Ally posted on October 03, 2009 03:52
Scarborough top spot for Investors?

By: Tony Wong, Toronto Star

Vancouver investor Don Campbell thinks Scarborough is due for a real-estate renaissance. He figures the oft-maligned area offers the greatest potential price gains in Toronto in the next five years.

„I know, I know, I get a lot of head shaking every time I bring that up,” says Campbell, author of Real Estate Investing In Canada. „But I love these areas in transition, and I think Scarborough is due for a positive change.”
Campbell makes money in real estate by buying in unpopular areas and seeing the money grow as the neighbourhoods become more gentrified. Politicians and some residents have long complained that Scarborough gets a bad rap.
„This place is the most affordable area in Toronto and I think there's an emerging pride of ownership,” says Campbell. „It's just been beaten down perception-wise, but people are fed up with the bad press about crime and they're moving on.”
According to a report on the best cities to invest in Ontario, authored by Campbell, Toronto's eastern hub is a „break-out region” in the city that has the greatest upside for an investor.
„With home prices consistently below other regions of Toronto and planned rapid transit expansion, the region will experience rapid growth both economically and population wise,” the report says.
To identify towns and regions that he thinks has potential, Campbell goes through an extensive checklist that includes whether income is increasing faster than the provincial average, if the area has more than one major employer and whether there are major transportation improvements in the works.
„This is about real-estate investing, not speculating or flipping a property. These are areas you would invest in the long term,” says Campbell.
Toronto made it on the top-10 list, but was in eighth place.
The top spot to put your money would be in the „technology triangle” of Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, according to the report.
The triangle offers access to 60 per cent of Canada's population and 40 per cent of the U.S. population within a 24-hour drive. Investment in the technology sector as well as universities makes it is a prime spot to buy investment housing, says the report.
„They've been a bit insulated from the recession because of the investment in technology and research,” says Campbell. „Even in a recession their other businesses pick up such as academia and universities because people go back to school.”
In a surprise, second place goes to Hamilton.
„I get a lot of head shaking with this one, too,” Campbell says. „But this is a city that has begun to reinvent itself in a positive way.”
Hamilton has seen building permit values grow for the second year in a row during the downturn, while a new „entrepreneurial spirit” has developers taking a serious look at the area, says the report.
Two up-and-coming regions in the Toronto area include Vaughan and Whitchurch-Stouffville, in the ninth and 10th spots.
Vaughan leads the country in building permits issued per capita. The continuing construction of the Vaughan Corporate Centre and the extension of the TTC's Spadina subway line will also make the region much more commuter friendly. The area also has the lowest commercial and industrial taxes in the GTA, according to the report.
With companies being pushed north of the GTA by rising costs, potential homeowners and some companies are being pushed out of Markham and setting up shop in Whitchurch-Stouffville, creating new jobs and development.

Pa ne može na jug:)) I centar Toronta se pomera ka severu.