How to buy a house
It used to be easy to buy a house and harder to sell. The power was on the buyer’s side. It used to be…
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Holding offers
It started happening about this time last year – “holding offers”, or in other words, home sellers waiting about a week before looking at…
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What is the stress test?
Back in October last year, the federal government announced a significant change concerning guidelines for borrowers of high-ratio mortgages (affecting those with a deposit…
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Why do real estate agents get paid a percentage of sale price instead of a flat fee for service?
The real estate industry in my opinion has been slow to evolve. Of course, the percentage system is not unique to residential real estate….
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How will the 10% mortgage rule affect local real estate?
This week, a new mortgage rule went into effect. Home buyers are now required to put down a minimum downpayment of 10% on the…
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Why I don’t show conditionally sold homes
Conditionally sold homes exist in a grey area between “for sale” and “sold”. They are still advertised for sale on realtor.ca and there can…
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Where are the best 9 places to invest in Kitchener Waterloo?
I work with a lot of real estate investors. What’s interesting is two things – that they tend to be young (in their 20’s)…
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34 Gracefield Crescent, Kitchener
Every house is unique but some houses are special. 46 Gracefield Crescent is a special house. That sounds like a sales pitch (and I…
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Mortgages. The devil is in the details
My friend Colin, who is my age and has never owed a house says about mortgages, “mort” is french for death and “gage” is…
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What is a vendor take-back mortgage? What questions should a home seller ask before offering it to their buyers?
QUESTION: We have been trying to sell our home privately for some time now. Although we have had a few buyers look through, we…
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