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Canadian home sales edge higher in April

See the original post here:
Home prices up in March, but gains continue to moderate

1. Make sure you find a good realtor. Too many buyers just Google someone or see an ad or a for sale sign and make a call. This isn’t how you would choose a car why would it be how you choose the professional that is going to help you buy a home? Get recommendations from family or friends and go from there.

2. One you’ve found someone you are confident in discus with your family what is going to be necessity in your home long term. With all the homes for sale in Courtice you’ll need to narrow things down!

3. A budget goes hand in hand with your list of needs. If you need a 4 bedroom your budget may dictate if you can afford to ALSO have that 2 car garage you were hoping for.

4. Make sure you know the neighborhood. The nicest home in the world isn’t worth raising your family in a bad neighborhood. Luckily if you’re only looking at Courtice homes for sale you’ll find that there really aren’t any ‘bad’ neighborhoods for you to worry about.

5. When you find the home you want, even if you fall in love with it, make sure you negotiate. I can understand not wanting to lose the home to another buyer, but even in the hottest of markets there is always room to negotiate with a seller.

You may find the road to buying this long term family home to wear you down, but always remember. This is the home you plan to stay in for the next 10, 15, or 20 years and any hard work that might be necessary to buy it will be worth it as you enjoy it for many years to come.  As you look back on your decision to move to Courtice and to wait for the right home at the right price I’m sure you’ll find it was all worthwhile.

Original post:
National home sales rise in March

The largest municipality in the Durham Region, Oshawa has started to take the lead and “motovate” the region. From humble beginnings the city has blossomed into a place to work, live and play and was even on a global “best cities to live in” list in 2007.

So it’s obviously a good place to live, but what about the actual real estate? Homes for sale in Oshawa vary widely in price. From the $95,000 condo townhome (which still has condo fees on top of that of course) to the larger $500,000 4 bedroom homes in the “New Oshawa” developments of the north end. There are high rise style condos, townhome condos, attached homes, semi detached, fully detached, duplexes, triplexes and more. They come in bungalows, raised bungalows, two storey, backsplits or sidesplits and can be 100 years old or brand new. It’s enough to make your head spin and Oshawa has them all.

All these types of homes can make narrowing the search hard to do, but it’s necessary unless you want to view 100’s of homes and 1000’s of MLS listings. The first thing you’ll want to do is figures out what price range you expect to be in. Talking to a mortgage broker is a great way to figure this out, your agent should be able to suggest some. Then go over what is essential or a ‘need’ in your future home. Once these are discussed you can move on to the icing on the cake or the ‘wants’. A need could be enough bedrooms to fit your family, or a garage for your convertible, where as a want might be a gas fireplace, or hardwood floors. Once this is decided get out there! Go see the homes for sale in Oshawa that fit your criteria and your sure to fine the perfect fit.

Even though we constantly hear bad news south of the border from our American cousins some people are missing the fact that our market in Canada is actually very steady. If you then take into account the strong CDN dollar combined with the weakness of the American dollar against other monetary units you’ll find not only are many Canadians taking advantage of our market, but even some American are crossing the border and using Whitby real estate as a safe haven against uncertainties at home.

Automatically you might think Americans would hit up large cities in B.C. or perhaps the condo market in Toronto, but we’re seeing more and more experienced investors looking to smaller markets which are why we’ve seen a strong demand for Whitby real estate and other moderately sized cities. Even though it may only been in the top half of the 100 largest population areas in Canada it has much to offer.

Condominium prices in Toronto have been climbing upwards for many years and some professionals are warning that even though Canada as a whole is relatively safe there may be a levelling off or slight drop as many units are scheduled to come onto the scene in the next 12 months leaving some investors wondering if they made the correct choice.

In Whitby condos can still be a sound choice at a price that won’t break the bank and will likely see modest gains in the coming months and years as it has not seen the growth or speculation that some of the larger cities have seen.

Average home price in the Whitby real estate are have seen increase of over 5% in 2011 and units sold jumped nearly 6% (from the previous year). This in a time when American properties saw foreclosure after foreclosure.

If you are thinking of buying in the near future one thing to remember is that you’ll need good credit to apply for a mortgage, and you will also need the mandatory 5% down payment in Canada. If you do not have any credit at the moment you should consider building it by applying for a credit card and showing that you can be trusted to pay your monthly obligations. If you don’t have the 5% down start saving! The only other choice is to be lucky enough to have a family member that can gift you the money for the down payment. A gift letter would need to be signed so the bank knows it is not a loan.

If you think you have these two things in order it’s a great idea to get a pre-approval before you start searching too seriously. You would have to find the perfect home in Whitby and then not be able to afford it! Be reasonable and be smart. This way you’ll avoid problems and disappointments as you search for the perfect home for you.

Wrong. There are numerous things the agent does that you may not be aware of. They pre-qualify buyer, take care of the mountain of paperwork, advertise through many different mediums, and pay for all of it without taking a dime from the seller. If they don’t sell the home for a price the seller is happy with they don’t get paid. There are showings to set up, calls to take, leads to follow up with, time wasters to push aside, and problems to be solved that take years of experience to execute correctly. That’s right, if you are competing with Whitby homes for sale with professional agents you might be at a disadvantage.

If you are still planning on going forward with a private sale the first thing you should think of is what lawyer you are going to use. A lawyer is an absolute necessity for any private deal. Deposits will typically be deposited to the lawyers trust account, any offers should be reviewed by the lawyer before being executed, and the lawyer is needed to close the deal if you do get through the first number of steps (and for those who still think they are saving money by not using a Realtor for their Whitby home sale try and imagine what the lawyer is going to be charging you per hour)

When you start to add up the cost of advertising your own property, the cost of the lawyer, the cost of your time to take care of everything involved, and the chance that you will end up paying a realtor commission after you spend all this money and are not successful it isn’t hard to see why many whitby homes for sale are listed with real estate agents from the area.

I’m not trying to say that no one has successfully sold their own home, some may have even done so and saved money (though realtors typically get more for a home that a private sale would) I’m just trying to express that the risk is too great when you are dealing with your most valuable asset and the money you think you’re saving may be no saving at all.

See the original post here:
Home prices up in February but gains slowing

Read the original here:
Canadian home sales edge higher in February

Years ago if you had a home for sale in Whitby or anywhere in Ontario you would just throw a for sale sign in the front yard, put an ad in the local paper and the phone would ring. Today things have come a long way. There are countless ways to market a home, but they generally fall into three areas. Internet, print, or MLS.

MLs is the easiest to nail as every agent has access to the MLS, but making sure photos and comments attract the right buyer is still a bit of an art.

Print still has its place in many people’s mind, but let’s be honest. In the year 2012 you don’t open a yellow pages phone book to look up a business you Google it (or go to yellowpages.ca if I’m being generous). Print doesn’t have the same wide reaching ways that it used to, but since some buyers of homes for sale in Whitby will still be looking at the weekly paper or at feature sheets inside the home it cannot yet be fully ignored.

The internet is the newest and most complex of the three marketing areas. From QR codes, to personal website, to craigslist and ad words there are many ways to advertise a home to the World Wide Web. The key is to be consistent in whatever you choose and make sure they results are quantifiable. If your website is your biggest presence online you should know how many people visit it and how they find it (if they are finding it at all). Constantly fiddle with ways to reach a greater audience and track everything, including costs. There are lots of companies that will take care of the hard work for you, but if it is costing you $500 a month and only resulting in 20 people vesting your site or listings per month there might be a better way to spend your money.

The bottom line is if you have a home for sale in Whitby and you want it sold for the most money, make sure your agent has a marketing plan in place and don’t be afraid to question how it works or why they choose this method. It’s your home you’re dealing with after all.