Durham Region Real Estate Blog

I’ve been blogging about the current market conditions and you know tha, although the market is softer than years past, there are still many homes selling at great prices. So how do you get a great price for your place?

Staging is all the news now and for the right reasons.  It is no coincidence that stores often rearrange their shelves, cleaning and tidying up.  They know that buyers will walk out the door if the store is messy and cluttered. So you’ve seen staging for years, you just might not have realized it.  Not a single mattress store only has mattresses in it.  They fully make up beds and place lamps and candles.  Well, you get the point.

You know how you don’t want to see your friend’s home movies?  Buyer’s don’t want to see all your personal possessions.  So clear out. Don’t move out, use reduce. Some nice family photos and knick knacks are interesting to look at and can enhance a place.  Make your house feel like the buyer’s home. Not your home, their home!

Choose calming colours, soothing sounds.  Move your furniture around so that it is easy to navigate around.  Remember that people will not be gathering for an evening visit, they will be walking through your home.  Make sure to clean out your closests and don’t forget about the bathroom!

Provincial legislation, Bill 150, making home energy audits mandatory for home sellers, unless waived by buyers, has been passed; however, the Bill’s requirements regarding home energy audits are NOT YET IN EFFECT and are not expected to take effect until 2010.

As originally proposed, Bill 150 would have required home sellers to provide information, through standardized energy audits, about the home’s energy efficiency to a buyer before they could sell the property to them. After Realtors and their associations, along with the public worked to raise concerns about this proposal, Bill 150 was amended to allow buyers to waive this requirement.

Now that Bill 150 has been passed, the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure is working on preparing regulations that will outline the details on how the home energy audit requirement will be implemented. The home energy audit requirement will not take effect until these regulations are finalized, expected in 2010. Realtors expect to work with the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure to provide input on the regulations.  If you’d like your say, just let me know and I’ll forward the latest information to you.

Greater Toronto area Realtors® reported 4561 transactions in the first half of May – an increase of 3% over May, 2008. There has been a rise in buying activity. Many people who were undecided about purchasing a home during the winter months are now proceeding with confidence as a result of the GTA housing market’s affordability and fantastic interest rates.

The average price for MLS® sales was in line with last year, down by less than one half of one percent at $399,811.

More sales and fewer listings resulted in tighter market conditions which pushed the average selling price up to last years level. Look for new listings to increase as homeowners react to the positive news surrounding home sales and prices.

Want Oshawa real estate or Bomanville real estate figures? Just email me and I’ll let you know what’s happening in your neck of the woods.

Do you have the daily weather talk in your circle.  Too cold, too hot, humid, dry, rainy.  Seems we’re always talking about the weather.  Well,  the weather affects the real estate market too.  The funny thing is that you never know how it is going to affect it!  Bright, sunny days can entice people out of their homes and into your home or it can make them just stay home to catch up on yard work.  Cold winter days can draw people out to see your home, or it can make them stay inside with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book.

When you are preparing your house for sale, and while it is on the market, you need to keep the thoughts of those shopping for a house in mind.  If you’re selling in the winter, make your home cheery and warm, comforting to all who enter.  Buyers make home purchases based on feelings and if they can get that warm, cosy feeling of home from your house, they will be one step closer to buying it.  If the spring, get rid of all the dull, drab things.  Even if you might want that comfortable throw for your late night t.v. watching, put it away during the showings.  Instead feature spring flowers and bright spring colours.  Make it look like a new beginning in your home. Open the curtains and turn on the lights, have a fresh smell permeating the air.  Create that feeling of fresh, clean, alive with new life.  People will feel happy and come out of their drab winter shell.  They’ll love the feeling they get when they step into your home and may just buy it.

So remember, you can create “weather” in your home, just make sure it is the right weather for the season!

So maybe I’m a little slow on the uptake, but here are your sales stats for Toronto and the rest of the GTA.  I’ll have some more localized numbers for you soon. 

There were 8,107 sales reported by Realtors® on the Toronto Real Estate board in April, 2009.  This is down only 7% from April, 2008.  Not bad at all considering all the negative press we’ve been hearing lately! 

While April sales remained lower than last year, the housing market gained momentum on a month-over-month basis.  Of course the warmer weather that arrives in April is helping, but who can fault buyers for choosing now as the right time to get in to the market.  Interest rates are at fantastic levels and prices are slightly lower, making it a great buyer’s market.   The average price for April transactions was $385,641 – down 3% from last year.  I think we can all agree that a 3% decrease is very tolerable!

For those of you interested in what’s happening in your neck of the woods, email me and I’ll get you data from your neighbourhood. 

Now let’s all keep positive (negative never got us anywhere good!) and maybe we’ll see the market continue to pick itself up in May.

I am a real estate salesperson.  Prone to staying up late and sleeping in late. I don’t often see 5:00am, unless I roll over, see the clock and close my eyes again.  So what was I thinking when I agreed to run in a 10km charity run down Yonge Street this morning.  Who was I kidding?  But I signed up for it, so there I was at 5:00, o.k. 5:30, getting ready for the drive in to Toronto for the Sporting Life 10km run for Camp Oochigeas.   Thankfully I was able to convince some fellow gullible souls to run with me, so I wasn’t alone in my misery.

We left Oshawa just after 6am for the trek to the big city.  401 to Yonge Street and then south to the barriers.  (If you are thinking about running next year, remember to park on the west side of Yonge Street.  You are usually able to find a parking space close to the starting line.) Upon arriving, we got out of the cars and headed over to pick up our race packets.  They included a great running t-shirt, running number and timing chip.   Imagine over 12,000 people all there, with their loved ones, all anxiously waiting for the run to start.

And what a start it is.  My troop made it up to the start line to watch the official start.  Here are the runners who will finish the race in under half an hour!  We watched some of the sea of people run by, then made our way back to the corral we were running from – the over 1 hour corral.  By the time we actually crossed the start line, the race had been underway for more than 8 minutes and there were still about 1000 people waiting to cross the line!  The race is fun.  There are 7 bands playing along the route and people cheering you on the whole way and when you get close to the finish line, hundreds of people are cheering you on.  Of course, maybe they were just cheering me on because I looked like death warmed over!  But I made it.  In 1:05:34.0 thank you very much, and I have the medal to prove it.  I didn’t break any land speed records, but did better than I thought I would, and I’m happy with that.  You can check our my time (if you don’t mind reading through the thousands of names who finished faster than I did) at http://www.canadarunningseries.com/results/2009/sl10k/sl10k.htm

It was so much fun, I think I’ll do it again next year, but maybe I’ll train a little more.  If you’d like to join me, let me know and I’ll send you a reminder in January, 2010, so you can sign up. Just remember that if you need a real estate salesperson today, or on May 2, 2010, I am not available until after my recovery! (Which just might take 24hrs!)