By Bruce Whitaker
The closing costs are often an oversight by home buyers especially 1st time home buyers. Generally they are 3% of the purchase price of a home. We are talking around $12,000 on a $400,000 home. Lets take a look at each one and uncover if we can save money.
Lawyers Fees ($1,400).  You can [...]

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By Bruce Whitaker
Everyone can buy a home!
There are always options to make buying a home possible.
Option #1: Buying a home with someone else.
Co-buyers are people who looking to combine resources with others with the objective of purchasing a property in which they will live together and share costs until the eventual resale of the [...]

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Three years ago I bought a rooming house with the idea that I would transform it into three nice suites. My partner, my son and myself would live in one suite and we would rent out the other two suites with the hope that one day the rented suites would pay our mortgage. Yes, I [...]

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The Toronto Real Estate Board release it’s July 2008 report yesterday. Here are some highlights:

Sales remained at a moderate pace as 7,806 sales were reported
Sales declined 12% from June 2007, but increased 10% from 2006
A listing’s average time on the market increased from 31 days to 33 days.
There’s a 28% increase in available [...]

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I came across an interesting article in the Toronto Star today about the Toronto Real Estate Market and the multiple bidding wars still prevelant. Even during a time when the market has really cooled off, home buyers are still facing bidding wars and most times, the house they were so keen on buying have [...]

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According to a U.S. consumer research study by Architectural Digest with Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates LLC, she survey showed some surprising findings:
85% of the participants agree that real estate continues to be one of the better investments a person can make.
72% believed their home value has either remained the same or has increased over the [...]

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The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has created the National “Do Not Call List” which will take effect in September 2008. What this means is that once registered, you should receive less soliciting telephone calls because at this moment, telemarkets have to keep track of their own Do Not Call Lists — and I’m [...]

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I came across an interesting article regarding home prices in Canada. Check out this article here.

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With the housing market declining in the U.S., some real estate agents are trying to do whatever it takes to get a sale. I stumbled across an article in the Globe and Mail, Sleep on it, and in it, before buying home, that discussed some agents in Orlando are arranging for potential buyers to [...]

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The Toronto Real Estate Board came out with new statistics for June 2008, here are some highlights:
Trend towards a more balanced market with 8,600 properties changing hands.
GTA average housing price increased by 4% to $395,866. Toronto’s average price increased 3% to $433,082.
Toronto saw 3,481 transactions in June, down 18% from June 2007 which [...]

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