[Halifax] The Alexander | 65 m | 24 fl | Completed

[eastcoastal]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

... Will there be enough people to fill all the apartments/condos under construction and planned for the downtown core; I hope so. ...

I ask myself the same question too, and I hope so as well. It seems that aging boomers will want to be closer to medical services, freed from home maintenance and in areas that are less isolating than suburbia sans children. On the other end of the spectrum, younger people are more and more turning to urban living.

At least that's what I hear about other places... Halifax can't be immune.

[hokus83]

They could easily add to the growth margin if they didn't build out in absurd places like the Europa tower and the moronic west bedford area

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by eastcoastal

I ask myself the same question too, and I hope so as well. It seems that aging boomers will want to be closer to medical services, freed from home maintenance and in areas that are less isolating than suburbia sans children. On the other end of the spectrum, younger people are more and more turning to urban living.

At least that's what I hear about other places... Halifax can't be immune.

Funny coincidence. I literally posted the same thing just before you in the thread (although yours is more detailed!):

Originally Posted by counterfactual

I think so. The usual suspects continually underestimate the demand for nice, modern, downtown residential. Boomers are retiring and are abandoning the suburbs. Echo Boomers don't like living in the suburbs. Halifax is not immune to the stay demographic forces felt elsewhere.

Build it and they will come. Just watch.

[Jonovision]

[Jonovision]

Digging is going quickly.

[someone123]

Fuzzy but I thought this was a good perspective on the construction site:


Source

[worldlyhaligonian]

I never thought I'd see the day. This tower and development along Hollis will repair one of the biggest tears in the urban fabric downtown.

Now, we just need International Place to happen and we'd have a pretty decked out skyline and way more people living/working downtown!

[ILoveHalifax]

WOW!
Never thought I'd see this one built.
Really appreciate the pictures.

[counterfactual]

I'm still skeptical. This development is essentially ancient. So, I expect the digging they've just now commenced to be completed sometime in 2032.

[kph06]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

I'm still skeptical. This development is essentially ancient. So, I expect the digging they've just now commenced to be completed sometime in 2032.

I think Killam buying in gave this project credibility to be done in a timely manner.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

I think so. The usual suspects continually underestimate the demand for nice, modern, downtown residential. Boomers are retiring and are abandoning the suburbs. Echo Boomers don't like living in the suburbs. Halifax is not immune to the stay demographic forces felt elsewhere.

Build it and they will come. Just watch.

If boomers are selling in the suburbs who are buying the properties ?
Where do you believe the suburbs begin ?
I track the monthly sales data recorded by PVSC for Bedford, Dartmouth and Halifax from July 2010 and have previously posted the information.
I'm sure you remember the claim that Kings Wharf 3rd tower was 85% sold, it is not even registered as a condo but visually I estimate there are 12 units occupied.
The new build high rise market seems to be all rentals.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by Colin May

If boomers are selling in the suburbs who are buying the properties ?
Where do you believe the suburbs begin ?
I track the monthly sales data recorded by PVSC for Bedford, Dartmouth and Halifax from July 2010 and have previously posted the information.
I'm sure you remember the claim that Kings Wharf 3rd tower was 85% sold, it is not even registered as a condo but visually I estimate there are 12 units occupied.
The new build high rise market seems to be all rentals.

Suburban housing starts are down all over the place, while condos are not. Fewer are buying homes in the suburbs. And far fewer new suburban homes are being built, as noted. There's a reason for that.

Recent PWC report on urban real estate trends, this portion is on Halifax:

Sales of existing homes hit a 19 year low in the first quarter of 2014, according to RBC Economic Research report. The housing sales drop is due to several factors, including oversupply, a downsizing trend, stubbornly high prices, and recent changes in mortgage rules.

http://www.pwc.com/en_CA/ca/real-est...te-2015-en.pdf

Downsizing trend. Wonder what that might be? Oh, right. It's Boomers downsizing to smaller dwelling, either condos or apartments. That's why condo and apartment buildings keep getting proposed and built downtown and why new suburban housing sales and starts are incredibly weak.

Condo Wave Curls. Toronto, North America’s largest condominium market, sees new apartment towers sprouting like weeds “everywhere” in an “absolute boom.” Developers have been “building where they shouldn’t.” In recent years Vancouver’s waterfront and hillsides underwent similar skyline makeovers, and more recently Montreal and Calgary have experienced strong condo building sprees. Condo mania has extended to other Canadian cities like Halifax and St. Johns as well—all part of urbanization and densification trends, encouraged by local governments and driven by significant buyer and renter demand.

http://uli.org/wp-content/uploads/UL...te-US-2013.pdf

These are the broader overall trends, Colin. We are always a little behind here in Halifax, as we're behind the rest of the country on economic development, urbanization, and also because we've done a poor job (not helped by uncooperative fed government) to attract new immigrants/Canadians. But these trends will eventually be seen/felt here too.

Echo Boomers in their 20s and 30s are reshaping downtown
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle7612554/

The developers are reading these numbers and seeing/projecting these trends and also expecting shipbuilding-related demands as well-- this is why they keep building, and why banks keep lending them money to do so.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

The developers are reading these numbers and seeing/projecting these trends and also expecting shipbuilding-related demands as well-- this is why they keep building, and why banks keep lending them money to do so.

I think we're probably getting close to the point of overbuilding inner-city mult-unit projects, if we haven't passed it already, but overall I agree.

The demographics are changing, and the trend toward downtown living was a bit late coming to Halifax, but it's here in force now. Just out of curiosity, I did some number-crunching to see if we can expect this to be driven by boomers, or by younger generations.

I compared Halifax's population changes between 2013-14 to the CMAs of Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver, in Statscan defined age-brackets, and got this:



I know that one year is basically meaningless as far as establishing trends, but eyeballing back to 2008, the trends seemed pretty similar in all the age brackets, though I didn't calculate percentages.

Halifax's population growth in every young-adult category beats the cities I (sort of randomly) selected, which was a surprise. (Bizarrely, the exception is a huge drop in the 20-24 category, followed by a massive uptick in the 25-29 category. I thought one or both of those might be an error, but again, it's reflected in the previous years.)

So anyway, echo boomers (or Gen Y, or millennials, or whatever you want to call them), are a significantly growing presence in the city. I'd expect the nationwide and continent-wide preferences for urban living they've started exhibiting to be reflected here too.

We can be skeptical about the amount of building, but the growth in apartments and condos isn't some smoke-and-mirrors developers' trick.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I think we're probably getting close to the point of overbuilding inner-city mult-unit projects, if we haven't passed it already, but overall I agree.

The demographics are changing, and the trend toward downtown living was a bit late coming to Halifax, but it's here in force now. Just out of curiosity, I did some number-crunching to see if we can expect this to be driven by boomers, or by younger generations.

I compared Halifax's population changes between 2013-14 to the CMAs of Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver, in Statscan defined age-brackets, and got this:



I know that one year is basically meaningless as far as establishing trends, but eyeballing back to 2008, the trends seemed pretty similar in all the age brackets, though I didn't calculate percentages.

Halifax's population growth in every young-adult category beats the cities I (sort of randomly) selected, which was a surprise. (Bizarrely, the exception is a huge drop in the 20-24 category, followed by a massive uptick in the 25-29 category. I thought one or both of those might be an error, but again, it's reflected in the previous years.)

So anyway, echo boomers (or Gen Y, or millennials, or whatever you want to call them), are a significantly growing presence in the city. I'd expect the nationwide and continent-wide preferences for urban living they've started exhibiting to be reflected here too.

We can be skeptical about the amount of building, but the growth in apartments and condos isn't some smoke-and-mirrors developers' trick.

Brilliant post! Thanks for this, Dry. Really interesting and counter-intuitive, as you say. I would have guessed we were mildly growing in young adult categories but would be far behind those other cities.

I wonder if it has to do with our better-than-most-Canadian-cities housing costs? If you are a young couple, both employed, but not necessarily breaking the bank and want to buy an urban detached/semi-detached house, it's still relatively affordable in Halifax, including on the peninsula (beyond the South End, of course), if you look at the north end, west end, etc. And very nice condos on the peninsula are even more reasonably priced. Contrast this with Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary... it's incredibly expensive there for condos and even moreso with town houses.

[beyeas]

It has been very interesting to see what has been happening on my block over the past 5 years. When we moved in, we were basically the only people not either currently pensioners or about to retire. What has since happened is 6 of those houses have been sold.

Who bought them? In 5 of those cases they were bought by couples in their early 40s, all buying a second home, and moving in from suburban areas because they wanted an urban lifestyle. In all 4 out of 5 cases they have young (elementary school age or younger) children. The houses were affordable for the location, because the older people who moved out had not updated the homes, and hence they needed renovation. The average age on my block has dropped significantly in the past 5 years!

Where did the sellers go? This is a very small sample size obviously, but most of the sellers did not downsize to a condo. I know of a couple who did, but several others instead went the other direction and built a home along the ocean down along the south shore. Seems like that is the other way to go, where people either want low maintenance condo life or want to retire by the ocean.

As I say, this is just my block and therefore a very low sample size, but I have found it interesting to see the clear trend on my block at least to younger people with kids, willing to buy outdated homes that needed renovations done, and sellers who are retirement age as likely to be building suburban/rural homes along the ocean as they were to go to a condo.

Regardless, I find it interesting that we collectively agonize over whether there is sufficient housing demand to fill condos downtown, while scads of buildings get built all through Larry Uteck etc without notice or debate. This is natural I guess given that the downtown sites are more visible, and the consequences of failure far higher. Still interesting though that this is not a holistic debate in terms of the effect of the flood or suburban apartments in the middle of nowhere, and the consequent effect on the costs of municipal services, relative to building downtown.

[OldDartmouthMark]

I can say anecdotally that I've seen a huge difference in the past 20 years, when there was a building blitz of single family homes in the suburbs. Now there are condo/apartment buildings going up all over the place and relatively few new home starts. Additionally, it seems that most new home builds going on now are high-end large homes vs more moderately priced, smaller homes being built 20 years ago.

[Drybrain]

I just bought a house in the Hydrostone, and anecdotally, the neighbours have said the same: the area's critical mass of old folks is downsizing to smaller properties or moving out of town, and younger buyers are buying the houses. Some of the attached rowhouses in the Hydrostone are surprisingly affordable, and probably attractive to younger buyers with one or two children.

The census tract data confirms those impressions: after years of decline, the population rose from 3,090 in the 2006 census to 3,325 in 2011. The number of kids 14 and under grew too, from 470 to 550. Not sure what the median age is, given that the 2011 census didn't track that, but I'd be amazed if it didn't get younger. The number of dwelling units also went up about 10 percent, almost entirely multi-unit, I imagine.

That's pretty well reflected in the kinds of businesses opening in the area: a taco pop-up, Mothers Pizza, a hipster butcher, Starbucks, etc.

[someone123]

I've always thought that Halifax was pretty good for young people. It has an above average economy, fairly affordable housing, lots of local character, is a decent size, and has a good climate (for Canada). There aren't a lot of alternatives in Canada with that mix. There are a couple of super expensive cities and a lot of really cold and/or boring ones. I wouldn't be surprised if Halifax ends up on the shortlist for a lot of young people in the future.

I would be worried about overbuilding if I were a property developer but aside from hurting profits overbuilding is mostly good for a city if the new buildings are good and are in the right location. Having an oversupply of nice housing downtown is hardly a serious problem.

All that being said, it's not clear that there is overbuilding since as others have pointed out there has been a drop in suburban detached housing development. This is more of a shift in housing type, not an increase in housing construction activity.

[curnhalio]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I just bought a house in the Hydrostone, and anecdotally, the neighbours have said the same: the area's critical mass of old folks is downsizing to smaller properties or moving out of town, and younger buyers are buying the houses. Some of the attached rowhouses in the Hydrostone are surprisingly affordable, and probably attractive to younger buyers with one or two children.

The census tract data confirms those impressions: after years of decline, the population rose from 3,090 in the 2006 census to 3,325 in 2011. The number of kids 14 and under grew too, from 470 to 550. Not sure what the median age is, given that the 2011 census didn't track that, but I'd be amazed if it didn't get younger. The number of dwelling units also went up about 10 percent, almost entirely multi-unit, I imagine.

That's pretty well reflected in the kinds of businesses opening in the area: a taco pop-up, Mothers Pizza, a hipster butcher, Starbucks, etc.

I'll second that. I grew up on a Hydrostone street, and about 10-15 years ago, everyone on the street was over 60, and all their kids had moved out. I was the youngest on the street and the last kid left from my generation. Now I go visit my parents, and there are several families with young children and it seems like a different house is on the market every time I go.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by beyeas

It has been very interesting to see what has been happening on my block over the past 5 years. When we moved in, we were basically the only people not either currently pensioners or about to retire. What has since happened is 6 of those houses have been sold.

Who bought them? In 5 of those cases they were bought by couples in their early 40s, all buying a second home, and moving in from suburban areas because they wanted an urban lifestyle. In all 4 out of 5 cases they have young (elementary school age or younger) children. The houses were affordable for the location, because the older people who moved out had not updated the homes, and hence they needed renovation. The average age on my block has dropped significantly in the past 5 years!

Where did the sellers go? This is a very small sample size obviously, but most of the sellers did not downsize to a condo. I know of a couple who did, but several others instead went the other direction and built a home along the ocean down along the south shore. Seems like that is the other way to go, where people either want low maintenance condo life or want to retire by the ocean.

As I say, this is just my block and therefore a very low sample size, but I have found it interesting to see the clear trend on my block at least to younger people with kids, willing to buy outdated homes that needed renovations done, and sellers who are retirement age as likely to be building suburban/rural homes along the ocean as they were to go to a condo.

Regardless, I find it interesting that we collectively agonize over whether there is sufficient housing demand to fill condos downtown, while scads of buildings get built all through Larry Uteck etc without notice or debate. This is natural I guess given that the downtown sites are more visible, and the consequences of failure far higher. Still interesting though that this is not a holistic debate in terms of the effect of the flood or suburban apartments in the middle of nowhere, and the consequent effect on the costs of municipal services, relative to building downtown.

Originally Posted by someone123

I've always thought that Halifax was pretty good for young people. It has an above average economy, fairly affordable housing, lots of local character, is a decent size, and has a good climate (for Canada). There aren't a lot of alternatives in Canada with that mix. There are a couple of super expensive cities and a lot of really cold and/or boring ones. I wouldn't be surprised if Halifax ends up on the shortlist for a lot of young people in the future.

I would be worried about overbuilding if I were a property developer but aside from hurting profits overbuilding is mostly good for a city if the new buildings are good and are in the right location. Having an oversupply of nice housing downtown is hardly a serious problem.

All that being said, it's not clear that there is overbuilding since as others have pointed out there has been a drop in suburban detached housing development. This is more of a shift in housing type, not an increase in housing construction activity.

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I just bought a house in the Hydrostone, and anecdotally, the neighbours have said the same: the area's critical mass of old folks is downsizing to smaller properties or moving out of town, and younger buyers are buying the houses. Some of the attached rowhouses in the Hydrostone are surprisingly affordable, and probably attractive to younger buyers with one or two children.

The census tract data confirms those impressions: after years of decline, the population rose from 3,090 in the 2006 census to 3,325 in 2011. The number of kids 14 and under grew too, from 470 to 550. Not sure what the median age is, given that the 2011 census didn't track that, but I'd be amazed if it didn't get younger. The number of dwelling units also went up about 10 percent, almost entirely multi-unit, I imagine.

That's pretty well reflected in the kinds of businesses opening in the area: a taco pop-up, Mothers Pizza, a hipster butcher, Starbucks, etc.

Originally Posted by curnhalio

I'll second that. I grew up on a Hydrostone street, and about 10-15 years ago, everyone on the street was over 60, and all their kids had moved out. I was the youngest on the street and the last kid left from my generation. Now I go visit my parents, and there are several families with young children and it seems like a different house is on the market every time I go.

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

I can say anecdotally that I've seen a huge difference in the past 20 years, when there was a building blitz of single family homes in the suburbs. Now there are condo/apartment buildings going up all over the place and relatively few new home starts. Additionally, it seems that most new home builds going on now are high-end large homes vs more moderately priced, smaller homes being built 20 years ago.

Thanks all for the interesting personal observations/anecdotes, etc. Why I love this forum -- and why I'm optimistic about the health of downtown (and economic limits on sprawl...).