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 market. Meaning, for Buyers I have spoken with who were waiting for prices to bottom ou...Read More

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. Now let’s see what would happen if they invested in Real Es...Read More

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 10 years old and was not covered under any builder warranties. The homeowner hired a company to identify...Read More

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 the Buyer would install a new kitchen, bathroom, and flooring throughout the home and would create a famil...Read More

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, the next-door neighbour approached the homeowner and offered to buy the home, “cash.” After th...Read More

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 this. Ok, it is easy to establish that to get information on a subject you are not versed in you would a...Read More

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 range was around $830,000, allowing for some room for negotiation. This was an apartment-style condo and bid...Read More

We are 3 weeks into the 2nd quarter and the “fortune tellers,” meaning, the people who sit around tables in coffee shops, chatting in a bar over a beer or even milling about after church service are surprised that their predictions are not coming true. You might be curious what predictions… the ones predicting the collapse of the housing market. That values will drop, (the fav...Read More

I spoke with a Buyer last fall, and they shared with me that they were holding off buying until the market bottomed out. If they gathered information from headlines of the major news media outlets, the Buyer may feel they were relying on accurate information or predictions. Alas, that individual would currently be paying about $125,000 more for a home today than in October 2022. What I have no...Read More

Let’s talk about home prices. Crazy, expensive, unaffordable and beyond reach. If you are a Buyer looking for a detached home in Riverdale Toronto, (east of the Don Valley and south of Danforth) you would expect to pay an average of $1,714,000 to buy a home. Breaking this down, you would need a minimum of $343,000 as a downpayment, and your monthly mortgage payment would be around $ 8,000/...Read More