Where do you go for Real Estate Advice in Durham Region?
It was 2012 and my partner Wendy Starr was selling Real Estate in Phoenix, Arizona. She had an experience that is as relevant today as it was then.
She was dealing with a Canadian investor offering on a townhome in Grayhawk, a golf course community in Scottsdale. The property was 1,650 sq ft and was a bank owned property, called a foreclosure. In layman terms, the bank was selling the property to recover their investment.
The sales process went something like this – the home was listed just under $200,000 and the Buyer had offered $183,000. The bank counter-offered the home to the Buyer asking for $5,000.
What happened next is something I have seen unravel countless times in my career. The Buyer called Wendy sharing that he watched a news program on TV stating that the prices were set to drop a further 15%. The Buyer cooled off and, in the end, waited, watching the values increase dramatically. Had he purchased the townhome for $188,000 he would today own an investment property worth around $900,000. This is what we call “leaving money on the table” in Real Estate.
Our values in Durham Region have been increasing since around 2000. From 2000 – 2010 the average home in Oshawa sold for 98% of asking. In fact, even during the downturn of the USA Real Estate market in 2008 our values continued to climb.
The values slipped in May/2017, two months after Wendy and I purchased a home to live in. We ended up paying $115,000 more than asking to secure the home. What happened, is similar to what happened to the Buyer who chose not to purchase the home in Arizona. Over the next few months, after we purchased the values dropped only to rebound to highs we had never dreamed of. The property has more than doubled in value since we moved in.
I share this story to illustrate how listening to credible sources, with local expertise and knowledge is a much better approach to reading headlines that are created to shock the readers. If you spend a few minutes googling Real Estate in Ontario the top 4 items returned are dealing with prices going up and going down, for 2022 and 2023. One of the articles that stood out for me was one that appeared in the Financial Post in May 2020. The headline read “Housing prices could fall 14% in Canadas biggest city by 2022 – and that’s the “moderate” scenario” (since May/20 Durham Region prices have almost doubled.) Journalists, many who have never worked in Real Estate are opining about the current market. It would like me giving advice to a friend on how to replace the transmission in their car. It is really hard to sift through the massive amounts of information available to find local, relevant Real Estate content.
Over the past 4 years I have been blogging on local Real Estate, writing columns for the Oshawa Express and Metroland newspapers and launching a Tuesday Morning Market Update video weekly with the hopes that by giving local, reliable and easy to digest information, that Buyers and Sellers anticipating a move can make better decisions.
I would have hoped that if I had a Buyer looking for an investment in 2012, such as the Arizona Buyer that Wendy was working with, that they would have relied on my expertise and advice rather than believing what they saw on CNN. Oh, if you do the math, that townhome that could have been bought for $183,000 and now worth $900,000, the increase in value to the Buyer would be $717,000. CNN got it wrong.
If you have any questions on Real Estate in Durham Region, or in Phoenix Arizona, reach out to Wendy Starr or me. We have our pulse on the local Real Estate vibes.
How to interview a Realtor when selling your home:
- Interview a minimum of 3 agents. You will get a good view of what is being offered.
- Make sure that the agent you are considering is a full-time agent and works locally.
- Ask what the agent has sold near your home.
- Ask for references and follow up with them.
- Ask for a written marketing plan along with marketing pieces from homes sold in the past 60 days.
- Ask what the average list to sale ratio is for the agents listings. Meaning, when a home sells what percentage of asking are they averaging.
- Ask if the agent is employed outside of real estate. Sometimes the definition of “full-time” has different meanings to people.
- Make sure you interview Lindsay Smith and Wendy Starr of www.buyselllove.ca