Home sales across Canada register biggest monthly decline in nearly 5 years + MORE Jun 15th

TORONTO — Elder abuse expert Lynn McDonald routinely fields calls concerning financial exploitation, but none more dramatic than a recent incident involving a woman in Saskatchewan who was nearly bankrupted by one of her own adult children as she underwent hip replacement surgery.
“The daughter convinced the mother to sign over everything to her while she was sick in hospital and then she’d get it back after she came out,” says McDonald, director of the Institute for Human Development, Life Course and Aging at the University of Toronto.
“But she sold the mother’s house right under her, and took all her possessions. When the discharge went through, the mother came out of hospital with nothing but a pension.”

Managing assets under power of attorney »

McDonald says 2.6 per cent of Canada’s growing population of residents 55 years of age and older are financially abused, making it the second most common form of elder abuse.
With the spotlight on elder abuse awareness throughout June, she says it’s critical for seniors to understand how to protect themselves from financial abuse given that the majority of cases will involve people who are close to them…

(Fred Chartrand/CP)
How difficult is it to find a buyer these days for a three-bedroom, four-bathroom home in St. John’s, the biggest city in a province left reeling by the oil price crash and a lacklustre economy? Just ask Supreme Court Justice Malcolm Rowe, the newest red-robed judge appointed to Canada’s top court last fall. Given six months to offload his property as part of his move to Ottawa, he couldn’t find a buyer, and turned to taxpayers for an extension on his housing and travel expenses.
Rowe, who Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed to the court on Oct. 28, recently asked for—and received—another six months in which the Crown will cover cost-of-living expenses until the house sells. The order-in-council, which approved the extension last month, blamed “unfavourable conditions in the real estate market.” But six months without a sale? Is that normal?
Rowe actually put his home on the market twice: last December at $529,000, and again on March 15, a listing that eventually dropped the asking price to for $485,000…

Nike wants to be more nimble on its feet.
The sneaker maker said Thursday that it plans to sell more shoes directly to customers online as part of a restructuring in which it also will cut about 1,400 jobs. It is reducing the number of sneaker and clothing styles it makes by a quarter to focus on hot sellers.
Nike said the moves will help it offer more products to customers faster. It will make its sneaker-selling apps available in more countries at a time when many big retailers and department stores are closing stores as more people shop online. “We’re getting even more aggressive in the digital marketplace,” said CEO Mark Parker.
The company said a main focus will be the 12 key cities in 10 countries that it expects to represent more than 80 per cent of its projected growth through 2020. Those cities include New York, Paris and Beijing.
But the shake-up, announced two weeks before Nike releases its financial results for the most recent quarter, seemed to make investors nervous…

Home sales across the country dropped sharply last month, driven by a plunge in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) after the Ontario government imposed a tax on foreign buyers aimed at cooling the red-hot market.
The number of residential properties sold nationwide fell by 6.2 per cent in May compared to April, the largest month-to-month decline in nearly five years, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Thursday. The industry group, which represents real estate agents, brokers and salespeople in Canada, noted sales were down a whopping 25.3 per cent month-over-month in the GTA.
The data showed that while real estate may be local, the impact of changes in a market the size of Toronto can have a sweeping effect nationally.
“This is the first full month of results since changes to Ontario housing policy made in late April. They provide clear evidence that the changes have resulted in more balanced housing markets throughout the Greater Golden Horseshoe region,” CREA chief economist Gregory Klump said in a statement…

Back in 2009, Sobeys found itself at a crossroads.
Labour costs were rising, employee productivity was waning and the grocer knew that it had to keep building bigger distribution centres to accommodate the growing number of items being sold in its supermarkets.
So instead of building out and hiring more workers, the national grocery chain built up and replaced many employees with robots.
“The combination of labour costs going up and SKUs (stock keeping units) being on the rise kind of forced us to start thinking outside the box and try to find a technology to help us resolve those issues,” said Eric Seguin, senior vice-president of distribution and logistics for Sobeys, during a tour this week at the company’s largest warehouse in Vaughan, Ont.
Sobeys is one of a small number of Canadian retailers that have embraced robotics technology. Others have been reluctant to follow suit, experts say, due to a lack of investment, a lack of access to the technology and for a long time, a lack of competition…