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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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Snowballs, Sold SIgns and Winning Winter Sales Strategies
This morning I stared out the window at a landscape that looked like it was being curated by a particularly dramatic snow globe and thought, “How can it be this cold — and why does the sky keep promising encore performances?” And yet, there I was at my desk, creating strategies of how to launch…
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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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When your Realtor lives an hour away
A question came up recently that’s worth addressing:Does it make sense to list your Bowmanville home with an agent whose office is in Woodbridge—an hour and fifteen minutes from your property? I started thinking about this after reading a Woodbridge agent’s “areas served.” Their list spanned from Ajax to Aurora to Brampton to Caledon to…
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Thinking of Moving to Albuquerque? Or Nunavut? Or That Random Florida Swamp Your Aunt Forgot She Owned?
You’d be shocked how often I get calls that start with, “Hey… this is going to sound weird, but can you help me with… [insert wild location]?” Case in point: a past client casually drops into a conversation that she inherited “swamp land” in Florida. In a smug way I dig around, call a guy…
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Pricing homes – Guesswork or Fact Based.
Over the weekend, we received a 1-star Google review. Out of 152 reviews—all 5-star except this lone outlier—it stood out like what it was – an unhappy comment from a stranger. We’ve never met the reviewer, never spoken to him, and he doesn’t live anywhere near the neighbourhood he claims we “undervalued.” So before anyone…
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Can a Buyer Renegotiate After a Home Inspection? Yes. Should They? That’s the Real Question.
A colleague in Arizona told me something that made me set down my coffee. In her market, buyers routinely make an offer, complete the home inspection, and then return to the negotiating table as if the deal were merely a draft. Nothing catastrophic discovered—just a second swing because, well, why not. Ontario felt very different…
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What do Rental Furnaces and Bad Tenants Have in Common?
I was chatting with a Realtor friend in Arizona when hot-water heater rentals came up. I mentioned that a recent Seller couldn’t even figure out what they were paying each month. My friend stared at me like I’d just said Canadians lease their snow. “People rent water tanks in Canada?” Apparently in Arizona, that’s not…
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