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The Tax Arizona Homebuyers Don’t Pay
I recently had an interesting conversation with a Realtor friend in Arizona. The subject of land transfer tax came up. She looked at me blankly. “What is land transfer tax?” Fair question. Arizona does not have one. In Canada, every province and territory charges buyers something when ownership of a property is transferred. Five jurisdictions…
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Fast, Cheap or Good? What Really Sells a Home
I was listening to an interview with Tom Waits recently when he shared a piece of advice from one of his mentors. “Fast, cheap and good… pick two.” If it’s fast and cheap, it won’t be good. If it’s cheap and good, it won’t be fast. If it’s fast and good, it won’t be cheap.…
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Renting vs. Buying – Are Tenants or Homeowners Better Off Long Term?
I have worked with a financial person for about 8 years and we constantly struggle over my anxiety for fast growth and her measured approach. To begin, she is not a financial planner, nor is she a financial advisor. (or adviser, there is a huge difference) She is what’s called a “Fiducary.” Financial advisors, advisers…
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The Harvest Gold Fridge Dilemma
We have a house coming to market soon that was built in the early 2000s. At roughly 25 years old, it sits right at the point where many homes begin to split into two very different categories: updated… and dated. When people first move into a brand-new house, the first five years are usually busy…
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What Would a Start-up Pay for Old Fashioned Experience?
If you’re not in the business of selling real estate, you probably missed the headline last week. A cloud-based brokerage with no offices—The Real Brokerage—acquired RE/MAX. Not a region. Not a handful of offices. The entire global network—roughly 145,000 agents. A year earlier, Compass absorbed Anywhere Real Estate, the parent company behind Coldwell Banker, Century…
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One of These Homes Doesn’t Belong
There’s a Sesame Street song most of us can still hum. One of these things is not like the other… one of these things doesn’t belong. That same idea shows up in real estate more often than you’d think. Three properties crossed my desk recently. Similar price range. Same general market. Very different outcomes. The…
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Motivation Is Not a Marketing Feature
Last week I saw a listing on MLS that made me do that slow head shake you do when something just feels… off. It also sent me back to something most people don’t realize realtors agree to follow: a formal Code of Ethics set out by RECO (the Real Estate Council of Ontario). In plain…
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Thick Skin, Thin Takes, and Why Hoping for a Housing Crash Misses the Point
One thing I’ve learned from writing columns for local news outlets and contributing to blogs like this one is that a thick skin isn’t optional. If you put opinions into the wild, the wild writes back. Sometimes politely. Sometimes… less so. After a recent article, several comments landed in the familiar bucket of “I can’t…
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2025: The Year that Politely Cross-Checked Canadians
2025 came in like a lion and went out like a blindfolded sheep trying to find warmth in a polar vortex.Not great. Not subtle. Like a very Canadian winter. A lot of the year’s energy got vacuumed straight out of the room by… well… everything: Basically, the news cycle spent the year on Red Bull.…
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The Story of a $22M Power of Sale
Ontario’s housing market has a way of reminding us that no one—neither the family in a 900-square-foot bungalow nor the owner of a 14,000-square-foot estate—is immune to shifting economic weather. At the upper fringe of the market, past the three- and four-million-dollar mark, most of us assume life unfolds in a different financial atmosphere. The…
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