There was a lot of news about the housing market last week and all of it good. Well good but cautionary really.

House Prices

First of all house prices are expected to keep rising this year. According to a report by Royal Lepage, Prudential Real Estate’s sister company, Canada’s housing market will continue to be strong this year, with rising property values expected in all major markets.

The report predicts that prices will rise across to country by 2.8% by the end of 2012, following stronger gains last year.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, the average price of a standard two-storey home was $375,427, up 4.2% from a year earlier. The average rate of a detached bungalow was up in 2011 by 6.1% to $344,392, while condominiums gained 3.6% to $234,680.

“Widespread calls for a major real estate correction in 2012 simply can’t be justified,” Royal LePage CEO Phil Soper said in a statement. “The industry has significant momentum entering the year, and buoyed by the stimulative effect of very low interest rates, we expect the market to continue to expand.”

Mortgage rules

In the face of historically low interest rates, our federal government remains concerned that the real estate market is getting overheated. Our government is concerned that the housing market will over-inflate and the bubble will burst. If this happens, it would have a large negative impact on our AAA rated economy. As they did last year, they are looking at ways to tighten regulations, making it harder for individuals to qualify for loans. One of these measures are aimed at self-employed individuals (like myself) and how we self-disclose what we make when applying for a loan.

In the case of condominium buyers, the government is considering a proposal that would include 100% of the condo fees as debt. This would impact the Loan to Debt Ratio of the loan applicant.

Third best economy in Canada

The CIBC released a report that showed that Waterloo Region has the third best economy in Canada. The report attributes our success to our high tech sector, irregardless of what’s happening at RIM.

Housing activity, population growth, employment, and bankruptcy statistics were some of the variable measured for the report.

Agents of Change weekend activity

We’ll be holding an open house this Sunday from 2:00-4:00pm at 49 Cedarwoods Crescent, Unit 29. It’s a quiet condo townhouse complex right behind the Fairview Park Mall. Come on out and see the house. It’s nice. Meet us. We’re nice too.

Filed under: Around Kitchener Waterloo, Buying Real Estate, canada, general news, open house, real estate, real estate trends, real estate vocabualry, this week in real estate by Keith Marshall
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As both a long time marketer and blogger, one of my favorite daily reads is Seth Godin. He wrote the other day that he was picking out the mat for a framed photo and there were a thousand colors to choose from. The framer uttered the scary invocation, “It’s completely up to you” putting the choice back to him.

That’s a problem.

We live in a very complicated world, full of choice. We are forced to make decisions all the time, everyday. Some are easy (until this week) “large double double”, and some, like picking out a mat for a picture frame or buying or selling a house are more difficult.

Maybe these are more difficult because there is more to lose if you guess wrong and the fact that you don’t make decisions like this everyday, you don’t have the experience and enough information to be comfortable in deciding.

I meet and talk to people every week that look for houses on their own. I think that’s great, we have the tools (like MLS) and the opportunity (like open houses) to educate ourselves about the Kitchener Waterloo real estate market. Although it would be easier to hire an agent right from the start its another of these decisions that are difficult because we make them so rarely.

How do I find an agent?

What do I look for in an agent?

What do agents do that I can’t do for myself?

Anytime we do something we don’t normally do, we’re on a voyage of discovery. We have to move along the the rocky coast of the learning curve, educating ourselves. We have to make little decisions that will help us make the big one.

Seth Godin goes on, “If you think you have no choice but to do what you do now, you’ve already made a serious error.”

Sooner or later, when you buy or sell a home, there is a 90% chance at least one realtor will be involved. If you are comfortable enough to find yourself a trusted advisor early, you can learn what you need to know a lot faster. After all, your decision is completely up to you.

Filed under: About me, advice, Around Kitchener Waterloo, Buying Real Estate, editorial, general news, life of a realtor, real estate, real estate trends, Selling Real Estate by Keith Marshall
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My stocks and mutual funds are not doing well. They haven’t done well since 2008. I’m just waiting for them to rise to the level of my original investment and them I’m taking everything I can out of the stock market. I’m investing my money into real estate.

My wife and I have a couple of investment properties. We are doing an addition on our Uptown Waterloo home. There is only so much real estate in Waterloo Region not to mention the world. Over time, unless you live in a one industry town (and the industry dies) the value of real estate always goes up.

The stock market, on the other hand has become a sham. It used to be that brick and mortar companies would issue stocks to raise funds to expand production, open new markets, create jobs, inspire economic growth…

Now we don’t really have industry anymore. Now we have nothing. Dot-com bubbles. Hedge funds and junk bonds. Derivatives. We have IPO’s based on what a company might do, maybe. The value of stocks fluctuate widely and wildly. And investors, like me have no control.

I was reading an article recently about the baby boomers. They have 44% of all mutual funds. The first of the boomers are now turning 65. Everyday for the next twenty years another few thousand baby boomers will stop working, stop paying into mutual funds and start actually taking money out of the market.

How do you think that will impact investments and interest rates?

And how will it impact housing and real estate, I wonder?

Filed under: About me, advice, Buying Real Estate, canada, general news, interest rates, investing in real estate by Keith Marshall
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We’ve known for a long time, even before the book “Men are from Mars, Women from Venus” that men and women approach most things completely differently. Generally speaking, men tend to retreat under stress to work out solutions on their own, whereas women tend to find a solution by working through the problem there and then with whomever they are with. It’s no surprise that men and women are different homebuyers too.

A recent survey exploring how men and women are different in there approach to home buying found that women tended to make decisions more quickly than men. 70% of women knew straightaway upon viewing a home that it was the one for them, whereas only 62% of men felt that sure, that quickly. Men needed more return visits and more time before they could reach their decision.

Another interesting finding was, in terms of location being an important factor, only 37% of men felt that location was one of the most important things when buying a home, compared to 55% of women respondents.

If you’re looking for a new home, here are our current listings.

 

Filed under: Buying Real Estate, editorial, general news, home by Keith Marshall
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This spring, the restaurant chain Honest Lawyer will be opening a new location inside the ground floor of the Macpherson building at King and Water Streets. They bill themselves as “a mix of bar, restaurant and a lot of entertainment”. It will be their sixth location in Ontario.

Marshall’s department store is opening a store over at the Boardwalk. Marshall’s is a lot like Winner’s. Designer labels. Discount prices.

Hibachi Express serves Japanese cuisine cooked to order, available for dine-in or take-out. It’s location on King Street North (between Columbia and Weber) looks almost ready to open.

Filed under: Around Kitchener Waterloo, general news by Keith Marshall
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