August 2016

Home-Buying for Beginners: 8 Red Flags When House-Hunting

It’s easy to get drawn into a property based on its aesthetics. After all, granite countertops, fresh paint and new carpets all make a good first impression; they also could cause you to overlook some serious sins that might make you regret purchasing the home. Keep an eye out for these red flags when searching for a new home, as they could indicate something’s awry.

1. Plenty of ‘For Sale’ Signs
Take a look around the neighborhood. Do you see a lot of other “For Sale” signs? If it’s in an urban area, does it look like area businesses are thriving or at they closed in the middle of the day? If no one else wants to live on the street, chances are you might not want to either.

At the same

There are few things more exciting than buying a house with your significant other.

It shows that your relationship is strong and that you’re ready to take the next step. However, the homebuying process can be stressful, which means it can be quite a strain on a relationship if you’re not careful. Here are seven tips that will hopefully make buying a home with your partner a process that’s as stress-free as possible:

1. Get on the same page

Deciding that you want to own a home together is not the same as being on the same page. You need to sit down with your partner and figure out, then discuss, exactly what they want in a house. One of you may want to live in an urban area while the other may prefer the suburbs. Your partner may like the

Millions of immigrants come to Canada and quickly discover that getting established financially isn’t easy

Overview

Last year, Canada welcomed more than half a million newcomers to our country as immigrants, international students and temporary foreign workers. The number one source for new permanent residents is now the Philippines, followed by India, China, the U.K. and the States. Canada may be the best country in the world to live in, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to get established. People come to Canada dreaming of obtaining greater financial security and opportunities for themselves and their families, but they often spend years struggling to build up credit, find a decent job and grow their wealth.

In the pages that follow, we

Quintessentially Canadian Cottage-Life: Royal LePage finds foreign buyers account for few recreational property transactions

Retirement-bound boomers seek peaceful retreats

Toronto, ON, June 23, 2016 – Generation X buyers of cottages, cabins and chalets across Canada outnumber Baby Boomers by almost two to one, according to the Royal LePage 2016 Canadian Recreational Housing Report released today. Still, planning for retirement living is among the most common reasons potential buyers give for the purchase of a recreational property.  The annual report compiles information from a cross-Canada survey of real estate advisors who specialize in recreational property sales.

The survey found that 65 per cent of advisors polled indicated that

For the first time in modern history, living with parents has overtaken other living arrangements for 18-34-year-olds, according to a Pew Research Center report released Tuesday.

In 2014, 32.1 percent of young adults lived in their parents’ homes, edging out all other living arrangements, including marriage or cohabitation, living alone, or living as single parents or with roommates.

The change is fueled by a steep decline in the portion of young Americans settling down romantically over the past 50 years.

Since 1880, when the Census Bureau started keeping track, the most common arrangement for young people was to live with a spouse or significant other. That peaked in 1960, when 62 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds did so. Now, that number has

I often get asked how to invest in real estate and what should investors should be looking for in an income producing property.

It can be overwhelming for a first-time investor, as the real estate investment industry is riddled with various scenarios and situations that can decimate your returns. While the returns can be lucrative, proceed with caution.

Toronto realtor Matt Smith has shared with me his extensive experiences in helping investors both acquire and manage single-unit condominium investment properties. These are a very popular vehicle for investment in both Vancouver and Toronto, where both supply and demand for these units seems to be endless. In Toronto’s Downtown Bloor Yorkville area alone, there are currently eleven projects, all

There is no question that home affordability in cities like Vancouver and Toronto has become unattainable for most of us.

There is a significant supply problem which has not been adequately discussed and resolved.

With the news that foreign investors will now be taxed an additional 15% of the purchase price on residential properties in Vancouver, it looks as though a Canadian “Wall” is being built against free trade and immigration, as even the Ontario Finance Minister is suggesting that he is looking very closely at what his British Columbia counterpart has done. This is in addition to the additional taxes of current land transfer tax of 1% to 3% of the purchase price and the yet-to-be-disclosed new tax that will be applied to owners of

A significant “negative shock” to the economy: That’s what it’s going to take to lower interest rates again, says Canada’s most powerful banker.

And Bank of Canada head Stephen Poloz isn’t betting on that happening any time soon. Neither are bond traders, the big guns that bet billions of dollars every day on the direction of interest rates.

So let’s suppose – just for fun – that they’re right (since we all know how often markets and economists aren’t right). If we are actually near a bottom in rates for a few years, what’s the best way to play your mortgage?

Well, it just so happens that there’s an app for that. It’s called a spreadsheet and I’ve taken the liberty of putting mine through its paces and model out which mortgage term (or

Multiple offers are a very real occurrence in the Kamloops real estate market right now. 

We are hearing about the low inventory of houses in Kamloops which is leaving buyers missing out on their choice of house due to losing a multiple offer bidding process. A good realtor who is on the ball and gets you into seeing the properties as soon as possible is a great asset but when there are a number of hard working agents in Kamloops sometimes it can come down to the offer itself and the negotiating ability of your Realtor.

So what can you do if you find yourself in multiple offers that will increase your chances of making the sale happen for you? You will want to secure the property but not over pay for it, by balancing the below tips and getting your

It may be a way to attract foreign investors away from already hot markets like Vancouver and Toronto

Britain’s decision to leave the European Union last week plunged governments worldwide into a pit of economic and political uncertainty. The ripples of the referendum will have an unmistakable impact on global economies and, by association, on global real estate markets. But only temporarily.

Interest rates will remain low

The immediate impact of the post-Brexit vote on Canada’s economy will be pressure to keep interest rates at historically low levels, explained BMO chief economist Douglas Porter and senior economist Robert Kavcic in a report last week. This is, in part, because other segments of our country’s economy would feel the impact of