, a shade of bright yellow, and Ultimate Gray, a shade of medium gray. The company describes this pairing as “a message of happiness supported by fortitude” and it says the combination represents hope in light of trying times.

The sentiment surely hits home for everyone in 2021. But for home décor? We consulted an expert for guidance on how to incorporate these two colors into homes this spring.

For 12 years, Kim Gaston has owned Front Porch Interiors, a home staging company in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Soon after starting her business, she earned her real estate license and became an agent with RE/MAX Advantage. The expertise combo equips her to help clients navigate every aspect of the home-selling process – and style their spaces to attract top dollar.

With an eye for design and a passion for helping others, Gaston gets candid about Pantone’s color choices.

Incorporating pops of yellow
As springtime rolls around, yellow becomes a popular accent color in the world of home décor.

According to Gaston, brighter colors – like yellow – are often utilized in muted shades for interior spaces.

“Illuminating is a clear color instead of a muted shade. Clear means that there’s not much gray in it,” Gaston says.

She expresses her hesitations about Illuminating, explaining that people are much more likely to opt for either softer or warmer shades of yellow inside their homes. Her best advice for those who do want to incorporate such a bright shade of yellow is what she calls the “60-30-10 rule.”

Gaston explains that, in a bedroom, 60% of the color scheme could be a neutral wall color and 30% could be a complementary color, like gray, in the bedding or a rug on the floor. The 10% remaining is a good place for brighter colors like yellows, through accent pillows, a throw blanket or yellow tulips in a vase on the nightstand.

“It’s an easy way to think about accent colors when you’re staging or selling a home,” she says. “You don’t want to overwhelm potential buyers with 60% [Illuminating] in a room.”

For a shade as bright as Illuminating, Gaston says she would opt against the shade altogether and instead pick one that mimics nature.

“Think about the yellows found in nature, in flowers like yellow tulips or forsythias. There are ways of using yellow, like a decorative bowl of lemons, that offer a more natural pop of color,” she says.

Alternatively, a “mid-century modern” aesthetic is a design trend that’s found renewed popularity the past few years. The style favors jewel tones, as well as a mustard color – a darker and warmer shade with a vintage feel – which has become a popular way to include yellow inside the home year-round.

Ultimately, one should decorate their living space in a way they love, whether that includes bright colors or neutrals. But Gaston is particularly focused on how colors used in staging can affect a home’s popularity while it’s on the market.

“I’m always considering how photography is going to look online and I try to keep the eye going around the room in a photo,” Gaston says. “It’s all about keeping the buyer engaged in the photos and driving the desire to customize the home themselves.”

Choosing the right gray
A more modern choice, gray has become a staple color in interior design. According to Gaston, gray can be a great neutral color for places like walls without being just another beige.

However, all grays are not created equal. Ultimate Gray by Pantone is an industrial shade with cooler notes. But when it comes to larger spaces like walls, grays in warmer shades are usually favorited over their cooler counterparts.

“[Oftentimes people go for grays that] have a warmer yellow or orange undertone to them so they don’t feel so cool and sterile. Especially in real estate, you really want the home to be warm and welcoming – and grays can be hard to pull off. If they have too much of a blue or green undertone, you might want to stay away from them,” Gaston says.

At the moment, home sellers and owners alike are veering toward warmer grays, she reports. Gaston describes fluctuating consumer preferences as a pendulum that is constantly swinging.

“The pendulum has moved back into the warmer, earthier tones, so right now we’re seeing a lot of ‘greiges’ – that’s gray with a warm beige undertone to it,” she says.

If Ultimate Gray is too cool of a shade for you, Gaston suggests Agreeable Gray or Amazing Gray, both by Sherwin Williams. Their yellow and orange undertones can create a calm, more inviting atmosphere – especially in the eyes of interested buyers when your home is for sale.

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There’s nothing new about the real estate markets in Ontario or British Columbia. Home sales and prices have risen yet again. That is bad news for prospective buyers who were hoping to purchase a home this year. But there is something new and exciting happening in Alberta, and this trend could bring some much-needed activity to the province’s weakened economy.

The real estate market in Alberta is heating up, but housing prices are still reasonable enough that first-time buyers can invest in a property that they can actually afford.

Ontario and B.C. have been experiencing dramatic bidding wars and rapid sales for over five years. Tiny fixer-uppers are selling for $1 million and supply doesn’t appear to be satisfying demand.

Home sales are up in Alberta, and supply is decreasing faster than most could have anticipated. March recorded over 8,500 provincial sales, making it the strongest March on record. The Alberta Real Estate Association noted that home sales had been relatively weak before COVID-19, but drastic interest rate cuts, changing housing preferences and improved savings for some have supported the surge in housing demand.

The average price for a detached home was just below $500,000 in March. Calgary recorded a March benchmark price of $516,300 for detached homes. While that is eight per cent higher than March 2020, it’s nowhere near the $1-million mark. In Edmonton, single-family homes sold for an average of $457,936 in March, a 13.3 per cent year-over-year increase from March 2020, and a 4.6-per-cent increase from February 2021.

Currently, the challenge for several Albertans isn’t finding a home within their budget. Rather, they need to get used to making purchasing decisions quickly. Millennials and Gen Zs are entering the market in Alberta and are driving the growing demand for properties under $600,000. There’s finally some competition, but the current state of the market is healthy by most standards.

In 2014, Alberta’s oil boom came to an abrupt halt. The record-high volume of worldwide oil inventories in storage caused crude oil prices to collapse. By February 2016, Alberta’s oil was valued as the cheapest oil in the world.

Alberta’s recession ended in 2017, but the province is still in recovery. Population growth declined in 2014 and has struggled to come back up. There is still a shortage of jobs but Albertans who are employed in trades positions, construction and energy often earn more than employees who hold similar positions in other provinces.

Alberta’s economy isn’t expected to exceed pre-pandemic levels until 2023, reports ATB Financial. The forecast, however, does predict a return to growth in 2021 and anticipates growth of 3.3 per cent in both 2021 and 2022. These predictions depend largely on how disruptive the pandemic is this year, and the demand for oil.

ATB Financial anticipates Alberta’s unemployment rate to hold around 11 per cent into next year, but this might not be a dealbreaker for prospective buyers currently living in other parts of Canada.

Currently those who can work from home are being as productive as they possibly can from their kitchen table, bedroom or couch. Chances are high that most office workers will not be commuting to work more than two or three times a week, even after the pandemic has ended. In rarer cases, some companies have said that employees never have to return to the office if they don’t want to. This has given people options that they never had before.

With a desire for more space and an ability to work from anywhere, people currently living in Ontario or B.C. could, in theory, move to Alberta. It’s not something that everyone could or would be willing to do, but if people are looking for space at a reasonable price, Alberta’s got it. Alberta also has big cities and cosy rural areas, and while it would take some time to adjust to the cold, the warmer months are a delight.

In return, Alberta would see a more active economy, with more people shopping, attending schools and requiring personal care.

While most prospective buyers won’t likely move to a new province to find their dream home, it is an option worth considering. For those who are seriously thinking about it, don’t wait too long. Alberta’s real estate market could transition from warm to hot very soon.

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Canadians invest in home renovations to improve quality of life, not to add value in current Canadian real estate market

• Challenging Canadian housing market conditions put additional importance to home renovations since the start of COVID-19, both for those looking to stay and those selling
• More than half of Canadians renovated their home in 2020 with the intention of living in it, with 29% renovating to enhance their lifestyle for non-essential reasons (aesthetic and/or recreational purposes) and 29% doing so for essential reasons (safety and maintenance)
• Only 16% of Canadians said they renovated to increase the market value of their home in order to sell within in the next one to three years

A new report by RE/MAX Canada is shedding light on shifting consumer trends in home renovations and the perceived return on investment (ROI), as impacted by COVID-19 and historically tight conditions across the Canadian real estate market. The RE/MAX 2021 Renovation Investment Report found that more than half of Canadians renovated their home last year for personal or “non-ROI” purposes, with three in 10 (29 per cent) choosing to renovate for non-essential “lifestyle” reasons, such as recreation-inspired projects.

A Leger survey conducted on behalf of RE/MAX Canada found lifestyle impact to be the top reason for renovating during the course of the pandemic, ahead of motives such as making essential renovations to accommodate life in lockdown (17 per cent), or to increase the value of the home with the intention of selling in the next one to three years (16 per cent).

Despite the trend of home renovations for personal use and enjoyment, 59 per cent of Canadians still said they always consider the return on investment that a renovation will have on their home’s overall market value, so while there is a current renovation trend based on lifestyle aspirations, practicality is never far from the surface.

“The notion of the home as an investment continues to be an important consideration for Canadian homeowners; however, they clearly value the home for what it is meant to be: a place to live and enjoy spending time,” says Elton Ash, Regional Executive Vice President, RE/MAX of Western Canada. “The pandemic has influenced virtually every aspect of our lives, including what Canadians want and need in a home. The uncertainty also compelled many sellers to move to the sidelines or renovate their home to accommodate current quality-of-life needs, which has further tightened conditions across many Canadian real estate markets.”

This lack of inventory is expected to be a continuing factor in the spring housing market across Canada. In its market outlook for 2021, RE/MAX identified seller’s market conditions in 82 per cent of regions, with a noted spike in demand for single-family dwellings putting additional pressure on already limited supply.

“Canadian real estate has continued to perform above and beyond expectations, with an increased opportunity for sellers to see a strong return on their investment given current demand,” says Christopher Alexander, Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President, RE/MAX of Ontario-Atlantic Canada. “As we’ve seen over the past year, strong seller’s markets continue to dominate many regions across Canada, with homes selling in record time and at record prices. While the impact that specific renovations have on ROI will vary by regional conditions, the Canadian housing market has generally shown us that you can’t go wrong with anything that improves your home in any way.”

With this in mind, nearly one year after the start of cross-country lockdowns, Canadians are still making renovation decisions based on pandemic living, with over half (55 per cent) of survey respondents stating that they have already done or would like to do a home renovation within the next year. Of this group, 35 per cent say they would opt for minor renovations, such as painting.

RE/MAX brokers across Canada were also surveyed for the report and identified fresh paint and landscaping as two upgrades that yield a high ROI, despite being low-budget and minor in nature. This is in alignment with and good news for the nearly half (47 per cent) of Canadians who said they would want to keep their home improvement budget below $10,000, even if the guaranteed ROI was at least 10 per cent. Three in 10 Canadians (31 per cent) would bump up their spending from $10,000 to just under $50,000, and only four per cent would consider spending more than $50,000.

Sixty-five per cent of RE/MAX brokers surveyed also claim that kitchen upgrades, including cabinets, countertops and appliances, yield the highest ROI for sellers, with 87 per cent of brokers naming the kitchen renovation as the top home improvement resonating with buyers in the Canadian real estate market.

Renovations and Canadian Real Estate: Regional Market Insights
In Western Canada, Calgary, Edmonton and Victoria, homebuyers want the move-in-ready experience, with homes that are already entirely renovated being most in demand. Given this, sellers in these regions have the potential to see a large return on their renovation investment. In Greater Vancouver, outdoor improvements are one of the optimal ways for homeowners to get the best ROI, with landscaping among the top five renovations to undertake. It’s also one of the most common renovations that homeowners in this region are taking on themselves, versus hiring a professional to do the work.

Throughout Ontario, RE/MAX brokers are reporting that listings are selling quickly, regardless of their condition or renovation status. Regions including Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton-Burlington, Niagara, London and Kingston/Napanee saw a strong shift toward outdoor upgrades and amenities in 2020, specifically the addition of a pool or larger exterior living area. Much of this demand was prompted by COVID-19 and the desire for more recreational space within the home – a trend that is not anticipated to be a permanent one. Bathroom renovations and new flooring are highly regarded as yielding the best return on investment. Across markets such as Mississauga, Thunder Bay, London, Barrie and Ottawa, painting is noted by RE/MAX brokers as the top renovation that homeowners are doing themselves, as well as one of the best ways to also see an improvement on ROI.

In Atlantic Canada provinces, RE/MAX brokers also placed importance on upgraded kitchens, but noted flooring upgrades as one of the best renovations for homeowners to get optimal ROI in regions including Fredericton, Saint John and St. John’s. Meanwhile in Charlottetown, roofing upgrades and landscaping are two of the top renovations that can be done relatively quickly to improve ROI, along with painting, as echoed across nearly all regions surveyed. In Saint John, the finished basement is one of the most sought-after renovations by buyers and creating more open-concept spaces is noted as one of the top three ways for sellers to get the best return on their investment.

Consumers’ Understanding of ROI
Only 51 per cent of Canadians claimed to have a thorough grasp of the renovation process and nearly half either don’t know or disagree that they have the understanding needed to make ROI-enhancing renovation decisions. Furthermore, 50 per cent of Canadians surveyed said they expect their REALTOR® to advise them on the right renovations to take on if they expressed interest in doing so when purchasing a home. This reliance on external professionals to guide home-buying decisions is anticipated to continue.

Additional highlights from the 2021 RE/MAX Renovation Investment Report

• When it comes to the renovations that yield the best return on investment, Canadians see these as the best renovations to undertake:
  – 70% of Canadians state redesigning larger spaces, such as kitchens or washrooms
  – 56% of Canadians state minor updates, such as refreshing paint
  – 55% of Canadians state landscaping the outdoor space
  – 50% of Canadians state changing the home layout, including adding rooms or knocking down walls
  – 32% of Canadians state updating décor and furniture
• 49% of Canadians prefer to contract out most or all of the renovation work
• 33% of Canadians consider themselves to be very capable when it comes to home renovations, and don’t need professional help

About the 2021 RE/MAX Renovation Investment Report
The 2021 RE/MAX Renovation Investment Report includes data from RE/MAX brokerages. RE/MAX brokers and agents are surveyed on insights and local developments. Regional summaries with additional broker insights can be found at remax.ca.

About Leger
Leger is the largest Canadian-owned full-service market research firm. An online survey of 1,540 Canadians was completed between February 4-7, 2021, using Leger’s online panel. Leger’s online panel has approximately 400,000 members nationally and has a retention rate of 90 per cent. A probability sample of the same size would yield a margin of error of +/- 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

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Canada tops ratings as “a stable and safe society in which individuals can develop and prosper, and is open, fair and equitable.”

Canada has been ranked the top country in the world according to a major new study.

For the first time, the U.S. News & World Report has placed the Great White North at the top of its annual Best Countries Report.

Canada spent several years in the second and third positions on the roundup. However, this year it ranked first in both the Quality of Life and Social Purpose sub-rankings, “meaning that it is seen as a stable and safe society in which individuals can develop and prosper, and is open, fair and equitable.”

The report – formed in partnership with BAV Group, a unit of global marketing communications company VMLY&R, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania – is based on a survey that asked more than 17,000 people from four regions to assess perceptions of 78 countries on 76 different metrics.

In addition to an overall ranking, the report includes 25 sub-rankings and “best for” lists including the Best Countries for Women, Most Powerful Countries and Best Countries for Racial Equality.

Three new countries – Cambodia, El Savador and Uzbekistan – are included in this year’s report.

Report authors mention that Canada adopted a national policy of multiculturalism in 1971, which celebrates diversity. Further, they mention that the North American country “welcomes immigrants” and has “participated in many peacekeeping missions.”

The report also notes that, with a national GDP of $1.74 trillion, Canada is a significant exporter of energy, food and minerals. “Canada ranks third in the world in proven oil reserves and is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer,” the report added.

Canada is also lauded as a “high-tech industrial society with a high standard of living.”

The top 10 countries in the world
1.Canada
2. Japan
3. Germany
4. Switzerland
5. Australia
6. United States
7. New Zealand
8. United Kingdom
9. Sweden
10. Netherlands

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Lumber prices have more than doubled in the past year and are still rising, adding another layer of cost to B.C.’s skyrocketing house prices

As of April 9, a basic SPF (spruce, pine, fir) two-by-four cost a record high of $1,132 per thousand board feet, according to the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development’s weekly B.C. lumber price tracking.

This compares to an average of $532 a year ago and to $372 in pre-pandemic 2019. The price was up nearly $100 from a week earlier.

“A sheet of [4-foot by 8-foot] half-inch plywood costs $65 today. It was $51 a few days ago,” said contractor Brian Barker of Sunshine Coast Roofing Ltd. on April 12, as he prepped a roof for more than 50 sheets of plywood.

A standard eight-foot 2×4 is now more than $7 after tax, he added.

The price of standard plywood panels hit $1,223 per thousand board feet on April 9, up from $1076 a week earlier and twice the price from a year ago.

And there appears little relief in sight.

In a podcast hosted by Canadian Forest Industries, Keta Kosman, owner of Madison’s Lumber Reporter, said she is expecting the pace to continue for as much as the next couple of years – and not just because the pandemic sparked a boom in the repair and remodeling market. In 2020, millennials made up the largest cohort of first-time buyers for the first time, Kosman notes.

“So, we’re now having a large demographic entering the housing market that has nothing to do with the pandemic. So, it’s very positive [for lumber producers],” she said. “Definitely through this year, there will not be a slowdown, and potentially also through 2022.”

Lumber prices are now at all-time highs in both Canada and the US, and builders estimate the rising wood costs would nail an extra $10,000 to $20,000 onto the price of a new house.

“We do expect the lumber prices to stay quite elevated for quite a period of time,” said Kevin Lee, CEO of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association.

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A few DIY cosmetic upgrades can drastically alter the appearance of a home and help catch the attention of interested buyers, increasing your return when the home goes from ‘for sale’ to ‘sold.’

Looking to sell your home in the near future? Small investments in the aesthetic of the property could add value and increase the ROI – even if the renovations aren’t too costly.

With springtime underway, consider these DIY-friendly upgrades for a space refresh just in time to sell.

Paint the walls
Wall color preferences are personal, and statement choices like bold paint colors or accent walls can help people express their personal style within their home. Unfortunately, prospective buyers may not share that affinity for such boldness – and it may shape their view on the home in its entirety.

Consider repainting the interior walls a soft, neutral color. The coherence can help a home feel larger, and will present the space as a clean, blank canvas for an interested buyer to personalize.

Resurface kitchen cabinets
Often seen as the heart of the household, kitchens can be a make-or-break feature for prospective buyers. Unless they are planning on remodeling prior to move-in day, new homeowners will want a kitchen that is functional and at least moderately upgraded.

A quick and budget-friendly way to give your kitchen a makeover is to resurface the cabinets. Refacing them structurally and/or with a new coat of paint will update the overall appearance of the kitchen and can turn older or basic cabinetry into a more custom asset.

According to The Spruce, resurfacing cabinets can cost 40%-50% less than replacing kitchen cabinets altogether, making it a great option for sellers.

Shape-up outdoor space
From patios to grassy yards, outdoor space is an in-demand feature these days – especially heading into the warmer months. With grass growing green again and flowers beginning to bud, frame any outdoor living space on your property to look like a relaxing sanctuary.

Arrange existing patio furniture in an inviting way. Inexpensive outdoor additions include hanging Edison bulb string lights, planting flowers in pots and adding a weather-friendly rug under tables or chairs to frame the space. And remember, the greenery and landscaping in a backyard can make a home look more polished and sell for higher value – read up on why.

Stage with buyers in mind
In addition to thoroughly cleaning, refine any clutter or personal mementos inside the home. Simplifying the space will help it appear tidier and larger.

Working with the furniture and décor you already own is easy and free. As you assess what items line shelves, decorate the sofa and accent the bed, consider what you – the seller – would be thrown off by when touring someone else’s house. Also remember to highlight the space by opening up curtains and maximizing natural light when it’s time for showings.

Boost curb appeal
It doesn’t have to cost much money for the outside of a home to look welcoming and well-cared for. Make sure to mow the lawn and tend to any other greenery that may have overgrown or died in recent months. Adding items like a new welcome mat and planters beside the front door are low-cost ways to make a big impact on the home’s external appearance.

To give the exterior a more drastic makeover, consider repainting the front door for a pop of color. A pro tip is to paint the framing of the storm door outside as well for continuity.

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Warmer weather brings with it a feeling of new possibilities, and many homeowners ready for change needn’t look further than their own backyard. Literally.

Previously reserved as the dog’s domain, many homeowners are beginning to see the potential their yards offer to expand their functional living space (sorry, Fido).

“We’ve always enjoyed our outdoor spaces, but now people have taken it to a whole other level,” says Rose Kemp, a real estate agent with RE/MAX Town Centre in Orlando, Florida.

Kemp says many of her clients are adding amenities to their outdoor space that may have been closed during the pandemic, including putting greens, basketball courts, or even a “she shed” or “sports den.” Zen gardens and quiet areas for meditation are also becoming popular.

“People are creating additional space for whatever their lifestyle is,” Kemp says. “As families are spending more time at home, they’re realizing they aren’t limited to the space that’s inside the house and are creating more living and congregating areas.”

Homes are now being built to accommodate outdoor living. Newer models in Kemp’s Orlando market offer “garage style” doors that open dining areas up to an outdoor kitchen.

Similar to other updates homeowners might consider, adding amenities to a backyard could help increase a home’s value and become a selling point when it’s time to list. According to Kemp, a buyer may be willing to pay between $5,000-$10,000 more on a home with an updated yard than a comparable property without any functional outdoor space.

“Even if they have to pay a little bit more, buyers don’t want to have to recreate the landscaping because they would have to spend more cash out of their pocket,” she says.

In her area, that can mean adding a screen enclosure to a porch or a firepit for backyard barbecues. Of course, homeowners may want to think carefully before making what Kemp calls an “over improvement,” which is an expensive update that likely won’t recoup its cost during a sale. Pools, for example, don’t always offer a return on investment.

“Appraisers may be limited as to how much value they add to a home if it has a pool,” she says. “For example, even if you spend $80,000 installing a pool, it may add only $45,000 during an appraisal. That being said, if homeowners plan to stay in the home for few years, they should create the backyard that will make them the most happy!”

Outdoor space has become such an important consideration for buyers that some sellers are using photo editing software to show the possibilities of a listing that might not be in full bloom.

Peter Schravemade is the Strategic Relationship Manager for the virtual staging company BoxBrownie. He says that for some properties, showcasing the yard can be “essential to the sale.”

“We’ve seen landscaping edits happen more and more to demonstrate potential as buyers look for more space and, in particular, more functional space,” he says.

Real estate agents can also use the software to help buyers envision what a home will look like throughout the year – for example, removing snow from homes sold during winter or adding leaves to trees during the fall.

Schravemade says BoxBrownie can help potential buyers imagine ways they can make the backyard their own.

“My advice is for agents to keep it simple. The best case for this type of edit is to demonstrate an opportunity in the yard or remove an objection – for example, when the buyer says, ‘We would make an offer except for the state of the backyard,” Schravemade says.

Looking to create the perfect garden? Here’s the dirt.
Amenities are important, but lush landscaping is what really makes any outdoor escape come alive. Gardens can take years to reach their full potential, according to Colleen Sellers, owner of Planted Earth Landscaping in Denver, Colorado. Those looking to create a yard that will become a selling point should plant the seeds now.

Fortunately for those without a green thumb, a yard can be low maintenance and beautiful, according to Sellers. It just takes a bit of planning.

“There are no bad plants, just bad gardeners,” Sellers says. “It’s important to know what kind of sun access and soil you have, then pick plants that will thrive in that condition.”

She says to take note of the sun, water, and maintenance needs of plants before bringing them home. That’s one reasons succulents have seen a recent boom in popularity – they can add a modern look to most gardens while requiring very little water.

It may also be a good idea to read up on the latest trends – just like the fashion world, certain flowers and plants tend to fall in and out of style.

“Old-school juniper and dyed mulches aren’t popular right now, and hybrid tea roses can appear dated,” she says. “Knock out roses, which are easier to maintain and less susceptible to disease, are very much in style.”

Ornamental grasses, such as blue avena or shenandoah switch grass, are also on-trend thanks to their easy maintenance and pops of color. Sellers says clients are also more conscious of the environmental impact of their garden, choosing plants that require less water or attract pollinators to the area. For example, bees love hyssop or lavender.

“It’s also important to keep in mind that your design is growing, so it changes,” Sellers says. “It’s not like picking the right lamps which stay exactly the same. Plants will grow and do things that sometimes you’re surprised about!”

For those looking to take the guesswork out of gardening, there are plenty of benefits to hiring a professional. Not only can a pro landscaper advise which plants will thrive in a certain yard’s conditions, they can also save homeowners the time and labor of installation.

“I think a lot of homeowners start a project and get about a fourth of the way in and realize how difficult it is to relocate 10 wheelbarrows of soil,” Sellers says. “When you a hire a professional, we save you the sweat equity of doing everything yourself.”

Creating an outdoor space can take a lot of work and be an investment. But according to Kemp, it not only opens up room for entertaining and hobbies, it can provide a way for the current owner’s story to live on after the home is sold.

“I have friends from Puerto Rico who chose amazing plants that reminded them of home and staged their yard perfectly, so you feel like you are on a tropical island in their backyard,” Kemp says. “They put so much work into it, and that will be attractive to a buyer. They’ll see a whole creation that is already done – buyers love that.”

Budgeting is an important life skill, but as a homeowner or renter, there are some things you shouldn’t compromise on. Here are some investments that are worth spending more on now, to save you money down the road.

Furniture
Poorly constructed furniture will wear out quickly and repurchasing broken pieces can actually end up costing more than buying higher quality furniture from the start. Make sure your furniture essentials, such as your mattress, bed frame, couch, dining table, and chairs are sturdy enough to last for years.

Contractors
If you’re having work done, make sure it’s done right. Ask your friends and neighbors for recommendations, check reviews, and make sure the company you choose has a proven record of quality craftsmanship.

Paint
Bargain paint isn’t always the deal it’s made out to be. The savings you net per can may actually be lost as you require more layers of paint to get the job done. Higher quality paint often goes on more smoothly and evenly, meaning less aggravation and better results. It will also typically stand up to more wear and tear, meaning your paint job will last longer than a bargain paint option.
 

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Multiple bids and even flippers emerge as Edmonton home sales soar 52 per cent and Calgary posts the highest sales since the oil-price crash back in 2014.

Total housing sales in Greater Edmonton for February 2021 increased 52.1 per cent compared to February 2020 and 36.8 per cent from January 2021, a surprising performance even for the local real estate association.

Calgary sales hit a seven-year record in February in what some are calling a sellers’ market.

“The Edmonton market saw a significant increase in year-over-year residential unit sales as well as month-to-month sales,” said Realtors Association of Edmonton chair Tom Shearer. “There have also been more sales of single-family homes, condos and duplexes compared to February of last year as well as last month.”

Added Shearer, “The high level of activity we have seen in February is uncharacteristic for this time of year. We are witnessing a very strong market.”

For the month of February, single-family detached house sales were up 62.2 per cent from February 2020 and 40 per cent higher than in January 2021 at 1033.

Condo sales increased nearly 20 per cent from February 2020 and 26.7 per cent from January 2021.

The number of new residential listings is also up year over year, increasing 7.6 per cent from February 2020. Overall inventory in remains down about 17 per cent from February of last year, but was up 7.6 per cent compared to January 2021.

The composite home prices is up to $377,931, a 7.6 per cent increase from February 2020, and up nearly 4 per cent from January 2021.

Single-family homes sold for an average of $437,977 in February. Condominiums sold for an average of $230,929.

In Calgary, February sales home sales reached 1,836 units, the highest level for any February since 2014, the year oil prices crashed.

The month It is also the first time since 2018 that average Calgary detached-house prices have risen above $500,000.

“Much of the strong sales activity is driven by exceptionally low mortgage rates,” said Calgary Real Estate Board chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie.

The surge is not limited just to Alberta’s two big cites.

Housing sales in St. Albert, an Edmonton suburban community, increased by almost 72 per cent in February compared to this time last year, as the price of single-family homes surges with fewer listings on the market during the pandemic.

Shandrie Lewis, real estate agent and broker for Re/Max professionals, told the St. Albert Gazette that her brokerage saw 106 more transactions so far this year, equalling a 76-per-cent increase compared to the first two months of 2020, pre-pandemic.

“We’re slammed right now. Inventory is incredibly low, we’re in multiple offer situations every day,” Lewis said. Most of those sales are made up of single-family homes, she said. “We weren’t expecting this.”

As to why the housing market is seeing a surge when other areas of the economy are struggling, Lewis pointed to a few potential reasons. People have more time on their hands to look for opportunities, many are saving money because of travel and social restrictions, and investors are buying fixer-upper homes to flip and sell.

“People’s lives are also changing, too – I do know divorces are going up right now, job losses, people needing to downsize. But then a lot of people have done really well over the last year from not putting kids in recreation activities or travelling, so they’re investing in real estate,” she said.

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After you get your car, you want to install home charging for it where you park it (ie. your garage or driveway.) If you can’t install any charging at all, because you park on the street or in an apartment parking garage, then you face a challenge. If you can charge at your office (often for free) that’s great, though not without other issues. If you can’t do either, I don’t currently recommend purchase of an electric car, at least for now.

But you may find when you call an electrician and ask to install a nice Level Two charging station with a 50 amp circuit that they present a very expensive estimate — perhaps $5,000 or more — because you will need to upgrade the electric service into your home. Older homes often have only 100 amps of service, and electrical codes don’t let you exceed a given quota of devices and loads on them. Without going into the full formula, if you get 80 amps worth of 240v devices on a 100A panel you probably go over the limit. If you have things like a 30 amp dryer, a 30 amp electric oven, or an air conditioner or pool pump or other such device, you can easily go over the limit. Your electrician will tell you that you need to bring in new service from the power company (typically 200 amps) as well as whole new power panel. On top of that, they will need to run a line capable of 40 to 50 amps to your parking spot, and install a 50 amp plug (cheap) or hardwired wall EVSE (”charger”).

If you have newer service, fear not, you don’t need to change the panel, and you can just add a new circuit. If the wire is not that long, getting that plug may not cost that much. Sadly, many see a more expensive estimate. How can you get away from it? The answer is that while it’s nice to have enough power to recharge a car from zero to full in one night, you don’t actually need nearly that much.

Charging at Level One
The average car is driven only 40 miles/day. The Level One charger (which usually comes with almost any electric car) plugs into a dedicated standard house plug, and can deliver 12 amps. This means it will deliver 40 miles in an 8-hour overnight charging session. Most people have their car at home for much more than an average of 8 hours. So generally, even with this very slow charging, you will keep up. On the days you drive more, you won’t recharge fully, but as long as you don’t keep doing long days several days in a row, you will eventually make it back. (How quickly depends on whether you must limit charging only to off-peak electrical times.)

(If you are one of those people with a 100 mile commute, this is not going to work for you, and you may have to bite the bullet and get a new electrical service. But most people don’t go that far.)

Of course, adding 50 miles/night, sometimes you won’t have enough. For many, these times will be just a handful per year. Then, the fast chargers like Tesla superchargers can be your solution. This is OK if it’s not a common event. Other solutions can include charging at work. If you don’t commute, or have a round-trip of 20 miles or less, this solution will actually probably work for you — and it might even be free if you have a dedicated circuit plug in your parking spot. It has to be dedicated — nothing else on that circuit breaker.

In some cases, the dedicated plug may actually have a 20 amp breaker and 12AWG wire on it. In that case, the plug may already have the “T” slot in it that says it is 20 amp. Get the 20 amp plug (which Tesla sells and some other chargers sell) and you will see 50 miles or more in an 8 hour night, and you’ll definitely catch up with average driving.

At first blush, when you read that charging a 250 mile range car on Level One can take over two days you will think Level One is ridiculous, but in reality, the bigger the battery the more it can take the swings up and down and still leave you with enough capacity to do your driving. It’s the small battery car that absolutely needs to get to full every night. The large battery car doesn’t.

It should be noted in very cold climates this slow charging may not cut it due to the need to heat batteries and the larger drain of driving in the cold.

Charging at slower Level Two
A Level Two circuit runs at twice the voltage and usually at higher current. In fact, you can install these able to do up to 80 amps. For most people though, you don’t need nearly that much. You will be very happy with enough to restore about 60% of your battery, because your typical daily cycle should run from 20% to 80% full. On a 240 mile Tesla Model 3, you can get that in 8 hours with just 5 kw, which is what you get from a 30 amp plug, the same one that runs your dryer. (On any plug, the car charges at 80% of full current, in this case at 24 amps.) Such a circuit is going to fully restore you on almost any day you drive, particularly if you have more than 8 hours at home. You really don’t need it faster. The regular range Tesla can’t take more than 32 amps in any event (ie. a 40 amp circuit) but you just don’t need even that. If you can get it, of course you should take it, but you should not spend thousands to get that extra boost.

Your electrician might tell you you need a new panel for a 50 amp plug, but that you can put in a 30 amp or 20 amp without a new panel — which can save you a fortune.

That 20 amp Level 2 charger will recover about 14 miles for each hour you charge, or around 110 in an 8 hour night. That’s more than enough for most people — again remember that the average car does 40 miles per day. You will find a few days or stretches of days when you don’t get full, but you might find only a couple of days a year that the supercharger is called for. Again, you don’t want to be slow, but if it will save you $3,000 to go with 20 amps instead of 50 amps, then do it. Ask your electrician to install a “6-20” plug which has 240v at 20 amps. It uses a horizontal pin (like the 20a pictured above) but on the other side. Get that adapter for your car.

If you have a truly dedicated plug (it is the only thing on a breaker) then in many cases an electrician can, for not much money, replace a regular 120v socket with a 240v stocket for twice the charging rate, changing the plug and breaker as long as the wiring is rated for the higher voltage. Ask about that — it can almost surely fit your panel’s load maximum. (While the USA runs on around 120v for normal plugs, and much of the rest of the world runs on 220v, US homes can install 240v plugs and there is a well established standard for doing it.)

Sharing with your dryer
Most houses have a 30 amp electric plug for your dryer. It may be easy for you to switch to a natural gas dryer, particularly if you are in the mood for a new dryer. They cost only a little more, but they cost a fair bit less to run, and as such they save money in the long run. They also cost the same day and night. You do need to get a natural gas line at your laundry room. Adding that can cost real money — or be cheap — depending on how far it has to come. Perhaps you can even sell your electric dryer to somebody on Craigslist.

If you do this, you remove 30 amps of load from your house, and now you can add a 30 amp line for your car without needing a service upgrade. Your electrician can also in some cases just run a line from where your electric dryer plug is (was) to where your car is. This is more than enough power for your needs, and even though a new gas dryer is not free, it can be the cheapest option of all.

You can also buy a device called a “Dryer Buddy” for about $350 which lets you plug your car and dryer into the same plug, if your car parks close to your dryer. This device simply sees when the dryer is on, and shuts off car charging when it is. This is also a relatively cheap solution. Unless you run your dryer after midnight you won’t even notice sharing the plug.

A smart charger
In truth, while the electrical code demands that your house be able to handle everything being turned on at once — dryer, oven, air conditioner and car — the reality is you never need to actually do that. If car chargers were smart, they would come with circuits which detect when the other devices are on, and reduce or stop car charging when that’s happening — which is a very rare event. Such chargers would let everybody install car charging without a service upgrade. Sadly, they are not yet to be found. There is a device made in Canada called the DCC-9 which can go in your electrical box and it shuts off power to the charger when other appliances are on. Sadly, it costs around $1,000, when this is something that should come for almost free in the charger. But that can be much cheaper than service upgrade. Some day this technology may become lower cost and easier to install. An open source device known as SmartEVSE is able to do this but requires some more advanced set-up knowledge.

What about the high end?
This advice is for those with a 100 amp service in their house. If you have larger service, like 200 amps, there is no reason not to install a nice circuit to a 50 amp plug, known as the 14-50 plug — the same one big RVs use. You can’t use all of it, but you might buy a bigger electric car in the future, and you might even buy two electric cars, and wish you could get 60 or more amps. Price out getting bigger wire than you need, it may only add a modest amount to the price of your install. Tesla Wall Connectors have a nice feature which allows them to “daisy chain” and share the power between two of them when you have two Teslas.

Even if you go for one of the cheaper plugs described, like the 6-20, you should run thicker wire to it able to handle 30, 40 or 50 amps. Price it out. If you do, and later you do upgrade your house service, you won’t need to rewire that circuit to get that maximum power.

Of course, there can be other reasons to increase the service on your house. It’s a bit safer, and can offer room for other expansion you might do in the future, such as more cars, air conditioning, a hot tub and other things. All those reasons might justify the upgrade — the main point of this article was to examine when the car alone doesn’t need it.

By the way, if your employer gives you free charging at work, then of course take advantage of that perk. It may mean a bit less convenience when you park, or it may mean a premium spot. Even so, you should still have at least Level One at home, since that’s cheap. That will keep you boosted on weekends and holidays.

When you charge
Your power company may offer you “time of use” billing for power. This means that instead of paying a flat rate all day, you pay higher rates at peak times (usually afternoons and early evenings) and lower rates at off peak times (nights and sometimes mornings.) It all balances out except when you can move power usage to the off peak time. If you charge a car at night, that’s just what you do, and this is a big win for car owners. In fact, in California and some other places, owners of electric vehicles can request a special “super time of use” rate which is even cheaper at night and only available for EVs. The good news, if you get this rate, is you pay a very low price at night for your car. The bad news is that the rate in the day is quite high, and you will want to avoid things like running the dryer then. If you do a lot of air conditioning it may not be a win, but it usually is.

The other downside is that you don’t charge your car during the peak, so that if you do only have Level One, there will be fewer hours in the day you can recover. If you can charge 24 hours a day, even Level One can add a lot of power per day on the days when the car stays at home.

Source: RE/MAX

If you’ve been thinking about selling your home, now’s the time. Low interest rates and increased time spent at home have created a large pool of buyers looking for homes. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still put your best foot forward. Before your home goes on the market, make sure you’ve crossed off these preliminary steps.

Declutter
Limiting the amount of clothes, furnishings, and other “stuff” in the house will help buyers envision their own items in the house as well as make your home appear more spacious.

Landscape
If your lawn is a little sparse or the bushes a bit overgrown, now is the time to fix it. Landscaping takes time, so get started a few months before you’re ready to list.

Make Repairs
If you have a loose banister in the stairwell, uncovered sockets, or a light switch that doesn’t work, go ahead and bring someone in to repair those items. Buyers may see small cosmetic problems or items in need of repair and assume there are problems they aren’t seeing. Make sure your home looks and functions well to attract the most buyers and the highest price possible.

Whatever 2021 has in store for you, whether it’s buying, selling, or sprucing up your current home, I’m here to help!
 

Source: RE/MAX

Low interest rates and high demand mean a housing shortage for first time home buyers. With multiple offers, high quality, affordable homes aren’t staying on the market for long. However, new construction homes may be able to help close the gap between available homes and buyers in the market.

Pros: Buying a new construction home reduces the chances of running into a bidding war and often allows you to pick your lot and customize some of the features. You also get a brand new, turn-key home that won’t need additional renovations or repairs before you can move in. Most also come with extended builder’s warranties and manufacturer warranties that will help protect your investment.

Cons: One of the downsides of purchasing a new construction home is that it may be weeks or months before construction is complete, depending on how early in the building process you purchase. Also, you will most likely have to place a deposit to claim your home well before construction is complete.

Before you buy a new construction home, make sure it was built by a company with a good reputation and review the terms of the warranty to make sure you’re covered if something goes wrong early in your homeownership. You should also be able to tour a model home or existing property to see the quality of the build before you buy.

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Skeptics like to point out that most EV drivers live in single-family homes that make charging easy. And they point to the current lack of charging stations at condos as an impenetrable obstacle to EV adoption. But this viewpoint reflects a lack of understanding of how daily EV charging works.

I recently chatted with Jason Appelbaum, chief executive of EverCharge — the biggest EV charging network you never heard of. He explained several hundred electric cars, all parked in the same condo garage, can easily get their daily dose of electricity.

For Appelbaum, it started in 2012 when he bought a Tesla Model S P85.

“I bought an EV, and I didn’t even bother to set up charging. I’m an engineer, so I just drove it home, parked it in the space, and said I will solve this tomorrow. That was a very interesting next day.”

The next day arrived, and Appelbaum found the electric panel — officially the “meter stack” — in the 39-unit condo’s garage. He discovered a grand total of 50 amps of available power on a single circuit breaker allotted to his condo unit.

“The breaker was only sized for my unit. There was no way to add a car charger.

I realized that if I put that charger in, I’m going to take all the available capacity. So out of 39 units, I’m the only one who gets to drive an EV. And I was very confused as to why that was. So I set out on a mission to understand.”

Appelbaum reached out to PG&E, the local utility, to explore getting more power to the building. It was physically possible, but the cost could run up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, making it financially impractical. Like a smart engineer, he started running the numbers.

“The way I drive my vehicle, I only needed to charge for about an hour and a half each night. I leave at 8 am, and I am in bed before 11. That gives us nine hours to put one and a half hours of charging into my car. That was the basis of the idea of the company: load sharing. And that same idea has scaled beyond my wildest dream.”

EverCharge, a private company based in Emeryville, Calif., has charging stations providing service to multi-family dwellings and fleets in 25 states and two Canadian provinces. When I spoke with Appelbaum, he said that EverCharge stations on that day supplied about an average of 10 kWh of juice to probably tens of thousands of cars. He said 500 cars in a single garage would be easy. The company is the default multi-family solution provider for Tesla. You haven’t heard of them because they don’t do public charging.

From this photo, I count about 10 stations at this location:

Here’s how EverCharge works. You start with a set number of EV miles or kilowatt-hours necessary to complete the garage’s charging requirements for the day. Based on the dwell time for those cars over a typical day, you have a certain number of hours to deliver those kWh. Then you need to consider the constraint of the building’s power output. From there, work backward to build a system.

The key is that not all the EVs show up in the condo or apartment garage simultaneously. For example, some people stop off at a grocery store or bring the kids to soccer.

“Based on substantial data from our buildings, I can tell you that the dwell time is in excess of 16 hours on average. That is first-in-last-out in multi-family buildings.”

He explained that many building owners at first want to install charging at 100% capacity for every parking spot, which is unnecessary.

“If you charge every single car all at once, you’ll have an entire fleet that is ready at a moment’s notice. Congratulations. Those cars still won’t move until six o’clock the next morning. As long as they meet the end time, who cares how long it took?”

Sometimes the current (amperage) in a building has to be increased, but it’s usually minimal. The system takes into account the building’s total load and historic state-of-charge data about the vehicles it has charged. After a few seconds of charging, EverCharge stations can know and utilize the onboard charger’s power capacity in its algorithm.

Appelbaum didn’t want to talk about some details, but the company has relationships with General Motors and likely other carmakers (presumably to pull data from telematics systems). The next wave of power-line communications between cars and chargers will provide an even more direct source of vehicle/battery data.

The EverCharge system also is reading, in real-time, other power usage in the building — such as elevators or industrial exhaust fans. Appelbaum said:

“If somebody pushes the elevator button, our system ramps down just as the other systems are ramping up.”

In other words, EV charging can dodge the building’s peak demands and the exorbitant “demand charges” it can bring. That doesn’t mean the EV chargers are continually going on and off and on again. The first EV arriving at the garage might immediately get a full supply of power. But when more cars arrive, the load gets balanced and adjusted.

“Our goal is to understand normal behavior and design the charging system for 99% of use cases.”

While Applebaum loves the engineering challenge, he sees a more significant social and environmental mission for his company, now employing 22 people.

“We will end up in a situation where the number of people who can adopt an electric vehicle could hit a wall. And yet, I will always be convinced that we can get substantially more cars into the community owning electric vehicles before we need serious infrastructure upgrades.

We have tons of available capacity, just not necessarily to be simultaneously delivering to every car at 6 pm.”

Electrek’s Take
There’s nothing revolutionary about what EverCharge is doing, except that it’s run by a guy who drives an EV and understands that most people only need to charge for an hour or two every night. At the same time, our EVs are commonly parked for more than half the day.

I keep seeing articles about the problem of EV charging for people who don’t live in single-family homes. But I hadn’t put that much thought into it. After speaking with Appelbaum, I see that it’s a solvable problem — at least until every single car in the garage is electric.

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Outdoor elevators, touchless doors, zero-recycled air and changes to open floor plans among design reactions to COVID-19

Vancouver developer Qualex-Landmark is among the first to implement a number of measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in two new residential projects, part of a trend that is gaining traction across North America.

“Just as the Spanish flu gave us the vanity room, which originated as a hand-washing basin immediately inside the front entry of a home, COVID-19 will influence innovation in home design,” Chris Marlin, president of Lennar International, one of the largest U.S. home builders, wrote in a recent report to a World Economic Forum COVID-19 action platform.

The modifications to new home design include variations in open floor plans, changes to ventilation systems, touchless technology and the use of antimicrobial metals, such as bronze, copper and brass, for touchpoints, he noted.

Some older designs that added work space in condos could also be revised, Beedie Living’s executive vice-president Houtan Rafii told Business in Vancouver.

Homes used to be built with small alcoves that included built-in tables large enough for computers, he said. The alcoves fell out of favour when technology enabled people to easily move around with their laptops, and Rafii thinks that they could make a comeback.

Qualex-Landmark, which plans to start about 300 units of housing in Metro Vancouver in 2021, will introduce extensive pandemic-proofing designs in a high-end 48-unit strata development in Vancouver and a mixed subsidized rental and market condo project it will build in Burnaby’s Metrotown, according to Jordan Beach, the company’s vice-president of marketing.

“At the Legacy on Dunbar, we have introduced a number of measures to reflect the new world we live in,” Beach said.

These included moving the two elevators for the five-storey project from inside to the north and south exterior of the building to reduce resident congestion. Most of the building amenities were move outside as well, including an open-air roof top lounge.

The ventilation system was changed to individual filtered systems for each unit to reduce the use of recycled air throughout the project. The common areas are also equipped with specific air exchangers that draw and exhaust directly to the outside, Beach explained.

In the Burnaby project, touchless entry doors and touchless faucets will be used and touchpoints in common areas, such as a children’s playroom, will be coated with antimicrobial material. Floors and countertop will use non-porous materials that allow for easy sanitization, he added. Sanitize stations are being custom-built into walls in the lobby, and Qaulex-Landmark is also looking at voice-activated smart appliances, which are widely available.

“These are all cost-effective procedures to put in place,” he said, referring to automatic doors or using ultraviolet light to sterilize ventilation systems. “It is quite shocking how little they do cost. It actually makes the home more marketable and it doesn’t cost the consumer or developer anything additional,” Beach said.

Lennar suggested that open floor plans, which are quite popular in new homes, could change in a pandemic-conscious world, because they are suspected of helping spread infections, and make it harder for people to quietly work at home.

But Beach believes open-floor designs will remain, especially in smaller condos, but he suggested they will become more flexible in larger new homes, with sliding doors that allow spaces to be divided.

Beach believes that, like the powder room, anti-virus designs will become more common in new homes, even if a vaccine ends the current pandemic.

“I think that, going forward, sanitization measures will become huge in new homes, as well as in furniture and appliance design. The pandemic has changed the way people think. This is the new normal,” Beach said.

SOURCE

One Canadian real estate trend that has fallen off the radar in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is that of baby boomers downsizing out of their spacious detached homes and relocating to less maintenance-heavy alternatives like condos, townhouses, or even single-storey homes in less densely populated communities.

With real estate markets in many cities still glowing hot after a sizzling 2020, homeowners nearing retirement are sure to be asking themselves if now is the time to pull the trigger and cash out while virtually the entire country remains a seller’s market.

For at least two realtors, the answer to that question is a resounding ‘yes’.

SELLING: THE CASE FOR
Keisha Telfer and Vincent Cote, co-owners of Transitions Realty, told Mortgage Broker News that the intense demand for single-family homes, sparked by COVID-19-triggered desires for privacy and sufficient room in which to live/work/teach without going insane, make early 2021 an opportune time for homeowners to scale down.

“Young families are looking to move into larger family homes because they need more space,” Telfer said. “Boomers own most of these homes, so they have the opportunity right now to look at their personal finances through the lens of real estate.”

Downsizing comes with several benefits – drastically decreased maintenance demands, lower monthly carrying costs, etc. – but chief among them may be the concept of control. By downsizing in the early stages of retirement, Telfer explained, baby boomers can use the equity they have built up over the decades – sure to be enormous in certain highly priced markets – to shape their future while they’re still young enough to make their own decisions and live the kind of independent lives they have envisioned for themselves.

“It could potentially lend itself to aging in place,” she said.

But demand for single-family homes is nothing new in Canada; it’s been unquenchable for the past six years. Does capitalizing on it really require liquidating a property in the first few months of 2021? Why not ride the appreciation for another few years?

“That is an option,” Cote said. “Obviously it depends on a person’s situation and where they’re at in life. If they’re thinking about downsizing, if they think now might be the right time, they should absolutely look at it because of the trends we’re seeing.”

Telfer said many boomers have considered holding their properties or renting them out but added that “what we’re typically seeing is people are selling their homes.” Renting comes with risks like vacancies, late payments, and damage, while holding a property could mean no equity retrieval; most boomers won’t be able to consider downsizing without first factoring in the sale of their current homes.

There is also the question of homeowners downsizing into condos at a time when many Canadian condominium markets are struggling under a combination of sluggish sales and falling prices. Cote explained that the situation may be stressful for current condo owners, but it presents an opportunity for prospective buyers.

“If the plan for them is to downsize their large, multi-bedroom home and move into a smaller condo, it’s kind of a buy low/sell high kind of situation,” he said. “They could be selling their house on a high and buying a condo in a little bit of a dip, so that could be a bonus to them.”

Downsizers, he and Telfer insisted, aren’t limited to buying condos. Developers are now designing their projects with the needs of boomers in mind, outfitting them with amenities that allow them to remain active while also setting aside space for must-haves like healthcare facilities and pharmacies. Such master planned communities are popping up all over Ontario.

“It’s an environment you really see people flocking to,” Cote said.

Downsizers can also ease themselves into the process by purchasing pre-construction. Cara Hirsch, CEO of Hirsch and Associates, says 65% of the buyers for one of the projects she is marketing in Toronto are over 55 and looking to scale down.

“We find boutique buildings tend to attract downsizers and empty nesters as it’s a little easier to adapt to the condo lifestyle coming from a house versus if they were to move into a high-rise,” Hirsch told MBN. “We have seen this number steadily increase over the years as more end users are becoming comfortable with pre-construction and the three- to five-year timeline to move in.”

SELLING: THE CASE AGAINST
Not everyone believes baby boomers should move on from their single-family homes, even if they are becoming a burden.

“In my view, clients get wealthier keeping the real estate, not selling it,” said investor-focused broker Dalia Barsoum of Streetwise Mortgages. “Having said that, holding on to the property has to make financial sense given the client’s goals, lifestyle and monthly budget.”

Prior to selling, Barsoum suggests homeowners evaluate the possibility of leveraging their home equity to make a down payment on a new property so they can rent out the original home. Such a decision, she said, involves three main considerations: will the rent cover all the expenses associated with keeping the asset, is the retiree open to the idea of becoming a landlord (and if not, will the property support hiring a property manager), and will the homeowner be comfortable using a traditional down payment-plus-financing strategy to pay for the next property rather than paying for it outright with the proceeds of a sale.

There are other strategies Barsoum says are available to homeowners who would like to bolster their retirement income. If, after cashing out and securing a new residence, they have a sizeable amount of earnings left over, they could use that excess capital for private lending, thereby securing a predictable monthly income. Others, she says, “choose to leverage the portfolio so they can deploy a lending strategy, while still keeping the asset rented for cash flow”, leaving open yet another possibility: passing the property on to the next generation.

SOURCE

Edmonton housing market to remain balanced in 2021, prices to increase 2%

Edmonton real estate is likely to continue as a balanced market in 2021, with demand being segmented. Buyers are looking for single-family homes and yards, which includes duplex and row-style townhomes. The average sales price in Edmonton increased by 1% to $364,820 in 2020 (Jan. 1 – Oct. 31), compared to $361,152 in 2019 (Jan. 1 – Dec. 31). The RE/MAX Outlook for Edmonton real estate in 2021 is an increase of 2% in average price to approximately $372,116.40.

Who’s Driving Demand for Edmonton Real Estate?

Move-up buyers are currently driving demand in the Edmonton real estate market, which is expected to continue into 2021. The most popular property type among move-up buyers in Edmonton are single-detached homes and townhouses.

First-time homebuyers in Edmonton are typically single homebuyers. These buyers are not looking at one property type specifically and are buying across all property types. The average price spent on a property by a first-time homebuyer is approximately $300,000.It is expected to be more difficult to enter the market as a first-time homebuyer in 2021, as there is expected to be less inventory, making it tough for buyers to find the right property.

Move-up buyers in the Edmonton housing market are typically young couples. There has been very little hesitation in move-up buyers when it comes to entering the market, as many are trying to take advantage of the low interest rates and low property values. Move-up buyers in Edmonton have changed the criteria on what they look for in a home due to COVID-19. Many move-up buyers are looking for yards, more space, separate offices and finished basements.

The condominium market in Edmonton is most popular with single homebuyers and young couples. The average price for a condo in Edmonton is $222,181. Apartment-style condos are currently in oversupply, which means prices are likely to drop. Currently in Edmonton, many examples of large assessments have been seen, mostly due to insurance costs escalating dramatically for condo corporations, which has resulted in higher condo-fees.

Edmonton’s luxury market is currently driven by move-up buyers with the average starting price for a luxury home in Edmonton being $1,000,000. At this price point, many buyers are getting great value, with the majority of the homes being newer infill or older beautifully renovated homes with large yards in mature areas, or huge lots, often with ravine or private nature backing, in new development areas.

Edmonton’s Hottest Neighbourhoods

Edmonton’s top-selling neighbourhoods in 2020 were Anthony Henday Zone (West), North Central Zone and Southwest Zone. These neighbourhoods are expected to continue as the most popular neighbourhoods moving into 2021.

Edmonton New-Home Construction

Edmonton’s new-home construction sales are strong for single-family in both the suburbs and infill. Apartment condos are in oversupply. Most buyers are looking for a new or “like new” home across all price ranges. Based on the current demand, single-family, duplex/rowhouse and townhomes with yards are a little undersupplied. One new-home construction trend that has emerged throughout 2020 has been the need for home office space options, which is directly related to COVID-19.

Canadian Housing Market in 2021

Canadians are on the move. RE/MAX isn’t calling this an “exodus,” but the re-location trend across the Canadian housing market is real, and it’s just one focus of the RE/MAX 2021 Housing Market Outlook Report. RE/MAX Canada anticipates healthy housing price growth at the national level, with move-up and move-over buyers continuing to drive activity in many regions across the Canadian housing market. An ongoing and widespread housing supply shortage is likely to continue, presenting challenges for homebuyers and putting upward pressure on prices.

Due to these factors, the 2021 RE/MAX 2021 outlook for average residential prices is an estimate of +4% to +6% nation-wide. Here’s the regional break-down:

Click here to read the full report!
 

Source

On June 25, Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) announced that it would carry out a tax review of six years of U.S. real estate transactions in order to find any tax non-compliance from Canadian taxpayers. CRA is looking for “real estate and property data in bulk form, in order to identify current and historical records, mortgage transactions, property taxes, real property records and deeds.”

To accomplish this, CRA will carry out a tax audit of “records on Canadian property transactions in the U.S., including municipal addresses, names of owners, square footage, sales histories and property tax assessments.”

A Canadian taxpayer who is reassessed through this audit can face substantial tax penalties on top of interest, not to mention the professional and legal fees required to respond and object to the audit. There is also a possibility of prosecution for tax fraud or tax evasion. This article will break down the typical issues that could come up in a tax audit of undeclared real estate property or unreported real estate transactions.

UNREPORTED FOREIGN PROPERTY
The first issue that CRA could be looking for is the T1135 Reporting Requirement for a foreign property with a value of over $100,000 Cdn. This is a reporting requirement a Canadian taxpayer must comply with, regardless of whether the taxpayer is generating income from his or her foreign property.

A Canadian taxpayer who held U.S. real estate directly or through a trust is subject to this T1135 requirement depending on the fair market value of the U.S. property over time. The penalties for failure to comply with the requirement could be steep. If a taxpayer only failed to file the required form in the past 24 months, then the penalty is calculated as $25 per day for a maximum amount of $2,500.

However, if a taxpayer has not filed the T1135 form for more than 24 months when the taxpayer is required by law to do so, the penalty could be five per cent of the cost of foreign property. The calculation of this penalty could be different if the property has been transferred or loaned to a trust, or the property is in the form of shares or bonds from a foreign corporate affiliate.

Note that Canadian taxpayers with personal-use properties located outside of Canada are not required to file T1135 forms if their properties are not generating income. For more information please see our article about T1135 reporting requirements.

UNREPORTED RENTAL INCOME
As a general rule, Canadian tax residents must declare and report their worldwide income. The Income Tax Act uses the Foreign Tax Credit mechanism to ensure income generated from another jurisdiction is not double taxed. However, if a Canadian taxpayer failed to report his or her U.S. rental income, the taxpayer can be subject to reassessments and tax penalties from the CRA, even when taxes had been paid to the U.S. government.

This upcoming CRA tax audit will probably involve auditors looking for unreported U.S. rental incomes from Canadian taxpayers. This could take several forms. CRA could reassess a Canadian taxpayer for failing to disclose any rental income when CRA believes U.S. rental income had been generated.

However, even when a Canadian taxpayer had been reporting their U.S. rental income, CRA could take issue with either the total revenue generated by a rental property or with the expenses claimed by the taxpayer in relation to the rental property. A tax audit over deductions can be particularly frustrating, given that CRA tax auditors have the power to make a wide range of assumptions when it comes to expenses, while the taxpayer can have difficulty producing the required documentation regarding claimed expenses in the past.

UNREPORTED REAL ESTATE SALES
Finally, CRA will be looking into U.S. real estate sales of properties owned by Canadian taxpayers, and specifically unreported sales of U.S. residential homes owned by Canadian taxpayers. When the sales of these homes do not qualify for the principal residence exemption, the proceeds will be fully taxable as either income or capital gains. CRA’s power to tax U.S.-based income is subject to the U.S.-Canada Tax Treaty.

While unreported sales of non-principal residence homes will certainly be on CRA’s radar, another crucial issue that could affect many Canadian taxpayers is the failure to report the sales of a principal residence located outside Canada after 2016.

CRA’s position is that it is entirely possible for a Canadian tax resident to claim principal residence exemption on a home located outside Canada. This can often be the case for Canadian taxpayers who work in the U.S. for up to several months a year. They could own homes in the U.S. and still be considered a Canadian tax resident under the U.S.-Canada Tax Treaty.

A taxpayer in such a situation might have been assured that he or she did not need to report the sales of their U.S. principal residence to the CRA. Such advice, if given for real estate transactions after Oct. 3, 2016, would be wrong. Canadian taxpayers are required to report the sales of their principal residence to the CRA. Failure to report can incur a maximum penalty of $8,000.

Furthermore, a taxpayer with unreported principal residence transactions might also have to defend the position that it indeed the sale of a principal residence. This could involve a costly and time-consuming tax audit response and objection process any taxpayer would want to avoid.

CRA’s intention to conduct a tax audit was announced through a tender notice titled Bulk United States (U.S.) Real Property Data (re: Canadian residents). As of the date of this article, the tender is still active, which could mean CRA has yet to find a U.S. vendor to provide CRA with its desired U.S. real estate data.

If CRA has no existing knowledge of the tax owing by a Canadian taxpayer, this taxpayer may qualify for the Voluntary Disclosure program if other criteria are also met. Refer to our article about the Voluntary Disclosure Program for more information. A timely voluntary disclosure application could result in substantial savings in penalties and interest and would avoid prosecution for tax fraud or tax evasion.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.