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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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Show Me the Money
It seems like chat around the office water cooler or photocopier always seems to revolve around Real Estate. A question that commonly comes up is that given the state of our economy in Canada, “Where is all of the money coming from for people to buy houses?” Mortgage, loans and lines of credit rates are…
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Homes in Durham Region — Where are the Buyers Coming From?
It has been 3 weeks since the Bank of Canada decreased their lending rate by ¼ percent and thought it would be a good exercise to see how the market has reacted. From Whitby to Clarington there are currently 888 detached homes for sale. At the beginning of June, the inventory was 725, an increase…
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What Upgrades Pay off?
I met with 2 groups last week, one a potential Seller and the other a Buyer I had been working with. After meeting with them, I reflected on how different the two experiences were when it came to valuing Real Estate. The first was a Buyer who I had been working with for the past…
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Durham Region Real Estate Rental Report
I spend much of my time reading reports on Real Estate and most articles and blog posts discuss Buyers, Sellers and the state of the market as it relates to mortgage rates. What I rarely see is information about how the rental market is doing in Durham Region. I thought it would be worthwhile to…
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Are we in a Buyer’s Market or a Seller’s Market?
I had a conversation with a newer agent over the weekend who did their best to convince me that we are in a full-on Buyer’s market. The number of homes for sale is up, prices are flat, and the selling times have increased. I simply nodded thinking to myself, “this agent may have never seen a true Buyer’s market.”…
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Busting through Real Estate Myths
I thought I would take some time and offer some truths on common misconceptions in the world surrounding Real Estate. I have heard many things Buyers and Sellers have shared with me over the past 40 years that might fit more into “wives’ tales” or just plain silliness. Let’s look at a few of the ideas that…
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What is a parking spot worth?
I took a look at what developers are charging for parking spots on newly built condos locally. Tribute has several towers on Simcoe and the lowest priced unit with a parking space is listed for $714,000. This unit is 828 sq feet. Another unit with no parking and at 482 sq ft is priced at…
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