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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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Sales Storytime: 2 Homes, Same Street, Different Results
The story of two homes that were sold on the same street, and how the results were 180 degrees different. I listed a home for sale that had been owned by the same family for over 60 years. It was in original shape, not in poor condition however it needed upgrading throughout. My guess was…
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When Neighbours are not your Best Friends
A client over the past few weeks had an interesting experience with their property. The home was a bungalow in need of some work and the Seller decided to list it with us and get the property on the market and sold. Prior to getting the paperwork signed and getting the home listed for sale,…
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Deposits: Go big to get the home
If you were looking for advice about a medical issue, you would ask a doctor. With questions about taxes, you would go to an accountant and for issues with your car, you would no doubt ask a car mechanic. (Only after asking Ms. Google for her input.) Stick with me, I am going somewhere with…
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Tortoise and Hare
Sometimes by slowing down, you get more than you dreamed of. Last week we had a very interesting story unfold. We placed a property on the market at an asking price of $850,000. The same model had sold for $820,000 at the end of 2022, so with the market a bit higher currently our target…
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