“Wrong way on a one-way track.” - The legendary Soul Asylum. One of the most surprising developments of the Pandemic has been the unstoppable price growth of GTA real estate. Imagine fire on a gasoline trail with some kerosene thrown in for good measure, and that’s how fast prices have gone up. With the benefit of hindsight we now know why and how we got here, but I can tell you that on the ground level this unprecedented price growth [...]
Dearest Mr. Debt, You have been with me as long as I can remember. Even though my parents gave you the cold shoulder, let’s just consider it a generational diss. You will always have a special place in my heart. At first things were rocky between us. We were first introduced in my early twenties when I obtained my first credit card, to embark on a career playing online blackjack. Things turned out as badly as could have have been [...]
I always advise my buyer clients that purchasing a property isn’t easy. The reality is that it’s hard, damn hard. Imagine trying to hammer in a nail with a limp fettuccine noodle and multiply that by 100, and that’s how hard it can be. So when my wife and I personally entered the buyer pool earlier this year to find a cottage for our family, we did so with a mix of excitement and anxiety as we knew full well [...]
I am writing this as a companion piece to my previous entry, “The Death Of The Open House”. Initially I was going to title this entry “The Death Of The In-Person Offer Presentation”, but then I thought writing about death too much might get depressing. Also, the open house blog seemed to strike a nerve and a couple of unexpected things happened. The first was that several people responded to it, which in and of itself was surprising because it [...]
I am posting this blog on July 15th, in the year 2021, coming right at ya from my dining room table / office / virtual classroom. The date is relevant because tomorrow, July 16th, we will be entering Stage 3 in Ontario at long last. In the real estate world, social media has been ablaze with emotional and gushing posts from several agents about how they have been yearning to hold open houses again, and what a burden it has [...]
The scenario I am about to describe plays out all the time. You have finally decided it’s time to sell your beloved family home. You are ready to make that next move, whatever it might be, and you know the market is very strong. You are excited for this life change. In extremely hot markets there can be a tendency for some people to think houses “sell themselves”. You know, throw a sign up on a lawn, take some pictures [...]
Can anybody really believe we are more than a year into this pandemic, and things seem worse than ever before? With another lockdown in effect, schools and restaurants closed yet again, and vaccines rolling out at a glacial pace things seem grim, real grim. Like Armie Hammer’s current career grim. There have been many daily rituals that have kept me going over the past year, one of which is making sure I laugh out loud a few times a day. [...]
When speaking with buyers, particularly first time buyers with very fixed budgets, I am often asked if they should wait to make a purchase. Again and again I will hear statements like, “this market is overheated”, or “this can’t last forever” or (best of all) “prices HAVE to go down”. I wish this was true, for all the bargain seekers, but all evidence points to the contrary. With interest rates holding steady until 2017 at minimum (and likely longer), and [...]