Hamilton Corktown Plaza | 91.43m | 27s | Slate | Core Architects

BCTed said:
What is the Brad Lamb thing?
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Sell condos, then cancel project and sell same units at higher price. Or what some developers have been doing; surprising buyers 4 years after the deposits with a $100,000 bill or lose the deposit. Happened at the Nautique in Burlington.

It used to be that condos were a good way into the housing market because you'd pay a lower price now because it doesn't exist yet, and you have to wait, to get a house that in 3-5 years would be pretty cheap. Now shady developers, crappy builds, and last minute increases in price or cancelling projects to get higher prices have scared many away from buying condos.

There are still some really good developers that sell projects on their worth and don't decide to cancel the project after selling many of the units, but it would be my fear buying a condo in the current market at 20% less than they were selling for 6-12 months ago.

I bought a condo in 2014 for $260,000 and on completion date 2018 I owed $260,000 minus my deposit. That was something I appreciated and defended condo sales on for homeowners as a starter home, but now I suggest first time home owners to seek out older condos with stable condo fees that are often selling completed and ready to move in for under $400k and much larger than new units.

But now without the investors, and without first time home buyers, condo sales are dead in the water for the time being.
 
Chris R. said:
Sell condos, then cancel project and sell same units at higher price. Or what some developers have been doing; surprising buyers 4 years after the deposits with a $100,000 bill or lose the deposit. Happened at the Nautique in Burlington.
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I don't think that's exactly what they did at Nautique. I remember them asking for anywhere between 100k-300k (depending on the unit) to keep their unit, or they would get their deposit back with 6% interest.

While getting the deposit back with interest seems like a "no harm, no foul" proposition - but it wasn't. They waited 7 years while condo prices climbed drastically during that time. So it was either pay the ridiculous amount of extra money, or find another condo and at much higher price than it was 7 years earlier. They basically wasted 7 years for the privilege of paying a lot more money. And this was 2 years ago... so we're at year 9 and it's still not complete. Probably another year or two until it's complete? Buyers who got in on the ground floor got screwed over big time.
 
berklon said:
I don't think that's exactly what they did at Nautique. I remember them asking for anywhere between 100k-300k (depending on the unit) to keep their unit, or they would get their deposit back with 6% interest.

While getting the deposit back with interest seems like a "no harm, no foul" proposition - but it wasn't. They waited 7 years while condo prices climbed drastically during that time. So it was either pay the ridiculous amount of extra money, or find another condo and at much higher price than it was 7 years earlier. They basically wasted 7 years for the privilege of paying a lot more money. And this was 2 years ago... so we're at year 9 and it's still not complete. Probably another year or two until it's complete? Buyers who got in on the ground floor got screwed over big time.
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Apologies, when I wrote "lose the deposit" I meant just get is refunded and lose the benefit of the deposit which was the condo purchase. You explained it far better than I did, thanks.

Anyway, that would be my concern with these heavily reduced prices on these condos. First time home buyers don't want that crap as they're barely scraping by in the first place usually, and investors definitely don't want that.

Everyone I know that has bought a condo as their first place bought an older unit or one already built or under construction. I'd want written guarantees that there won't be an increase in the price and I'd want guarantee of interest for each year if the deposit is refunded. No developer is willing to sign that though and so I'd stress that people be careful getting into new condo construction without doing due diligence on the developers.
 
Hopefully Lamb's financing holds up enough so that he can actually finish the Televison City condos. And hopefully he is able to ride things out for a couple of years (maybe more than a couple?) and add the condos/hotel/convention centre he had been planning once things out there start improving again.
 
Pretty concerning that the LRT still hasn't started construction. We're now 3 years out from the announcement back in 2021. Clearly nothing is going to happen for the rest of the year. We will soon be 4 full years since the announcement and still no work done. Last time it was announced in 2015, then cancelled in 2019. I'm starting to lose hope.
 
From speaking with people in the know, more of the work is being done in-house at Metrolinx to reduce cost and have only the construction portion be done externally. It's a different way that Metrolinx is trying to do it to reduce time and cost overruns because they can more closely watch the process.
 
TheHonestMaple said:
That project office on King is nothing. I've been. It's some marketing fluff pamphlets and free pens. Literally nothing happening there.
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I understand that, but they wouldn't continue to move forward with the spending for that and following the basic steps to a large infrastructure project if it wasn't moving forward.

My suspicion is that they are partly waiting on Line 6 and Line 5 to open in Toronto before starting this project fully to avoid spending woes in a single budget and to avoid outcry that this project will be the same as Crosstown (despite being more similar to the Finch West LRT project which is doing quite well on budget and timeliness).

Those other projects also take up considerably resources of staff. We could likely start Hamilton LRT tomorrow, but at what cost? That's the thing, starting while other large projects are ongoing will be more expensive.

I'd also suggest this should probably be moved to the LRT discussion 🙂
 
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