Aging boomers shaping future housing market, CMHC says

 

By Julian Beltrame

Thu Dec 29 2011

 

     

OTTAWA — Demographic changes from aging to immigration flows are helping shape Canada’s housing market of the future, the federal housing agency suggests in its annual report.

The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s study of housing trends sees continued demand for condominium and smaller homes, institutional buildings such as old age facilities, as well as a lively market for renovators.

The oldest of the baby boom generation entered retirement age this year, but by 2036, seniors will represent about one quarter of the total population in Canada, the report stresses.

That will mean more older households and more headed by single seniors, who will demand a different kind of residence from the two-story detached home they raised families in.

Condominiums already accounted for one-third of all starts in urban centres last year, compared with 29 per cent in 2009, but that trend likely will continue, say the CMHC authors.

“Aging households will support continued growth in condominium markets. We can also expect to see growing demand for home adaptations ... (and) the number of seniors in institutions would increase by a factor of almost two and a half,” the report states.

The agency advises that it is not forecasting the future, but extrapolating what could occur based on current trends.

Ian Melzer of the CMHC’s housing needs policy group said overall Canada’s housing market will continue to grow, but likely at a slower pace than the recent boom years.

Although Canada’s birth rate remains below the replacement rate, the population is increasing faster than at any time since the early 1990s thanks to immigration. Last year, new arrivals swelled to 271,000, the highest in four decades, accounting for two-thirds of population growth.

Most are moving to Canada’s three biggest cities — Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver — but less so than in the past. Last year, 63.8 per cent of immigrants landed in the three cities, compared with 72.7 per cent in 2001.

As well, home ownership rates, currently about 68 per cent, tend to be higher among seniors, although they will require different kinds of homes, or adaptations to current homes.

“Some will move into smaller detached houses or row houses, some will move into condo apartments,” Melzer said. He points out that Vancouver is experimenting with units as small as 300 square feet, which may be attractive to single seniors.

Seniors tend to stay in their current homes as long as possible, so many will likely choose to adapt their living spaces.

“Typically young seniors are not living in accessible bungalows, so there will be renovations ... installation of ramps or elevators, widening of the front door, bathroom doors. You might get replacement of bathtubs,” he explained. Another option is extensions to existing homes where seniors can live with their children.

The 184-page “Canadian Household Observer 2011” contains a number of surprising elements, although most of the report is based on previously-released data. Among the findings:

• Housing and related spending rose 7.1 per cent last year and now accounts for 20.3 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product output, or about $330 billion;

• Super-low interest rates, coupled with a small inventory of existing homes for sale, helped push the average Multiple Listing Service price up by 5.8 per cent in 2010 to $339,042;

• In 2006, only 35.3 per cent of recent immigrants (since 2001) owned their homes, compared to 68.7 per cent for non-immigrants. The CMHC notes, however, that home ownership among immigrants increases with their duration in the country.

• About 13 per cent of Canadians cannot afford a home in the area they live, a measure CMHC calls “core housing need.” Provincially, core housing need was highest in Newfoundland at 16.7 per cent, followed by Ontario and Nova Scotia at 15.1 per cent of households. Among cities, Toronto leads in core needs at 17.2 per cent, followed by Vancouver and Halifax at 16 per cent.

Still, the agency notes that 87 per cent of Canadian households “either live in, or had sufficient income to access, acceptable housing” in 2008.

The Bank of Canada and many economists have raised concerns about the level of debt, with household debt hitting a record 153 per cent greater than disposable income in the fall of 2011. The central bank said some households could be put under pressure when interest rates rise.

But CMHC notes that 68 per cent of that debt is in mortgages and that most households can afford the costs associated with home ownership.

While household debt is a serious issue, the agency argues that a major shock to employment would constitute a much greater risk to Canadians’ ability to make mortgage payments than rising interest rates.

“Most Canadian households have the capacity to deal with adverse economic conditions, due to the high quality of mortgage credit in Canada, the substantial equity position of most Canadian homeowners with a mortgage, and households’ ability to adapt their discretionary spending,” the report concluded.

The Canadian Press

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

5 Ways to Add Luxury to Your Regular Home

 

Real estate eye candy is everywhere. And if you love window shopping for homes online, there's a seemingly endless influx of massive mansions listed in the tens of millions of dollars. While their trillion square feet might not tempt you, and their manicured grounds seem like an eco-nightmare requiring a lifetime of landscaping, the luxury amenities and highly customized features do make the living seem easy, right?

Whether you're buying, prepping to sell or simply trying to live the good life in your current home, here are 5 inexpensive ways to add some luxury to your regular home:

1. Spa bathroom upgrades. I’m not saying you have to have a toilet like Whoopi Goldberg’s or anything. Her flusher has been featured on the View, Oprah and all over the web - one site even made up a song about it (the ditty is a bit blue, though, so I won’t link here. The curious can find it online.) But her toilet - yes, the toilet - runs around $7,000!! (No typo, folks.)

In all seriousness, though, spas tend to have a clean, bright look and feel and luxurious stress-busting features that just flush the tension right out of you (pardon the pun) - many of which can be installed in your own home for a fraction of what the dreadlocked one paid for her porcelain potty. For example, pedestal sinks instantly - and inexpensively - open up a bathroom, especially when replacing a dark vanity and wall-to-counter mirrors. I recently put a new pedestal sink in my bathroom for less than $600 - top of the line, including faucets and installation!

Similarly, you can get more of the spa look and experience at home, with a relatively modest investment - especially compared with the lifestyle upgrade for your buck - by installing granite counters (the tiny slab most bathrooms take can run a few hundred dollars), a basic bathtub with jets or river-rock shower floors for under a thousand dollars!

2. Custom, decorative paint treaments. Sponge painting? Très 1990. Murals in your kids’ rooms, entry hall inspirational mantras that greet your guests - paint is one of the least expensive “edits” you can make to your home, and homeowners are upleveling their home’s aesthetics with custom paint in lots of luxe-ey ways.

From harlequin diamonds to chair rails, crown moldings and wainscoating, decorative paint treatments are a simple, cheap and chic method for upping the luxury in your home life.

3. Built-in anything. Part of what makes uber-luxury homes, well, uber-luxurious is the fact that it seems like living life in them would be so neat and clean and easy. One way to get that feel in your very own home is to build in some of the necessities, optimizing the way you use your space and takes great advantage of otherwise unusable areas, generally creating what the feng shui set would deem free-flowing chi.

Consider building in:

• Storage systems. From shelved nooks to closet organizers to garage grids for sports equipment, storage systems eliminate clutter and make sure there’s a place for everything, and that everything has a place. If you can afford a custom cabinet installation or custom closets, they certainly offer the fancy moldings and modules that create luxury appeal. But many home improvement stores now offer much less expensive versions of these systems that look and work great.

• Desks and bookshelves. Like storage, but activity-specific, built-in office equipment maintains order and can turn a dead corner of a room into a highly useful workstation. To replicate this functionality on the cheap, find a corner or nook and put in an armoire-style workstation that closes and folds up when you’re not working. And built-in bookshelves are a time-tested selling point when your home is being sold, by the by, so, if you have an empty area from old-school built-ins which were removed, installing inexpensive shelving might be a great way to go.

• Wine storage. Dead space under the stairs can easily be transformed into a wine cellar or storage space. My own personal wine cellar is where I store my kid’s chocolate milk, my electrolyte water and a bottle or two fish sauce, but it’s a great feature to have at home, no matter what you’ll use it for!

• Recycling/compost/trash centers. Try as we might to minimize it, we all generate trash. Built-in centers with clearly marked waste receptacles make this dirty part of life less messy and more manageable.

4. Dedicated spaces for anything. There’s no need to go all Candy Spelling and dedicate multiple rooms to gift wrapping. But space is a luxury in and of itself, so dedicated space for your film-watching (a theater room), gardening materials, crafting supplies or even the kids’ homework is an extra-special, super-duper luxury, especially if it’s equipped with the right equipment for the activity to which the room, half-room or even corner or nook is dedicated.

5. Automation. Remember the Jetsons? The vision for this century was a fully automated, robotic home that did all the work of life for you, so your time would be free to shop at Mooning Dales or work for Mr. Spacely building sprockets. Most of that hasn’t happened, and that’s probably for the good. But injecting small touches of automation into your home can give it a decidedly high-end feel - for very, very little cash.

(And they're also gadget-ally delicious!)

I personally just put a couple of these automated trash cans- $60 each! - into my own kitchen. They’re hands free, so eliminate the germiness and clunkiness of opening a lid with your hands or feet, and they were the hit of a recent dinner party! (Okay, it was the food, then the trash cans that guests admired. But still.) Many hands-free or automatic household items are available at very low prices, like automatic soap pumps, paper towel dispensers and robotic vacuum cleaners.

And if you want a built-in recycling center with a techie feel, here’s one that should really float your boat - $100 bucks for in-home, eco-chic luxe!

 

via Trulia

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

TAX GUIDE 2012 -- Claiming property expenses

 

 

          

Written by Joel Kranc

The tax code for property investors can be tricky, and, as Joel Kranc explains, they've got to plan accordingly.

As investors look ahead into the New Year it is not too early to start thinking about tax season and the areas that are appropriate for expensing. Staying organized, understanding which category investments fall under and when money spent is for income or future capitalization are key elements to a smooth tax experience.

According to Shawn Stern, Tax Partner in KPMG’s Real Estate Group, real estate can fall under three separate categories and depending on which category an investor falls in will dictate the types of expenses they are permitted to make.

The categories are:

Existing rental property

Development stage of rental property

Development of resale property

Existing rental property

Existing rental property, notes Stern, refers to a house, building or commercial property that has already been built. Deductions and expenses that occur in this category come with several moving parts: operating costs, leasing costs, repairs and maintenance, and specific costs such as landscaping and disability.

Operating costs

Within existing rental property, operating costs are generally deductable as long as they are incurred to earn the rental income. These would be items such as:

interest

property taxes

insurance

property management fees

legal fees associated with tenant issues

Leasing costs such as broker commissions or legal fees to help draft leases are generally expenseable. So are cash allowances and inducement payments to rent property such as tenant-specific leaseholds (landlords who build partitions, for example, in an empty office space).

While these costs are generally deductable over the term of the lease, Stern says sometimes they can be deducted upfront when the costs are incurred. “A very general test that can be used to filter it would be to ask ‘are these costs being incurred just to get one tenant or is there an argument that these costs were incurred to do something other than to gain a tenant’.”

If one can make the argument that these costs are deductable upfront, then the deduction can be made today, and because the owner is getting the leasing over the next number of years, they will drive down their tax bill upfront and ultimately the money saved can be used to do other things.

Repairs and maintenance

Repairs and maintenance within this category creates some complications. Building owners have to ask themselves are they extending the useful life of the building or is it just maintenance?

Stern offers the example of an office tower as an explanation. “If you take a big office tower, for example, the building will be up for 100 years but over those 100 years you may have to replace the roof, probably have to replace the doors, the elevators and things like that. When we look at this and we say you are repairing a roof on a building, are you extending the useful life of the building or is that just maintenance?”

Because those types of repairs do not extend the useful life of the building, they can be deducted immediately. The big benefit, according to Stern, is that they provide an immediate tax savings for the owner. If the owner has to capitalize it to the cost of the building they are going to save tax over a long period of time and the immediate benefit is lost.

Dennis Anderson, a Tax Partner with Ernst & Young’s Real Estate Group, says repairs and maintenance can be a tricky part of tax filing. “Repairs and maintenance is one of the bigger potential pitfalls that potentially the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) may audit. Because it’s always a question of fact whether a repair or maintenance expense is capital in nature or currently deductable.”

Anderson notes that generally, the currently deductable pieces are what would be referred to as “putting it back into its original state,” such as painting walls and replacing carpet.

To read the rest of this article and learn more about taxing questions for investors, pick up a copy of our January issue, now on newsstands.

via Canadian Real Estate Wealth

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

2011 housing market beats the odds

A "volatile" economy helped the Canadian housing market meet and surpass low expectations set at the start 2011 -- although that same global crisis is expected to limit next year's growth.

Economists are now crediting the debt crisis for keeping interest rates low in Canada, helping stabilize the housing market.

That represents an about-face.

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) estimated a year ago that real estate values would decline 1.3% from their 2010 average to $326,000 by the end of 2011. Even a more optimistic report in January from Royal LePage predicted an overall gain of 3% in 2011 for the national average price, likely to fall well short of the actual result by the end of this year.

As it turns out, a much different picture has played out, where demand has remained strong and interest rates low, pushing prices beyond expectations. By October, the national average has already reached $362,899, according to the CREA, which is a 5.5% increase over the same time in 2010.

Canadian Business noted that Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist, originally predicted 2011 to be “boring” in his report. He’s since changed that description this year, using “volatile” in looking back at 2011.

Expectations are low again for 2012, however. CREA predicted Canada’s national home price to remain flat at $362,700, including a 1.8% decline in British Columbia.

David Madani, economist with Capital Economics. predicted at the start of 2011 a collapse in prices by 25%-35%. This week he predicted interest rates would go even lower for Canadians next year, from 1.00% to 0.50%.

While it might not have happened exactly as predicted, Madani told Canadian Business he’s even less confident in housing values after the strength of 2011.

“We’re even more nervous one year later about the Canadian housing market,” he said.

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

WHY YOU NEED AN INSPECTOR TO DEAL WITH MOULD

 

  Written by Gordon Onley via Canadian Real Estate Wealth

 

Gone are the days when mould was simply the “nasty black stuff’ growing on a wall that was cleaned up with some bleach. Today we are more aware of indoor air quality and that exposure to mould can cause a wide variety of illnesses. Mould can cause symptoms such as allergenic reactions or asthma attacks, progressing to severe and chronic ailments with prolonged exposure.

Mould is everywhere. It is in the air we breathe and grows on virtually any surface. In fact, there are over 1,000 species of mould in Canada. So what can you do to protect yourself and your tenants from mould and maintain reasonable indoor air quality?

A: Control the moisture, control the mould.

Mould requires water to grow, so it is important to prevent moisture problems in buildings. When poor ventilation is mixed with high humidity, often caused by leaks in roofs, downspouts, and basements, the right environment for mould growth is created. Under these conditions visible mould will appear in 24 to 48 hours and will flourish if left unchecked, eventually becoming airborne spores. And it is the airborne mould spores that cause human health problems.

What do you do if you see or suspect you have mould? It is recommended you get a qualified mould inspector to do a proper assessment. Many property managers have unwittingly made their building’s mould situation worst by attempting to remedy the problem themselves.

The mould inspector will test and safely remove the mould, while keeping everything outside the contamination area free from spores. At the same time the moisture source should be addressed otherwise the mould is likely to reappear. Indoor air quality testing performed before and after the clean-up, along with supporting laboratory documentation, will confirm the mould has been effectively removed.

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

Unexpected turbulence

 

 

Is there really any other kind?

If we see turbulence coming, we tend to avoid it. The art is in knowing that turbulence might come and looking forward to it, bracing for it and embracing it at the same time.

If your plan will only succeed if there is no turbulence at any time, it's probably not a very good plan (either that or you're not going anywhere interesting.)

 

via Seth Godin

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

Trustiness

We're all looking for someone to trust. People and institutions that will do what they say and say what they mean.

Banks used to use marble pillars and armed guards to make it clear that our money was safe. Doctors put diplomas on the wall and wear white smocks. Institutions and relationships don't work without trust. It's not an accident that a gold standard in business is being able to do business on a handshake.

Today, though, it's easier than ever to build a facade of trust but not actually deliver. "Read the fine print," the financial institutions, cruise ship operators and business partners tell us after they've failed to honor what we thought they promised.

It's incredibily difficult to build a civil society on the back of "read the fine print." Emptor fidem works so much better than caveat emptor. When we have to spend all our time watching our back and working with lawyers, it's far more challenging to get anything done--and it makes building a business and a brand infinitely more difficult.

The question that needs to be asked by the marketer is, "are we doing this to create the appearance of trust, or is this actually something trustworthy, something we're proud to do?"

Building trust is expensive. You can call it an expense or an investment, or merely cut corners and work on trustiness instead.

Trust is built when no one is looking, when you think you have the option of cutting corners and when you find a loophole. Trustiness is what happens when you use trust as a PR tool.

The difference should be obvious. Trust experienced is remarkable, trustiness once discovered leaves a bad taste for even your most valued customers.

The perverse irony is this: the more you work on your trustiness, the harder you fall once people discover that they were tricked.

 

via Seth Godin

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

The simple first rule of branding and marketing anything (even yourself)

Not a secret, often overlooked:

"Keep your promises."

If you say you'll show up every day at 8 am, do so. Every day.

If you say your service is excellent, make it so.

If circumstances or priorities change, well then, invest to change them back. Or tell the truth, and mean it.

If traffic might be bad, plan for it.

Is there actually unusually heavy call volume? Really?

Want a bigger brand? Make bigger promises. And keep them.

 

via Seth Godin

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

Who needs an arena to have a hockey practice?

 

Former NHLers team up to provide innovative training tool

The Hockey Loft Todd Hlushko (centre) pushes a weighted sled down a sheet of ice at The Hockey Loft. With him are business partners Steve Mai (left) and Todd Harvey.

Philip Walker/Record staff

CAMBRIDGE — Todd Harvey and Todd Hlushko weren’t superstars, but the pair tasted glory during their professional hockey careers.

Harvey captained Team Canada to two gold medals in the world junior hockey tournament, then came within one game of winning the Stanley Cup with the Edmonton Oilers in 2006, capping an 11-year NHL career.

Hlushko won a silver medal with Team Canada at the 1994 Olympics and spent 15 years playing hockey in the NHL, AHL and German Hockey League.

In 2006, the pair found themselves playing senior hockey together in Dundas, Ont., at the end of their professional careers. Neither wanted to quit the game they loved and both wanted to give back to the sport while earning a living at the same time.

Around that time they met Steve Mai, chief executive officer of Eclipse Automation, a Cambridge-based company that makes automated manufacturing and testing equipment. The three began talking about the need for better, more cost-effective training facilities for young hockey players, featuring the kind of innovative tools they never had as kids.

“It took probably a year or so to put it all together,” says Harvey. “We had the teaching ideas and Steve had the know-how to design things.”

Out of this emerged Eclipse Sports, a company that builds hockey training equipment and operates a training and rental facility called The Hockey Loft overlooking the ice rink at the Cambridge Centre mall.

Nine training stations sporting ominous names such as the Punisher, the Cage and the Summit greet players at the Hockey Loft.

At the Punisher, a player pushes or pulls a weighted sled down a 70-foot sheet of ice to test strength and resistance. At the Summit, a player skates forward and backward up a ramp of ice to build strength in the legs.

At the Cage, machines at each side of a goal pass pucks out to a player who, when prompted by a light, shoots at different holes in a wooden goalie. Shot speed, response time and accuracy are recorded.

All nine training stations use synthetic ice, which has a lower glide factor but otherwise mimics real ice.

Made from a polymer compound, synthetic ice was invented 40 to 50 years ago for use in ice shows, cruise ships and movies, says Mai. It is supplied to Eclipse Sports by Ice Rink Engineering and Manufacturing, a South Carolina company.

Since launching about four years ago, Eclipse Sports has averaged 30 to 40 sales a year of various combinations of training equipment and synthetic ice pads, mainly to private customers. Corporate clients such as Molson and Smirnoff have hired the company to stage hockey events. Annual revenues are about $1.5 million.

Synthetic ice pads can easily fit into basements or garages, says Mai, who has one in his basement.

The goal of the company at this point is to boost sales with municipalities, colleges and universities, which face rising costs and growing demand for ice time, Mai says. He points to the recent financial problems of the Cambridge Icepark as an example of the high cost of operating a hockey facility.

A facility like the Hockey Loft not only reduces energy costs associated with a regular arena, it can be a great complement to a regular ice rink for practices and skill development, Hlushko says. “You don’t need a full-size ice rink to work on a shot.”

“If you come to our facility, you can shoot the puck 500 times an hour,” adds Harvey.

Ice is so scarce in Guelph, Hlushko says, that his son gets one game and one practice a week in his peewee league. With Eclipse Sports, he could get more ice time and a training protocol adapted to his needs, he says.

The goal is to put a Hockey Loft in every city in Canada, and manage the network behind them so the company can get feedback and improve the training equipment along the way, says Mai.

chowitt@therecord.com

Eclipse Sports and the Hockey Loft

Eclipse Sports: 90 Thompson Dr., Cambridge; The Hockey Loft: 355 Hespeler Rd., Cambridge

www.eclipsesports.ca; www.thehockeyloft.ca

519-621-7907; 519-620-1906

Employees: 8

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

Sales Activity for November 2011 of select Canadian Real Estate Boards

Stats for posterous.pdf Download this file

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

The difference between a failure and a mistake

A failure is a project that doesn't work, an initiative that teaches you something at the same time the outcome doesn't move you directly closer to your goal.

A mistake is either a failure repeated, doing something for the second time when you should have known better, or a misguided attempt (because of carelessness, selfishness or hubris) that hindsight reminds you is worth avoiding.

We need a lot more failures, I think. Failures that don't kill us make us bolder, and teach us one more way that won't work, while opening the door to things that might.

School confuses us, so do bosses and families. Go ahead, fail. Try to avoid mistakes, though.

 

via Seth Godin

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

POST SECONDARY EDUCATION AT ITS BEST IN WATERLOO REGION

 

Co-operation blooms at Conestoga, Laurier and Waterloo

15DEC11HamdullahpurA022.JPG University of Waterloo president Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur met Thursday with the Waterloo Region Record editorial board.

Peter Lee/Record staff

WATERLOO REGION — The educational arms of Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of Waterloo and Conestoga College continue to embrace each other like never before.

Waterloo and Laurier have a joint math-business program. Conestoga and Waterloo are partners in The Research Institute for Aging. Laurier and Conestoga pair up in computer science programs. There are more examples — and more plans to tag-team students.

A co-operative era in local post-secondary education is upon us.

“There’s now a real openness,” longtime Conestoga president John Tibbits said of the escalating spirit of co-operation linking the three Waterloo Region schools.

“I think the universities are much more open than they were. Twenty-five years ago, there wasn’t a lot of dialogue. Now, there’s an understanding that we are in the game.”

A year ago, the three school presidents got together for a meeting at the Waterloo Inn.

Laurier’s Max Blouw sent out the invitation. Waterloo’s Feridun Hamdullahpur, just appointed to his post, was receptive. Tibbits was pleased. Less than a decade after becoming a degree-granting institution, Conestoga is now part of the conversation.

“I feel now, when I sit down with Feridun and Max, we’re talking as equals,” Tibbits said.

Now, the University of Waterloo has campuses in Stratford and Cambridge and Dubai. Laurier is in Kitchener and Brantford. Kitchener-based Conestoga is in Cambridge and Guelph and Brantford. The three institutions blanket the area — and beyond.

Conestoga teaches academic English to foreign students inbound for math programs at Waterloo. Students can get their biochemistry degree from Laurier and step right into Conestoga for their bio-tech papers. Conestoga sees an expanded partnership with Laurier’s Brantford campus next fall.

In the future, Tibbits says a student could get the first two years of a degree at Conestoga, then finish it up with two years at a university.

“I don’t see that there are many limits,” Blouw said. “We are complementary organizations in many respects.”

Waterloo, a co-op juggernaut, has strengths in math, engineering and computer science.

Laurier excels in business and liberal arts. Conestoga specializes in technically related disciplines, hands-on training in trades and nursing.

Making the best of each institution available to students gives Waterloo Region a formidable education pitch for the best young minds in the world.

“Trying to meet what students want to do is the way to look forward,” Blouw said.

“We can market the community while we market our various organizations. I can certainly see some synergies there.”

So there are meetings.

Two weeks ago, the presidents and deans of Laurier and Conestoga sat down to map out potential partnerships in programming. A week ago, Conestoga’s deans met with their counterparts at the University of Guelph.

“This is unprecedented,” Tibbits said. “It’s only been happening the last couple of years. It’s real stuff, not just platitudes.”

Tibbits and Blouw and Hamdullahpur travel in the same social circles now. Tibbits and Blouw met up at a philharmonic choir fundraiser on Sunday night. A few days earlier, Hamdullahpur and Tibbits sat at the same table at the Christmas party of a Kitchener company specializing in long-term care retirement home operations.

Hamdullahpur doesn’t view Conestoga and Laurier as Waterloo rivals.

“They are fabulously important partners,” he said during a visit to The Record’s editorial offices Thursday. “We have that potential. Together we can make an even bigger difference.”

Which means there will be more meetings and more collaboration.

“It’s about time we sit down again,” Blouw said.

jhicks@therecord.com

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

5 THINGS TO DO NOW IF YOU WANT TO BUY A HOME IN 2012

 

At this point in December, it can start to feel like the New Year – along with all our hopes, dreams, wishes and expectations for it – are barreling down on us. Personally, I’m a rabid

Resolution-setter, and I have a pretty strong track record of making New Year’s changes actually happen – and stick. But what I know after years of using the New Year as a great excuse to set and meet some goals is that it’s very, very helpful to get a head start, ramping-up to new habits, behaviors and target goals achievements starting in December.

If you’re one of the millions who has an eye on 2012 as the year in which you’ll buy a home (first or not), here are five things you can do now to put yourself on the right path:

1. Check your credit. Take my word for it: there is no bad surprise worse than a bad credit surprise. Okay, maybe there is one thing worse – a credit surprise you receive while you’re in the midst of trying to buy a home!

Recent studies have revealed that a record high number of real estate transactions are falling out of escrow, and that credit “issues” are a leading cause of these dead deals. Your best chance at catching and correcting score-lowering errors and other derogatory items before they destroy your personal American Dream is to start checking and correcting while you still have time on your side.

2. Do your research. The more rapidly the real estate market changes, the more it behooves smart buyers to study up before they jump in. And now’s the time – you can start doing online and in-person research into topics ranging from:

· Target cities and neighborhoods. Whether you’re relocating or simply trying to narrow down the local districts to focus on during your 2012 house hunt, December is a great time to start your online research into decision-driving factors like tax rates, school districts, neighborhood character and even prices in various areas. 

Once you narrow things down and start speaking to local agents, ask them to brief you on the local market dynamics, including how long homes typically stay on the market and whether they generally go for more or less than the asking price, so you can be smart about how you search. (And yes, Virginia, there are areas where homes sell for more than asking, even as we speak!)

· Real estate and mortgage pros. If you don’t already have your pros picked out, now is the time to get on the horn or drop an email or Facebook message to your circle of contacts, asking them for a referral to a broker or agent they love.

· What you get for the money. Online house hunting is a powerful tool – especially when it’s cold and wet! But there comes a point in your house hunt where you’ve got to just get out into the actual physical homes you’re seeing online in order to get a strong, accurate sense of what home features, aesthetics and location characteristics correlate with what price points.

· Mortgage musts. You can read a bunch of articles about mortgages and get yourself pretty far down the path toward qualifying for a home loan, but you can only get a personalized action plan for a smooth road ‘home’ by talking with a local mortgage broker and having them assess your basic financials. They might say you need to move funds around, pay a bill down or off or produce some sort of documentation from your employer. And the time to start all that is now.

3. Fluff up your cash cushion. So, you’ve saved up your 5 percent down payment. Perhaps you saved a little extra for closing costs. Or maybe you’re even one of those uber-aggressive 20-percent-down-ers. No matter how much you’ve saved, you’ll find that you could use more once you activate your home buying action plan. Mark my words – after closing, you’ll crave extra cash to do some repairs, upgrade a couple of things, buy appliances or even just to hold onto in order to minimize your anxiety about depleting your savings!

So, if homebuying is on your personal 2012 action plan, don’t go hog wild on holiday gifts. Instead, wait until next year and give yourself the gift of a home.

4. Shed some stuff. Sell it. Donate it. Give it to relatives who’ve always coveted it. Just get rid of it. If you do it before year’s end, you can kill three birds with one stone: (a) getting some cold hard cash to go toward your savings, (b) getting some tax receipts so you can deduct the value of your donations in January, (c) minimizing money spent on holiday gifts for loved ones and these two bonus birds – clearing the mental clutter that physical clutter creates and prepping for your move in advance.

5. Sit very, very still. Sometimes, the best way to further our goals is to stop tripping ourselves up. In that vein, commit right now to refrain from making any major financial moves until you buy your home. Don’t quit your job to start that personal chef business (yet), don’t pull a bunch of cash out of your savings account (without getting clearance form your mortgage pro first), and don’t start buying cars and boats on credit – even if you do love the idea of putting the red bow on the car you give your wife, like in the commercials.

via Trulia

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

DON'T FORGET THE FURRY FAMILY MEMBERS THIS CHRISTMAS

 

Vet clinics accepting pet food donations

Food drive Michelle Mathes, manager at Lexington Road Animal Hospital, hugs Roo, a blue heeler. Local veterinary clinics are taking part in a pet-food collection to help offset the cost of pet care in low-income households.

Philip Walker/Philip Walker, Record staff

WATERLOO REGION — With Christmas just around the corner, people aren’t the only ones who need a little extra help.

Many of the veterinary clinics in Waterloo Region are accepting pet food donations. These donations will be given to families with pets that benefit from the Food Bank of Waterloo Region in Kitchener.

The Lexington Road Animal Hospital, on Lexington Court in Waterloo, has organized an annual pet food drive for five years. Although the collection started out small, with only 90.7 kilograms collected in the first year, the animal hospital collected 181.4 kilograms the following year, and 635 kilograms the year after. Last year, they collected more than 1,300 kilograms.

“Many people have to sacrifice their own food for their pets, so the food bank will help families have a separate source of food for them,” said veterinarian Dr. Marie Hardy.

Although donations are encouraged as it gets closer to Christmas, they are welcome year-round. The veterinary clinics will accept donations such as cans of cat and dog food appropriate for adult pets.

“People without pets may not understand how important the human-animal bond is, and in many cases their pet may be the only companion and family that they have. They may be forced to share their own food as they cannot afford to buy pet food,” Hardy said.

Pet food collected by local veterinarians will be sent to the local food bank for distribution.

“That makes me feel like we are starting to make a difference,” Hardy said.

For more information, contact Hardy at 519-588-7345, or by email at petvetis@rogers.com.

vdobritoiu@therecord.com

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

UNSILENT NIGHT 2011 IN CAMBRIDGE

http://www.cambridge.ca/community_services/phil_klines_unsilent_night

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

DECEMBER NEWSLETTER

 

Cambridge Real Estate News from Clare DeJong December 2011 Your Real Estate News Clare DeJong Sales Representative Real Estate Centre Inc., Brokerage 766 Old Hespeler Rd. Cambridge, Ontario 519-623-6200 or 1-866-623-6205 www.SellingCambridge.ca If you're selling your home any time soon, it’s important to be aware of some of the biggest mistakes sellers make. This month we discuss what not to do when selling your home. We also discuss a few Internet scams that are prevalent during the holiday season as well as tips on how to avoid the flu. We hope you enjoy the holidays! Please drop us a line with any questions or comments you may have regarding the articles below or real estate in general -- we'd love to hear from you! In This Issue... Near-Record November for Home Sales in Cambridge Sellers Behaving Badly Shopping Scams are Coming, to Town… Forgotten Flu Hotspots Near-Record November for Home Sales in Cambridge Residential sales activity recorded through the MLS® System of the Cambridge Association of REALTORS® came in very strong in November 2011. According to the Board’s statistics home sales numbered 243 units in November, up 24% from levels reported in the same month last year. It was the second best month of November on record for home sales in the region, standing just 6 sales below the record set back in 2005. Some 2,731 homes have traded hands so far this year. This stands 8% above levels reported in the first 11 months of 2010. “Demand has continued to accelerate and with just one month left to go this year, 2011 is on track to see the third highest annual sales figure on record and the best since 2007,” said Karen Monteiro, President of the Cambridge Association of REALTORS®. “The average selling price also topped the $300,000 mark for the first time ever in November.” The average price for homes sold in November 2011 was $308,938, up 6% compared to November 2010. The dollar value of all home sales in November 2011 was $75 million, a 31% increase from the previous November. The rate at which new supply is coming onto the market slowed sharply in November. New residential listings numbered 325 units in November 2011, down 4% from November of 2010. There were 882 active residential listings on the Board’s MLS® System at the end of November, up 7% from levels reported at the same time last year. There were 3.5 months of inventory at the end of November on a seasonally adjusted basis, down from 3.8 months at the end of October 2011. The number of months of inventory is the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity. Sales of all types of properties numbered 257 units in November, a 24% year-over-year jump. The dollar value of all sales in November 2011 totalled $79.5 million, up 23% from levels reported in November 2010. Sellers Behaving Badly Selling your home can be emotional which is why you want to make sure your home sells quickly, easily and for top dollar. Mistakes mean your home will sit on the market longer and eventually sell for less. Ensure you get it right the first time by avoiding the following mistakes: Overpricing - Home sellers are often tempted to price their home way above market value but this tactic usually backfires. The longer your home sits on the market, the more of a stigma it'll develop forcing you to repeatedly drop the price. Hanging Around - Owners should always leave before a showing so buyers can browse without distractions. You want buyers to make themselves at home and spread out on your couch so they can envision themselves living there. Restricted Access - It’s easy for buyers to skip your home if it's not easily accessible. It may also be impossible to get into the home if another agent has the key. Your agent's goal is to show your home to as many people as possible so make sure you use a lockbox. A No Show - Staging your home is critical. You may love the statement your pink bathroom makes but odds are it’ll sell faster and for more money with a neutral paint job. While you're at it, get rid of excess clutter and take care of any outstanding repairs to portray a pride of ownership. Going It Alone - While some are able to sell their home privately, most quickly regret their decision. Selling your home can be overwhelming, time consuming and costly. A real estate agent’s job is to expose your home to the masses so that they’re in the best possible position to negotiate the highest price in the shortest amount of time. Your home is most likely your biggest asset. Don't put it at risk by repeating any of the common mistakes above. Start by viewing the sale of your home as a business transaction and put aside your emotional ties to the home. Avoid these mistakes and you'll be on your way to selling your home quickly, easily and for top dollar! Shopping Scams are Coming, to Town… Shopping online during the holidays is very convenient, especially for shoppers who are pressed for time. Cybercriminals love this time of year as distracted shoppers are easy prey. Here are a few scams to be aware of: Holiday eCards - Never open a holiday eCard if you're not sure who it's from. Instead of a warm holiday greeting, it could be a cyber scammer whose gift comes in the form of viruses, spyware and Trojans. Free iPad Anyone? - If you’re still waiting for your free iPad, don't hold your breath. When you fill out the survey to receive your “free gift”, all you’re doing is gifting the cybercrook with your personal details which they'll regift to other scammers. Sounds Fishy - Smishing is the SMS version of Phishing where crooks hook you through texts to either call a number or visit a website where they then steal your personal information. You're also tricked into downloading malware to your phone. The Hot Ticket - Desperate shoppers eager to score the hottest holiday gifts are easy prey to cybercrooks who set up legitimate looking websites that show the popular gift in stock. You hand your credit card details over but receive nothing in return. Be aware this holiday season that many people aren’t thinking about holiday cheer and goodwill to mankind. Use common sense and visit only trusted, secure sites. Also, keep your antivirus software up to date and don’t open anything from anyone you don't know. Forgotten Flu Hotspots Flu season is in full swing. It's hard to avoid the flu completely but you'll have a much better shot if you pay special attention to these often overlooked hot spots: the children's toys light switches and remote controls office desk, keyboard and telephones door knobs and handles on appliances car steering wheel, seat belts and shifter Washing your hands in soap and water for 20 seconds is the best way to fight germs but regularly sanitizing common germ infested hot spots is also key. Don’t forget to keep the hand sanitizer on hand -- pardon the pun :) Are you sick of scouring the paper and MLS sites looking for homes? Tired of playing telephone tag with agents only to hear the home's already sold? Sit back, relax and let me do the work for you! Just visit my website and check off the features you're looking for. Whenever a home matching your criteria hits the market, it'll be automatically flagged and emailed to you so you'll never have to worry about missing your dream home. This service is free and there's no obligation! Click here to get started. View Previous Issues [Subscribe] - [Disclaimer] - [Unsubscribe] Created by RealEstateWord.com Not meant to solicit clients already under contract.

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

Should I decorate my home if it is on the market during the Christmas Holidays?

 

"Absolutely – but conservatively. Let the exterior of your home blend in with the neighbours which looks and feels homey. Get a smaller tree so that it doesn’t make your room look too small. Put your family's presents away but wrap a few empty boxes for the effect. Go the extra mile and leave out cookies and cider or hot chocolate out for your buyers. They might not remember the moldings, but they will remember free food and drink! To help schedule showings, let your agent know ahead for times and dates when the house will be unavailable for showing. With some extra thought to decorating and scheduling, you can certainly prepare for showings at this time. However, stop and think whether you really want to - it may be easier to pause for a short time while holiday celebrations are going on and then start anew in January. "

 

via Zoocasa

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

RCMP launches grow-op strategy

 

Addresses of Canadian homes containing dismantled marijuana grow-ops will now be listed on the RCMP website as part of the National Grow Initiative. Categorized by province, the page lists homes and businesses where search warrants were executed, as well as dates of busts and the number of plants found. Clandestine drug labs are also posted. (Current Ontario content is extremely small due to the RCMP’s limited jurisdiction here.) The public can access these addresses for one year. For more details, visit www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca, click on Newsroom and scroll to RCMP New National Marijuana Grow Strategy.

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

Well rounded (and the other)

Well rounded is like a resilient ball, rolling about, likely to be pleasing to most, and built to last.

The opposite?

Sharp.

Sharp is often what we want. We don't want a surgeon or an accountant or even a tour guide to be well rounded. We have a lot of choices, and it's unlikely we're looking for a utility player.

Well rounded gives you plenty of opportunities to shore up mediocrity with multiple options. Sharp is more frightening, because it's this or nothing.

Either can work, but it's very difficult to be both.

 

via Seth Godin

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

No choice

 

"I had no choice, I just couldn't get out of bed."

"I had no choice, it was the best program I could get into."

"I had no choice, he told me to do it..."

Really?

It's probably more accurate to say, "the short-term benefit/satisfaction/risk avoidance was a lot higher than anything else, so I chose to do what I did."

Remarkable work often comes from making choices when everyone else feels as though there is no choice. Difficult choices involve painful sacrifices, advance planning or just plain guts.

Saying you have no choice cuts off all options, absolves responsibility and is the dream killer.

 

via Seth Godin

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

Interest grows in new Waterloo Regional Museum

  

Museum About 8,000 people visited the Waterloo Region Museum in Kitchener on its opening weekend in mid-November.

Record file photo

KITCHENER — Displays at the newly opened Waterloo Region Museum are proving more interactive than you might think.

Since its grand opening last month, patrons have been regularly offering their suggestions to museum staff, Tom Reitz, the museum’s manager/curator, said during a brief interview Monday.

“People are obviously interested in what we’ve done,” Reitz said. “We’ve had visitors say ‘Oh, you missed this, you missed that, you misspelled this.’ ”

Last week, a few of the interactive video displays — the multimedia exhibits that require visitors to touch a video screen to access information — weren’t running as smoothly as planned.

“Those are all getting worked through,” Reitz said. “That’s always a challenge to keep it up and running.”

Museum staff will be tweaking the exhibits — making additions and corrections — during the next few months, he added.

About 8,000 people visited the museum on its opening weekend in mid-November. Since then, nearly 11,000 people have strolled though the exhibits.

The museum, which houses the Waterloo Region Hall of Fame, features two main exhibitions in the new 47,000-square-foot (4,230-square-metre) space.

The permanent collection highlights the region’s residents, starting with First Nations peoples through to 19th-century pioneers and immigrants to the present day. Exhibits also chronicle the development of local industries from agriculture and food processing to insurance and auto manufacturing and the rise of the high-tech sector.

In a separate gallery, a year-long exhibition focuses on local innovations born during the past two centuries.

And in February, a new exhibition, dubbed Coming of Age, will open at the museum. The display will explore the lives of teenagers living in the region throughout the ages.

The museum (found online at waterlooregionmuseum.com) is located at 10 Huron Rd. in Kitchener. It’s open Monday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Doon Heritage Village, the open-air museum adjacent to the new museum, is open six days a week until Dec. 23. The grounds are open Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The village is closed Saturdays and Sundays. Special events scheduled for Saturday evenings are sold out.

After Dec. 23, the village will be closed for the winter.

mpetricevic@therecord.com

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

Canadian manufacturers expect hiring boom next year

 

 

TORONTO — Half of Canadian manufacturers surveyed in a poll say they’re looking to hire next year, but they expect to face trouble finding workers with the right expertise.

A third-quarter report by PwC says a flurry of activity in the Canadian mining, energy and aerospace industries is creating demand — but employers say there’s a lack of skilled workers.

The study found 45 per cent of manufacturers say the limited number of workers has proven to be a “significant barrier for growth.”

“The Canadian economy is experiencing a significant shortage of skilled workers at all levels, from welders and engineers to HVAC technicians,” said Calum Semple, a consulting partner at PwC.

“This is an opportunity for Canadians looking for skilled employment to boost their incomes, but they may have to be willing to be retrained and relocate, as many of these job opportunities are not in the big cities.”

Key areas where companies say they are looking for workers include in technicians (45 per cent) and skilled labourers (26 per cent), the report said.

The study also found that a third of manufacturers who responded said they are planning new and major capital investments in 2012.

PwC conducts a quarterly manufacturing barometer survey that includes 38 Canadian-based manufacturers.

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

Waterloo Region is offering PERKS to GO train users

 

Region offering perks to GO train users 

KITCHENER — Politicians have approved reduced transit fares, free parking and a transit shuttle to persuade residents to ride GO Transit commuter trains.

Long-awaited trains launch Dec. 19 from downtown Kitchener and take about two hours to reach Union Station in Toronto.

To attract passengers to the fledgling provincial service, regional council agreed Tuesday:

• To let passengers ride Grand River Transit to and from GO trains at a reduced fare of 50 cents. Passengers can present a valid GO fare to receive the bus discount. GO Transit will reimburse the regional transit service for the rest of the fare.

• To provide shuttle vans from the Charles Street transit terminal to the train station that’s just over one kilometre away on Victoria Street North. The train station isn’t currently served by a bus route when most GO trains depart or arrive.

• To provide up to 123 free parking spaces for GO passengers at King and Victoria streets. Another 139 spaces will be made available in 2012. The spaces are up to 550 metres from the station on the site of a future transportation centre. Shuttle vans from Charles Street would collect and disembark GO passengers at the parking spaces.

Kitchener Coun. Jean Haalboom hopes the transit shuttle and the reduced fares will persuade passengers to ride transit to the GO trains.

GO trains have been visiting Kitchener in recent days to prepare for the service launch. They will be parking overnight in central Kitchener between King and Park streets.

Ontario is launching GO trains on the cheap, with half the planned trains and without a planned park-and-ride station east of Kitchener.

Two trains will depart Kitchener every weekday morning and two will return in the early evenings. There’s no weekend service and no trains bringing commuters into Kitchener from communities to the east. The fare to Toronto is $14.60 one way.

jouthit@therecord.com

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

UNITED WAY NEEDS OUR HELP!

Company hopes to set example to other United Way donors

 

 

WATERLOO REGION — The president of a Cambridge insurance company has thrown down the gauntlet to other businesses in a last-minute push to meet this year’s goal for the United Way.

Kevin McNeil, president and chief executive of Gore Mutual, announced the company is donating $50,000 more to the United Way of Cambridge and North Dumfries. That’s on top of $36,000 the company had already donated this year.

It’s also over and above the $44,000 raised by Gore employees. That brings the total contribution to $130,000, which McNeil thinks is the most the company and its employees have ever given to the United Way.

Gore announced its stepped-up contribution at the same time as the Cambridge United Way revealed it may come in $250,000 short of its $2.74-million goal.

Last month, the Cambridge United Way predicted a deficit of $135,000, five per cent short of the goal. However, it now appears the shortfall will be even deeper.

“Gore Mutual’s announcement comes at a critical time, and their donation will make a significant difference in the lives of many,” Brian Kinnock, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Inc., and the United Way’s campaign chair, said in a news release.

“Now, more than ever, we need people and companies to follow Gore Mutual’s lead and reach deep into their hearts to find a way to contribute to the United Way.”

McNeil once chaired the United Way campaign. He knows the needs of the agencies who are awaiting the money that comes in.

Lutherwood is counting on almost $34,000 to provide school-based counselling. Big Brothers and Big Sisters needs more than $21,000 for its in-school mentoring program.

The list goes on. The Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank, the Cambridge Shelter Corporation, the Family Counselling Centre and Women’s Crisis Services of Waterloo Region all need help.

“We were just impressed by the fact there was such a shortfall between the goal and what was being achieved,” McNeil said Monday.

“We just felt we should try and show some leadership. We’re hopeful others in the community, particularly businesses, will increase their donations or make a donation they haven’t made until this point.”

The United Way’s executive director, Ron Dowhaniuk, is worried the community’s needs won’t be met if the campaign comes up short.

“This is quite unusual for us to be this far behind at this point,” he said Monday.

The Cambridge campaign formally ends Thursday. However, some workplaces are running their campaigns later this year, so money will still come in throughout January.

Cambridge will hold its 2011 achievement night Thursday to honour volunteers and thank corporations. It begins at 5 p.m. at Cambridge city hall.

It’s also been tough to meet this year’s United Way goal in Kitchener.

The United Way of Kitchener-Waterloo forecast a huge shortfall several weeks ago. Their goal is $6 million. But officials say the final tally may reach only $4.9 million.

“We’re still projecting that,’’ executive director Jan Varner said Monday.

Varner has said that company layoffs and an uncertain business market are causing people to feel financially insecure. Some businesses didn’t run workplace campaigns this year or pulled back on their campaign commitments.

“Certainly a lot of organizations are feeling the uncertain times,” she said Monday. “We’re pleased it’s not getting worse, that’s good news.”

Kitchener’s final numbers won’t be known until mid-February. The campaigns of several large companies are co-ordinated in Toronto, Varner said.

Gore Mutual increased its giving despite an uncertain economy.

The company “is faring well relative to other companies,” McNeil said. “I think every company has its challenges these days — some more than others.”

dwood@therecord.com

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

Real Estate Market Appears to Look Good for 2012

Balanced conditions set to return to most Canadian housing markets in 2012, while residential values expected to once again set new records

http://www.remax-oa.com/media-newsroom/article/70/

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

House sales in Cambridge rise for seventh month in a row

 

WATERLOO REGION – The resale housing market in Cambridge is finishing the year with a bang.

Agents with the Cambridge Association of Realtors sold 243 homes last month, up 24 per cent from the 196 in the same month a year earlier.

It was the seventh month in a row that sales were up on a year-over-year basis.

“The sustained strength of the marketplace reflects the consumer confidence in the region,” Karen Monteiro, president of the association, said in a news release.

Sales through the first 11 months of the year totaled 2,817, up eight per cent from the same period a year ago.

Sales were down in Kitchener and Waterloo last month. The Kitchener-Waterloo Association of Realtors recorded 450 sales, down from 488 in November 2010.

The association noted that last month’s total equals the five-year average for sales in November.

“November’s home sales were on par with expectations and previous year’s activities, and we are pleased to report that the residential real estate market continues to demonstrate its stability in Waterloo Region,” Sara Hill, the association’s president, said in a news release.

Through the first 11 months of the year, the association recorded 5,921 home sales, down 2.3 per cent from the same period a year ago.

The average sale price in Kitchener and Waterloo last month jumped 6.6 per cent to $299,755, compared to a year earlier.

In Cambridge, the average price increased six per cent to $308,938.

via The Record

 

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

The economics of Christmas lights

 

 

Why bother buying them, putting them up, electrifying them and then taking them down again?

After all, the economist wonders, what's in it for you?

The very same non-economic contribution is going on online, every single day. More and more of the content we consume was made by our peers, for free. My take:

People like the way it feels to live in a community filled with decorated houses. They enjoy the drive or the walk through town, seeing the lights, and they want to be part of it, want to contribute and want to be noticed too.

Peace of mind and self-satisfaction are incredibly valuable to us, and we happily pay for them, sometimes contributing to a community in order to get them.

The internet is giving more and more people a highly-leveraged, inexpensive way to share and contribute. It doesn't cost money, it just takes guts, time and kindness.

No wonder most people don't insist on getting paid for their tweets, posts and comments.

Two asides: First, it's interesting to note that no one (zero) gets paid to put up Christmas lights, but some towns are awash in them.

and second, I think there's a parallel to the broken windows theory here. Broken Windows asserts that in cities with small acts of vandalism and unrepaired facades, crime goes up. The Christmas Light corollary might be that in towns (or online communities) where there's a higher rate of profit-free community contribution, happiness and productivity go up as well.

 

via Seth Godin

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

CANDYLAND COMES TO CAMBRIDGE!

 

Candyland

Saturday Dec 3 2011, 10am-5pm

Location:Central Park

Address:615 King Street E.

Phone:519-740-4681 ext 4603

As part of the 9th annual Christmas in Cambridge festival of events, join us at Candyland on Saturday December 3 from
10am - 5pm... Longer hours for more fun!

The first 100 children to come to the gazebo receive a special Candyland treat!

Carousel rides, cookie stacking, marshmallow toss, horse drawn trolley rides, ice building blocks, Tree of Hope gingerbread houses, sweet treats and Santa & Mrs Claus!

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong

5 Overpricing Cures That Can Get Your Home Sold

via Trulia

Today’s home sellers have a hard row to hoe, as my Mom would say. Home values have dropped, the market is flooded with competition and even if a buyer does come along, a record high number of deals fall through. On top of that, they face the age-old conundrum of having two seemingly conflicting aims: they want to get their homes sold, fast, but also want - and need - to squeeze every single possible dollar out of it.

While it’s tempting to price your place on the high side and ‘test the market’ or ‘negotiate down,’ overpricing your home can actually deter buyers, cause your home to lag on the market and eventually even expose you to the risk of being perceived as desperate and receiving lowball offers.

Here are 5 ‘cures’ to the temptation to overprice your home, all of which can help you max out the chance that your home will sell.

1. Check the Comps! “Comps” is real estate lingo for comparable sales - the nearby, similar homes that have recently sold. You might think that your taste level, aesthetic style and home maintenance practices are vastly superior to those of your neighbors - and you might be right. But this will be the single largest purchase your home’s eventual buyer will ever make, and trust me - they will be doing the research. The small contingent of urgent and qualified buyers who are active on today’s market do not want to overpay for a home, and most will view your home as overpriced and not worth the hassle (or the haggle) if it is out of whack with the recent sales prices of similar homes.

Similarly, appraisers will use these numbers when figuring out your home’s value. Even if you do get an offer at a higher-than-justified price, if the buyer’s appraiser finds that your home is overvalued compared to other nearby recent sales, it can cause major delays in your buyer’s mortgage process - or derail it altogether.

Work with your agent to find and evaluate the recent sales in the area, and to ensure that your home’s list price makes sense vis-a-vis the comps.

2. Get inside the minds of the local home buyers. The vast majority of buyers - over 90 percent - start their house huntinhg online. And what most of them do is type in a price range, a range of bedrooms and bathrooms and a geographic area, then spend dozens of obsessive hours perusing hundreds of listings.

Given the flooded market and buyers’ busy lives, many will screen your home off their interest list in a New York minute if it seems overpriced from its online listing. If that one-inch picture and the number of beds, baths and square feet either (a) doesn’t make it into their search results because the price is so much higher than what most local buyers want to spend on a home with those criteria, or (b) seems underwhelming, for the price, compared to the other online listings of similar homes, prospective buyers will never even make it into your home, and all your stunning staging and crave-able curb appeal will never have the opportunity to work their magic.

Local agents have an inside track on what local buyers care about and what they will and will not spend. Talk to your agent about it, but don’t forget to actually listen to and consider what your agent has to say! If you don’t trust what an agent is telling you about where you should list your home, talk to several agents - if the consensus is a recommended list price range lower than what you had in mind, that’s a sign you should reconsider.

Also, search for similar homes to yours on Trulia, to see how it would stack up against similar listings online at the price range you have in mind. That’s where local prospective buyers will see it (and screen it in or out) first.

3. Visit competing Open Houses. Buyers do not shop for homes in a vacuum. They’re out there looking at dozens of homes - or more - to make sure they’re (a) getting the best deal possible, and (b) not missing ‘the one.’ So, while viewing a thumbnail image of your competition and seeing the list prices of other homes online is informative, it is even more useful to walk through the actual properties with which your home is competing, in living color.

Before you put your home on the market, take a few hours and visit nearby Open Houses. This exercise is the most vivid way to get a reality check about what you’re up against and what your home’s strengths and weaknesses are compared with the other homes buyers will see, which will go a long way in getting you to the right asking price. Even if you are unpleasantly surprised at how nice the neighboring homes are at low prices, taking this information in before you list your home is much less painful than waiting months for the market to give you this education (in the form of no or uber-low offers).

4. Get an inspection - in advance. Home buyers have long used the home inspection as a negotiating tool to get the seller to come down on the sale price mid-stream. Get ahead of the game by getting your own inspection(s) - talk with your agent about which ones are appropriate - and getting the skinny on your home’s condition before you list it. Keep in mind that you will likely need to provide any written professional inspections you obtain before listing your home to the buyer under your state’s real estate disclosure laws.

You might be able to repair some things at relatively low cost and include the recent improvements in your marketing. Alternatively, you can set and negotiate pricing based on any condition issues or needed repairs you want to pass down to the buyer. This empowers you to get to a final price that aligns with market conditions and the condition of your home without taking massive mid-escrow hits on pricing. It also empowers you to offer a discount for needed fixes up front, when the price break has the most power to help attract bargain-seeking buyers.

5. When in doubt, go low. An overpriced home, in most cases, will cause a lot more problems in your real estate journey than an underpriced one. Think about it: an overpriced home just sits on the market with little or no buyer interest until the seller cuts the price. And many interested buyers just sit, waiting for that price cut, seeing it as a cue to make an even lower offer.

Now, consider the opposite end of the pricing spectrum: you start with a lower price than you want, but one that is supported by the comps in your market - or even goes a tad bit lower than recent homes have sold for. Lots of buyers are attracted to your house, in part because it looks like a great value for the price. You end up with multiple offers, which gives you the upper hand in negotiating a higher price.

The moral: if you aren’t sure about what price to place on your home, go a little bit lower than the recent comps sold for. Insiders know from experience that you’ll sell your home faster this way - and at a better price than if you overprice it out of the gate.


These steps can help you get out of your own way, get a bird’s eye view on the market and see your home as buyers will see it. And that’s a reality check that can make the difference between selling your home and not.

Posted via email from Selling Cambridge with Clare DeJong