Calgary office vacancy rate headed for 30% as oil price downturn persists + MORE Nov 9th

(Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
The world is watching, waiting…poised. Who will be the next U.S. president?
While political junkies are planning viewing parties for tonight, many analysts, economists and sector specialists are trying to predict what could happen to U.S., world and Canadian financial markets. Canada’s real estate sector is no exception.
Plunging recreational property prices 
“Historically, Americans have been the largest foreign buyer segment in the Canadian commercial and recreational market,” says Phil Soper, CEO of Royal LePage. “Americans—not the Chinese or Japanese, —make up the largest number of foreign buyers in places like Muskoka, Ont., Whistler, B.C. and in Canmore, Alta. Part of the reason is the relative affordability of our recreational properties based on the strength of the American dollar.”
But if the U.S. greenback were to dip in value—say, because of a global lack of confidence of the newly elected leader—this would certainly impact Canadian recreational real estate prices…

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TORONTO – Ontario will take steps next week to deal with rising house prices, but it will not follow British Columbia’s lead and impose a tax on foreign buyers.
Finance Minister Charles Sousa says “something has to be done” to help people deal with soaring home prices in Toronto, especially first-time buyers who find it nearly impossible to save a big enough down payment to enter the market.
But Sousa says he doesn’t want to do anything that would adversely affect real estate markets in neighbouring communities, and he wants more data on the impact of B.C.’s foreign buyer’s tax in Vancouver.
Home sales in Vancouver began to dip before the 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers was implemented in August, but those declines have accelerated since, plunging nearly 39 per cent last month compared with October 2015.
In the Greater Toronto Area, a record 9,768 properties were sold last month — up 11.5 per cent year-over-year — even as prices jumped 21 per cent from the same month in 2015…

CALGARY – Real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield is ranking Calgary with Moscow, Houston, and Aberdeen, Scotland, as the “oil-centric cities” whose downtown office real estate markets have been hardest hit by the global oil price shock.
In a new report, it predicts the vacancy rate for downtown Calgary’s Class-A buildings — the best quality offices in the tallest buildings — will hit 27.5 per cent by the end of next year, the highest since the company began tracking numbers in 1985.
And Canadian research director Stuart Barron says that prediction will likely be revised higher in the coming weeks to about 30 per cent due to slowing demand and the addition over the next year of about 2.7 million square feet in buildings under construction.
The report says the loss of 46,000 jobs in Alberta since oil prices fell below US$100 per barrel in mid-2014 has steadily emptied oil and gas head offices throughout Calgary’s core.
It says 4.3 million square feet of downtown space in all classes has been returned to the market over the past two years, much of it by tenants trying to sublet offices they no longer need…

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
EDMONTON — Alberta is proposing two new business tax credits to try to diversify the economy and create jobs.
“We are sensitive to the fact that many Alberta companies are struggling. This is why we are seizing this opportunity to support Alberta businesses as they diversify and expand,” Economic Development Minister Deron Bilous said Tuesday.
Bilous introduced a bill in the legislature to create the credits which he forecast would lead to thousands of new jobs.
The first would offer a 30 per cent tax credit to investors who provided capital for small businesses in areas such as interactive digital media, proprietary technology, digital animation and post-production and tourism initiatives.
The budget is for $90 million over three years and Bilous said it’s expected the credit would support 4,400 new jobs and add $500 million to the GDP.
The second initiative would encourage large-scale capital investment projects that would create both direct and spinoff jobs…