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Why Experience Matters
Something fascinating happened over the past few weeks. I was contacted by a Seller who had listed his home with a friend, and after a few weeks he terminated the listing and approached me to see if I could sell his home. His friend, an agent from Toronto gave him a “good deal” and brought…
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Have Higher Rates Slowed the Market?
Homes are hanging around a bit longer than they have for the last few months before we see sold signs placed in the yards. Prices are softening a little and the number of home Buyers touring is dropping. Is this the effect of the mortgage rates going up last week? Having worked the past 37 summers selling…
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Are there any Benefits to Mortgage Rates Rising?
The Bank of Canada is expected to increase rates again in the next week. Currently, 5-year mortgage rates are between 5 – 6%. The variation is based on if the downpayment is below or above 20%. In Ontario, with less than 20% down and CMHC mortgage insurance, the rates are lower than if more than…
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Entertaining the thought of Selling, then Renting
Baby Boomers, Homeowners and why Renting Makes Perfect Sense. Homeowners who have lived in their “forever” home for decades are struggling to maintain their properties and to care for them. I have noticed that once a homeowner is in the 65 – 80-year-old range, things such as shovelling snow, cutting grass and general maintenance start…
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Why Building More Homes will not fix our Housing Issues
For the past few years, we have heard that we are in a housing crisis with the common reasoning being that there are not enough homes for sale to meet demand. Here are some points to ponder that may give reason to think the issues are much deeper than supply issues. Let’s begin with what…
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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 Region Open Houses – Why Agents ask Buyers to Sign in
We hosted an open house recently and had a flurry of Buyers tour the home. There is always a mix of open house attendees; curiosity seekers, neighbours, and “professional” open house tourists. In this case, we had some very serious prospects looking at the home. One of the elements of hosting an open house is…
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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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Is Real Estate still a sound investment?
The average Canadian family income is around $80,000/year. Let’s assume a family can save 10% of their income yearly, they would have a nest egg of about $80,000 in a decade of savings. Now let’s assume they averaged a 5% return over that time. Their investment would have grown to somewhere between $84,000 and $100,000. …
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What is a Latent Defect? Or a Patent Defect?
Now that I have grabbed your attention with this sexy headline, let’s begin with a story from a few years ago to identify the difference between defects. I had a Seller I was working with who shared with me that he had a small amount of water seep into his basement. The home was about…
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