Are you a first time buyer? This month’s HomeWatch newsletter explores the factors which influence when it’s the right time for a first time buyer to purchase real estate. Addressing personal motivations, financial realities, and how a changing market may require a buyer to purchase for the long term are…

I hope you don’t mind, but might you indulge me today? A year ago I hired a consulting firm to review urbaneer.com’s website and offer us some guidance on how to best refine it. Their advice? For a real estate sales, marketing and renovation / design firm, they thought our…

Hello! I’ve just spent the better part of thirty hours 10 kilometers above sea level in a pressurized tin can, traveling at 70% the speed of sound, halfway around the globe, in a giant mechanical bird. Now, jet lagged and fancy free, I’m happily ensconced in the heart of The…

The media has been predicting doom and gloom for the Toronto real estate market for a long time now. In fact, pundits have been making the claim as far back as 2006 when the financial calamity that ultimately skewered the United States housing market – and many other countries around…

Well, the statistics are in and they’re confirming what many top producing realtors are experiencing this Summer. Buyers remain active in their search for real estate. The Toronto Multiple Listing Service had 3,359 sales reported during the first two weeks of August 2013. This result represented a 22 per cent…

Is your Toronto neighbourhood a bastion of well-being? The City of Toronto has a dynamite website called Wellbeing Toronto (version 2), which is a map-based visualization tool that helps evaluate community wellbeing across Toronto’s neighbourhoods. It charts 11 different factors containing 160 indicators that contribute to a neighbourhood’s sense of…

For all the concern and caution being expressed by the media, sales volume and prices in the City of Toronto are continuing to increase. Last month, sales were up 16% from the previous year, making it the third best July on record at over 8500 trades. “We are a year…

A terrific article was posted on the Huffington Post on July 31st by Daniel Tencer which explores the emerging dominance of the Canadian housing industry as an employer. Entitled “Twisted Economy: Canada Ditches Manufacturing, Builds Condos Instead”, Mr. Tencer’s article outlines how manufacturing jobs have been in decline while construction…

A true testament to the strength of the Toronto housing market is the battering the city recently withstood from extreme weather and forces of nature.  Not floods, rainstorms, or scorching heat could dampen demand, or derail the level of activity, which underscores the power behind the current market momentum. This…

Having been blogging now for over three years, I’ve discovered it isn’t unusual to find the information I share often warrants being tranformed into one of our Homewatch Newsletters. Have you seen our Homewatch Newsletters? They’re a compendium of the topical issues most anyone interested in real estate will find…