Article content continued

For Crockett, fellow investors and Canadians alike, the glow is fading as home sales tumble, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its April issue. They say they’re worried that Canada’s debt-fueled expansion will stall before a global recovery can revive exports — a slowdown that would blemish Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney’s record just as he begins his new job as head of the Bank of England on July 1.

“If the city is any indication of what’s going on in the country, it’s over-reliant on its housing sector,” Crockett says, pointing out a window of a downtown coffee shop to dozens of cranes swinging across the skyline. “I’m afraid of a condo crash, and then what will happen to all the investments?”

Toronto is awash in real estate. There were 144 skyscrapers under construction in late February, more than in any other city in the world, according to SkyscraperPage.com. Proposals for new condos reached 253,768 units at the end of the fourth quarter, up 10% from a year earlier, Toronto-based research firm Urbanation Inc. says. Four luxury hotels, each featuring condos, have opened in the past two years.

Gehry Towers

The projects keep coming. Frank Gehry, architect of the landmark Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, plans three towers. The highest, at 85 floors, would be North America’s tallest residential building.

Crockett, who lives in Crozet, France, says he’s losing $7,000 a month amid the glut. He says his Trump suite, which guests rent through the hotel reservation system, is occupied about a quarter of the time. He’s suing Donald Trump and the developers for $2.9-million for misrepresenting investment returns. About two dozen other buyers have brought similar cases.