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Parents Helping Kids Buy Homes Today
With a career spanning almost 4 decades I have worked with clients as young as 18 and as old as 98. One thing I have experienced, is when a homeowner is in the 65+ range, they start to look at where they will direct their assets. These can be their personal residence, rental properties or…
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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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Real Estate Hacks- Increasing value by $50,000
Is it possible to increase your home value by up to $50,000 by investing as little as $5,000? Let’s take a look and see if it is possible. I have narrowed down a few items that Buyers will pay for when they are looking at resale homes, but first how about we tour a model…
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How Low Can Mortgage Rates Go?
Another month, another Bank of Canada rate drop. Unless you missed it, the rates were cut by ¼% last week. This followed a rate reduction last month, adding to a drop of ½%. The impact of these two rate cuts will reduce a $100,000 variable rate mortgage by $28/month. This may not seem like a…
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How Big of a Deal is a 1/4% Rate Cut?
Let’s be frank – given the fact that rates jumped about 6% in 10 increases, how much will a ¼ or 1/2% rate cut do for Real Estate Buyers and Sellers? In a nutshell…. a lot! If we look at the average home in Oshawa, Whitby and Clarington and given the average selling prices, we…
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Reflections on a Turbulent Year
2023 is now a closed chapter in Real Estate history books. It was quite the year. If we ponder where we were a year ago, homes selling with conditions returned, the average home in Oshawa, Whitby and Clarington sold for asking price and in January, 260 homes in total sold. Detached homes in Oshawa started…
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Can you Buy a Home Making $90,000/year?
Sometimes it happens to the best of Realtors. I hosted an open house 45 minutes from my office on the weekend and when I got home, I realized I had the key in my pocket. Early this morning you would have found me zipping up north to put the key back into the lockbox. On…
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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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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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