ANCASTER, Ontario – High impact promoter Lastman’s Bad Bay has opened its tenth and, at 32,000 square feet, largest store in the Meadowlands Mall, located here in this suburb of Hamilton.

Samantha Lastman, LBB director of business development (and daughter of chief executive officer Blayne Lastman), also described it as “our nicest store to date.”

“Bad Boy has wanted to open in Ancaster for a very long time,” she said, adding, “the right opportunity has finally presented itself and the timing could not be better.”

Ancaster, she pointed out, is a growing city which has enjoying considerable success economically in recent years as evidence by its growing population.

This is the third Bad Boy store to be located in a mall – the others being Whitby and Brampton. Lastman said malls often offer furniture, mattress and major appliance retail operations a number of advantages. “Landlords desire Bad Boy located to open up their malls,” she said. “To many, Bad Boy is a mini-department store. In addition, Bad Boy has placed stores in malls to capitalise on the traffic and to reach a wider audience. We situate many of our stores in prime mall locations as we believe people will often what to shop at Bad Boy alongside their regular shopping.”

This facility is also a little different from the nine others in the regional chain. “Ancaster is designed to give the optimal customer shopping experience,” she said, adding its interior uses the latest colours, co-ordinates and interior finishes, such as flooring. “It is laid out in an easy to shop fashion. The products here are of high quality and the displays are designed in such a way that the customer can really envision how it will be in their homes.”

The store will employ a staff of about 30. This will bring the company’s total employment to over 400 people.

Ancaster is the first store to be added to the Bad Boy chain since the Brampton store opened in late 2012 although refurbished stores were opened in Whitby and Mississauga in 2014 and 2013 respectively.

Lastman said that while no location has been found, the company is “aggressively looking for further growth.”

TORONTO – Marshall Mattress has announced it will return to the U.S. market after a absence of more than 20 years when it makes its debut at the summer edition of the Las Vegas Market (LVM) later this month.

Founded at the very beginning of the 20th century, the family owned-and-operated company is one of the oldest continuously operating mattress makers in North America and its founder is credited with the development of the pocket coil innerspring system.

It will be located is space 922 in building ‘B’ of the World Market Center. In a statement, the company said the time is right to re-enter the U.S. market.

“There is a lot of interest in our line,” said Eric Warner, vice president of sales and business development. “We have a number of unique features that we think will be attractive to higher-end stores.”

Marshall’s 1,900 square foot showroom will feature three collections, all new to the U.S. market. They include: the five-model Portfolio collection; the three-model Luxury line; and, the five model Bespoke collection. The opening price points for each are about $3,500 in queen while some sets in the Bespoke line go as high as $15,000.

Warner said the company’s mattresses are hand-crafted and use a host of natural and sustainable materials. Most are two-sided, and all feature a pocketed coil innerspring unit which was patented by company founder James Marshall in Canada in 1900 and in both the U.S. and the U.K. the following year.

Unlike many of the pocketed coil innerspring units currently offered to U.S. retailers, Marshall Mattress doesn’t use foam encasing for its coil systems because it believes its design does a better job of keeping the sleeper cool.

“Consumers are willing to invest in quality,” he said. “Not everyone is interested in buying something they will have to replace in three or four years.”

The summer 2017 edition of the Las Vegas Market will open for its usual five-day run on July 30.

TORONTO – Contemporary furniture resource Sunpan Modern Home has added a new reserve feature on its recently unveiled business-to-business e-commerce site.

In a statement, the privately-held distributor noted the new feature allows customers to reserve inventory for any out-of-stock items, adding functionality to the existing e-commerce platform which was launched in June 2016. It can be found at sunpan.com.

While reserving products that are currently in production, the web site also offers an estimated time of arrival to the company’s warehouse, allowing members of the company’s retail network to better co-ordinate receipt of shipments and manage projects. Customers can also choose to have the order ship complete or partially fulfilled based on availability.

“The reserve feature has made our online ordering system that much more flexible, streamlined and efficient both in terms of sales operations, and customer service,” Kat Tsoi, Sunpan’s senior sales executive, said in a statement. “Customers now have online access to purchasing any item in our line, not just the in-stock ones. They no longer need to call or e-mail our staff to purchase a back-ordered item – they can do this on their own schedule when it is most convenient for them. Meanwhile, it frees up our staff’s time to focus on delivery, and improves order accuracy.”

In order to use these features, customers must be registered for an account on sunpan.com. Once registered, customers gain exclusive access to the site’s newest features including the ability to view pricing and live inventory, manage wish lists and projects, and place orders online 24/7.

Based here, Sunpan specialises in the design and manufacturing of transitional and contemporary furnishings. It will show at the upcoming Las Vegas Market in space B700.

OTTAWA – The number of homes sold via the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) of the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) dropped 6.7% on a month-over-month basis in June, the largest monthly decline since June 2010 while marking the third consecutive month of declining sales. Sales are not 14.1% below the record set this past March.

The realtors’ group also noted that actual sales fell last month by 11.4% from the level seen in June 2016. Meanwhile, the number of newly listed hosts edged back 1.5% while the national average price gained a measly 0.4% on a year-over-year basis.

CREA reported monthly sales were down in 70% of all local markets, led overwhelmingly by the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Monthly declines were also posted in the Golden Horseshoe, the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Kingston, Montreal and Quebec City.

The 11.4% drop in actual (not seasonally adjusted) sales was driven by a significant drop in GTA sales activity as half of all local housing markets recorded a decline in year-over-year sale, CREA reported while noting Calgary, Edmonton, London and St. Thomas, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax-Dartmouth topped the list of Canadian cities where home sales surpassed year-ago levels.

“Canadian economic and job growth have been improving, which is good news for housing demand,” CREA president Andrew Peck said in a statement. “However, it also means that interest rates have begun to rise, which may impact homebuyer confidence – particularly in pricier markets like Toronto and Vancouver where recent housing policies had already moved potential buyers to the sidelines. In lower priced markets, the effect of higher interest rates on housing affordability will be relatively muted.”

“Changes to Ontario housing policy made in late April have clearly prompted many homebuyers in the Greater Golden Horseshoe region to take a step back and assess how the housing market absorbs the changes,” CREA chief economist Gregory Klump noted. “The recent increase in interest rates could reinforce a lack of urgency to purchase or, alternatively, move some buyers off the sidelines before their pre-approved mortgage rate expires. In the meantime, some move-up buyers who previously purchased a home before first selling may become more motivated to reduce their asking price rather than carry two mortgages.”

The number of newly listed homes slid 1.5% in June, led by a sizeable pullback in the GTA compared to record levels in April and May. A number of other markets in the Greater Golden Horseshoe also saw a pullback in new supply.

The national sales-to-new listings ratio moved further into balanced market territory at 52.8%. The ratio had been in the high-60% range just three months earlier. A sales-to-new listings ratio between 40 and 60 is generally consistent with balanced housing market conditions, with readings below and above this range indicating buyers’ and sellers’ markets respectively.

The ratio was above 60% in fewer than half of all local housing markets in June. The majority of markets above 60% are located in B. C. and Ontario, but a number of Greater Golden Horseshoe markets have downshifted into balanced territory. The ratio fell below 40% in the GTA and Barrie.

The actual national average price for homes sold in June 2017 was $504,458, up just 0.4% from where it stood one year earlier.

Excluding Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto – Canada’s most active and expensive housing markets – trims the national average price to $394,660.

“The Canadian housing market is now in its third month of what is expected to be a soft landing,” Diana Petramala of TD Economics pointed out in her research note. “The weakness was triggered by changes to provincial and federal housing policy, but it will ultimately be higher interest rates that help solidify it. Mortgage rates have moved in tandem with the Bank of Canada rate hike last week and will likely to continue to edge higher with three additional rate increases expected by the end of next year.”

She also pointed out that after growing close to 6.5% this year, existing home prices are expected to decline by 2.1% next year. “Much of that weakness will be concentrated in markets in Ontario and B.C., where households are particularly sensitive to higher mortgage rates given the stretched affordability,” she said. “Elsewhere in the country the improving economic conditions should help offset some the impact of gradual interest rate hikes with home prices and sales expected to trend higher.”