The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) is asking city councillors to walk their talk by rolling back the Toronto land transfer tax while keeping property tax increases in check.

Last fall, city council approved the implementation of the Toronto land transfer tax, as well as a motion committing to reduce it by $50 million once the province uploaded 50 per cent of the city’s estimated downloaded costs of $729 million. TREB sees recent progress and believes that the city should begin the process of rolling back the tax immediately.

In a written submission to the executive committee, TREB posited that city council is in a position to implement the intent of this motion due to a number of factors, including the following:

TREB believes that recent progress and a modest implementation of the mayor’s fiscal review panel recommendations will reduce pressure on this year’s budget by hundreds of millions of dollars. The organization also believes that city council can begin rolling back the Toronto Land Transfer Tax, while keeping property tax increases to the rate of inflation as promised by Mayor Miller.

Prospective home buyers and sellers in the GTA can be forgiven for suspending their plans to move throughout the punishing winter of 2008.

Though resale home transactions in the GTA were at a moderate pace during the first half of March, sales declined by 14 per cent in the GTA and 18 per cent in Toronto compared to activity a year ago.

However, despite the understandable decrease, some areas continued to thrive despite the snowy weather. During the first half of March:

Georgina experienced a 39 per cent increase in sales.

The Agincourt area of Scarborough saw a 12 per cent overall increase in sales compared to a year ago based, primarily, on strong condominium unit sales.

Weston held strong with a 28 per cent increase over last year.

Condominium apartment sales in Toronto’s downtown core helped maintain healthy sales activity – up 11 per cent compared to a year ago.

As spring weather sparks renewed interest, the good news is that the value of homes in the city continues to appreciate. The average home in the GTA is $385,405 and $409,116 in Toronto, a five and four per cent increase respectively from last year.

Due to rising commodity prices, there has been a boom in employment across the country in just about every sector. Employment was at its strongest in the western provinces, such as BC and Alberta, because of an incredible growth in the mining, oil and gas industries. However, other industries also grew, such as health care and social assistance. Toronto experienced employment growth as well, though at a slower rate than some other major cities across the country.

And when people find a job and make money, they spend it. That’s one of the reasons why the real estate market is doing so well these days.

Unfortunately, while jobs were aplenty in several industries, factory workers weren’t in such demand. As the Canadian dollar appreciated, more factories took their operations offshore from 2001-2006, cutting 136,700 jobs over this period.

If you think that buying or selling a condo in the city is risky this year because it was just too good last year, think again.

The results of an analysis of the real estate market in Toronto may assuage your fears of an impending crash.

Several reasoons to remain optimistic have been provided by a leading consulting firm specialising in the industry. The firm, Shim Consulting, has analysed the current market, the economic state of the city and country, demographics and other conditions to support their optimistic outlook. Their findings were presented at a Genworth Financial seminar.

1. Despite rising condo prices, affordability has been maintained due in part largely to being a (generally) less expensive alternative to houses and low mortgage rates.

2. The population continues to grow, with factors such as aging and immigration setting a favourable atmosphere for the condo market. Unemployment rates have been at their lowest in years, and the job market is diverse, spreading across several sectors.

3. There are few unsold condos on the market.

These are just some of the reasons that support a bright future for the Toronto condo market. So according to the big players in the industry, 2008 is going to be another great year.

According to the Toronto Real Estate Board, resale homes didn’t do so well in the first couple weeks of February. Resale home transactions were down by 14% when compared to figures last year. For the first two weeks of February 2008, 2,775 transactions were recorded, while in 2007 in the same timeframe, there were 3,240.

Some factors blamed for this decline included the heavy snowfalls and cold weather experienced in early February, since this makes it more difficult to show houses, which leads to more sellers reluctant to list.

But, hey, at least the average price rose to $385,735, up from $358,533 recorded around the same time last year. Plus, with homes on the market for an average of 31 days instead of 35 for 2007, it doesn’t seem so bad, does it? The Toronto real estate market is still hot.

Prices for homes across Canada have been predicted to rise by a modest 3 to 5% this year, to an average price of roughly $317,288. Though 2007 was one of, if not the, hottest years for real estate in the GTA, experts believe that the market will slow down due to a number of factors, such as waning affordability and the new Municipal Land Transfer Tax.

At our office, a good chunk of our clients are female professionals who are looking to buy a condominium or loft. While there are hundreds of thousands of home buyers yearly across Canada, the high number of female professionals that we see may be indicative of current national trends in real estate.

Apparently, a recent poll conducted by TD Canada Trust has found that of the 20-45 year old females that were surveyed across Canada who purchased a home independently (rather than with a partner), 82% were single and 80% had no children. Women purchased their first home at an average age of 29.

The main reasons the surveyed women purchased a home were because they believed it was a good investment, it gave them financial security and a sense of independence.

And the most popular type of housing they purchased? 42% stated a condo, probably for the same reasons as many other buyers prefer them: their affordability, location, and convenience. Condos were the top choice for women in Toronto and Vancouver. In other major cities, houses shared the top spot or outranked condos in popularity.

The other types of housing included a house at 34% and townhouse at 13%.

The poll was conducted by Ipsos Reid online by 713 women.