Kamloops Property For Sale Real Estate Blog - first time buyers

The Only Cleaning Guide For New Home Owners You'll Ever Need

Moving into a new house involves a lot of things

From supervising the final touches and buying new fittings to hunting the right moving company to help with relocation, one is likely to feel overwhelmed. Unfortunately, your house doesn’t feel like home not until you have given it a thorough cleaning. If you are wondering where to begin or how to go about it, this cleaning guide for new home owners has all the answers you need

1. Clean before you unpack

First of all, it is a good idea to do your cleaning before you begin unpacking. In an empty house, you have enough space to conduct proper cleaning of places that would be difficult to reach when items are already arranged. For instance, you can take care of the closet effectively when it has no…

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TD hikes mortgage rates for rental properties and lengthy loans

Toronto-Dominion is raising mortgage rates again

This time the lender is going much farther than its recent hikes.

Starting December 1, all fixed rate mortgages that take more than 25 years to pay back will cost borrowers an extra 10 basis points, or 0.1 per cent. TD is also implementing an extra cost for mortgages on rental properties, charging borrowers 25 basis points more.

The changes follow Royal Bank of Canada’s precedent-setting decision early in November to hike rates, and to also charge more for lengthy mortgages. The latter move marked the first time such a policy was implemented in Canada.

In response, TD increased its own fixed-mortgage rates a week later, but took a more measured approach. Royal Bank hiked its fixed five-year…

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When to buy your first home in Kamloops.

The sooner you go from being a renter to an owner, the sooner you can begin to increase your personal wealth. 

This is perhaps the only legitimate, safe way to parlay a relatively small amount of money into an amount many times larger – and tax free to boot!

First decision – Who is buying?

Are you planning to buy in your name only? Are you buying with a significant other? Are you thinking of going in as partners with friends or relatives?

Second decision – Who will live in this home?

Will you? Will you rent out some rooms or part of the home?

Third decision – Where do you want to buy the home?

Close to work? Close to your family? Close to your social life? Whatever you can afford?

Fourth decision – Decide when you will be ready.

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What to Look For When Searching For a Neighborhood

How to Pick a Neighborhood to Live In

The process of buying a home can be incredibly exciting. Imagining you and your family living in a new, better space where you can all enjoy yourselves is motivation enough to work through all the challenges of finding and buying a house. Let’s face it – knowing how to pick a neighborhood is important!

When you buy a home, you are buying more than just a building. You are purchasing a lifestyle. Where your home is located, the neighborhood that it is located will influence the lives of you and your family for as long as you live in that house. This makes choosing the right neighborhood an integral part of choosing the right home. So how do you pick a neighborhood?

When looking for a home, most people will…

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Basement Living: Paying Off Your Mortgage Sooner by Renting Out the Main Floor of Your House

Are you looking to pay off you mortgage sooner? Buying a home with a basement apartment may be your ticket.

And while a lot of homeowners consider renting out a basement apartment, what’s stopping you from taking it a step further? What if instead of living upstairs and renting out the basement, you did the opposite: living in the basement and renting out the upstairs?

I know what you’re thinking: Why condemn myself to the basement when the main floor is available? I own this house, so why should I live downstairs?

First off, it’s a good way to subsidize your mortgage in high-priced Toronto and Vancouver housing markets. The rent from your tenants can go directly toward the mortgage, helping you burn your mortgage sooner.

3 Tips for Secondary…

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Pre-Approval vs. Pre-Qualification

We know that getting ready to purchase a home can be confusing.

It is important to know the difference between a pre-qualification and a pre-approval, as one could lead you on, while the other nurtures your path to home ownership.

One of the primary steps of Buying a Home, is getting pre-approved for a mortgage. You should do this before the house hunt begins, so we (your Realtor) can show you houses that you can afford, to ensure we don’t waste any time or get your hopes up. There should be an open line of communication between your Realtor and your Mortgage Agent throughout the process, from determining the price range criteria, to putting forth an offer.

In the grand scope of things, a Pre-Qualification is a birds eye view of your ability to…

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Condo vs House - What You Need to Know...

With the average price of a detached home in cities such as Toronto now above the $1million mark, for many, condos have become the new starter home and possibly the domicile option for years to come.

First time home buyers are plagued with a whirlwind of decisions when looking for the perfect place to settle down. From locations to schools and public transportation, there’s one major consideration that will determine your type of lifestyle for the years to come, house or Condo. After coming to terms with the loads of money you’ll be borrowing, you’ll have to decide on whether you want to live in a condo vs house. But there are some major differences between house ownership and owning a condo. Here are some key factors to keep in mind.

Fees For All

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7 Tips for Buyers to Keep From Feeling Overwhelmed

You just made an offer on the house you love and it has just been accepted!

Congratulations!!

But then the panic and feeling of being overwhelmed sets in.  It’s a time filled with many different emotions, a seemingly endless To Do List, critical due dates, and a multitude of important decisions to be made. Buying a house is a tough challenge, no matter how well qualified you are, or even if you’ve done it before, and it’s pretty normal to feel stressed out.

Especially when you already lead a busy life and now have what feels like another full time job to do!  But there are some things you can do to manage that overwhelmed feeling and get done what has to be done. It's your responsibility!

1. Rely on your Buyer Agent

It’s his or her job to…

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Which mortgage term will save you money over the next five years?

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…

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10 Questions you might need to ask before you buy that home!

Let’s talk HOME BUYING and things that might not seem important at first.

When you buy a house without asking yourself the right questions, you sometimes end up making costly mistakes. And isn’t the whole point to save money?? Definitely!

These items below are the questions you may need to ask before jumping in with 2 feet.  I’m sharing these tips with you in hopes of helping other people make the best decisions about home buying! Its exciting buying a home and sometimes your thoughts are on what would your TV look like in this room not things that are potential problems only found after moving in.
A good Realtor will be automatically taking in and making mental notes of all these questions but its always worth asking yourself these questions and…

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