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How Low Can Rates Go?
Several things happened in 2022. The beginning of the slowdown in the economy started when the Bank of Canada (BOC) raised interest rates 10 times over 10 months. In 2022 we started the year with the BOC lending rate set at .25%. When lenders offered a variable rate mortgage they would add 1 or 1.5%…
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Show Me the Money
It seems like chat around the office water cooler or photocopier always seems to revolve around Real Estate. A question that commonly comes up is that given the state of our economy in Canada, “Where is all of the money coming from for people to buy houses?” Mortgage, loans and lines of credit rates are…
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Understanding Real Estate by Reading Trends
One thing I love to do is to make predictions. In December 2023 I made some predictions about where the values in Oshawa, Whitby and Clarington would be in May 2024. Let’s review my thoughts and see how accurate I was.The 4th quarter of 2023 was challenging time for Sellers, with values declining and sluggish sales. For…
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What the heck is an Early Adopter?
Reading a book by Simon Sinek, he goes deep into a subject that has always fascinated me. About how human nature can be mapped out on a graph and how the media, conversations with friends and the general public can influence buying habits. If you think of a line graph that starts out low and…
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Investors are Back
Phil Collins recorded a song years ago that I love. “In the air tonight.” This song has never been more relevant than where we are currently with Real Estate in Durham Region. Or maybe the song “What a feeling” from Flashdance. Both of these songs share a similar message. There is a feeling that is…
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Housing crisis, Sensational headlines and Solutions
Over the past few weeks, the news has been sensational, shocking, and explosive. When it comes to our Provincial government and their attempts to deal with what is being called a “housing crisis” it seems that everyone has an opinion of how to fix the issue or how to dismantle the efforts being taken to…
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Buying a Condo Townhome or Detached home in Durham Region
What is the best investment? I recently sold a condo townhouse and during the selling process I had some very interesting conversations. A comment made by a renter who was looking at buying a home was that they felt condo townhomes would not increase in value like semi-detached or detached homes would, so they wrote…
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Durham Real Estate – Shocking/Not Shocking
Let’s pretend that we had a blackout and lost what home prices were doing from December 2021 – February 2022. It might be called “willful blindness,’ so stick with me for a few minutes. The May 2023 statistics are out, and one thing is certain; no one rang a bell at the bottom of the…
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Understanding Real Estate and Investment Cycles
We are 3 weeks into the 2nd quarter and the “fortune tellers,” meaning, the people who sit around tables in coffee shops, chatting in a bar over a beer or even milling about after church service are surprised that their predictions are not coming true. You might be curious what predictions… the ones predicting the…
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Revisiting Predictions – Facts vs. Headlines
I spoke with a Buyer last fall, and they shared with me that they were holding off buying until the market bottomed out. If they gathered information from headlines of the major news media outlets, the Buyer may feel they were relying on accurate information or predictions. Alas, that individual would currently be paying about…
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