Blog Toronto Real Estate

How Can You Get The Highest Price For Your Toronto Home?

After being a Realtor in Toronto since 1980, I've learned there is one constant that every house or condo seller wants... the highest possible price!  Any why not.  The home owner has taken the 'risk' in buying in the first place, has paid their mortgage payments on time and has maintained the home.

Although being a relatively new term, 'staging' has actually been offered by agents 'in the know' for many years.  One of the first things I do when meeting with a home seller is to take a walk through the home making notes on what I find.  Our Team calls this a 'Room-By-Room Review' and it consists of giving sellers very specific tips on what cosmetic-only repairs and changes to the existing furniture layout may be required to maximize their sale price.

After all, in order to compete in the marketplace with over 24,000 other listings on the Toronto Real Estate Board, you must be priced right and look better than other similiar houses or condominiums.  You want to present your home in the best possible light.

Sally has taken her professional training a bit farther.  She has attained her ASP designation (Accredited Staging Professional) and is actually quite good at it (not that I'm biased in any way :) ).  Many of our clients will attest to her skills... Sally recently staged a home that had previously been on the market and failed to sell.  After the seller followed all of Sally's suggestions, we sold the home for full price!

Many of our clients have needed to 'slim out' their homes after having lived there, or added to their family size, over the intervening years.  Of course, houses or condos that look bigger will sell faster and for a higher price.  There are several storage solutions.  The first to come to mind is a back corner of your basement, your garage or even your family's garage.  Next would be to rent a storage locker someplace locally. 

Here are a couple of other storage options... www.Canada-Storage.com, www.StorageStadium.com, and www.PackAndStore.ca all of which offer mobile storage units which are delivered to you and picked up and kept in a secure, heated location after you've finished packing them up.

One important thing to remember... try not to wait until the last minute to get your home ready for sale!  Call us to arrange your free Room-By-Room Review weeks or often months in advance of when you want your home to be on the market so you're not stressed out getting all the very important fix-ups completed!

It's Buyer Beware When Purchasing A New Condo In Toronto

Besides helping many people buy resale condominiums in Toronto, we also occasionally get to assist brand new condo buyers with their purchase.  It is a completely different process however and it's very important for buyers to know what the differences are.

The primary difference paperwork-wise is the purchase agreement.  In a resale condo purchase, the offer forms are all standardized by the Toronto Real Estate Board.  There's no ambiguity or changes to the 'fixed' portion of the offer allowed.

However, for a brand new condo purchase, there are several contract differences.  First, no builder's contract is the same.  Each have their own language and clauses so they have to be read very carefully.  Second, it has been traditional for the builder to have a 'closing costs' clause which is very open ended and includes the buyer paying for utility meter hookups, city lot levies (and even art levies), Tarion new home warranty registration costs and a bunch of other nickel-and-dime charges.

The problem arises because there is NO cap on what these expenses might total up to.  That's one of the skills we can bring to the table as our client's buyer agent representative.

Just recently Bob Aaron, a local real estate lawyer in Toronto, has written an extensive article in the Toronto Star about a new twist some builders have started doing.  Now they are including in the Condominium Declaration document (a very large, complicated 50-100 page package that is provided by the builder when you purchase) additional expenses that the new condominium board will be obligated to pay once they take over the operation of the condo one year after registration.

One example required that a board pay the builder for the cost of guest suites (say $200,000) that each condo owner would be required to pay for monthly in addition to their regular maintenance fee (ie approx $20/mo for 15 years for each suite in the building).  Another builder 'sold' all the heating, cooling and other physical plant to the board for over $1,000,000 at the turn-over time.  These expenses are typically unexpected by the condo owners and may substantially increase their required monthly payments to the condominium corporation.

To read Mr Aaron's entire Toronto Star article, please click here.  As usual in any real estate transaction, it's buyer beware.  Also as usual, it's always better to have an educated, professional buyer agent on your side who is dedicated to representing your best interests.

If you'd like to learn more about the benefits of having a buyer agent represent your interests, please click here.

Toronto Real Estate Viewing Centre Has A Party

Last Saturday we had two office 'Open House' parties... one for the Beaches neighbourhood between 2-4 pm and one for our clients that evening between 7-10 pm with lots of nibblies.  The afternoon party was fun because we had Santa in attendance with two of his elves and a real, honest-to-goodness Superbowl champion (Jason Gavadza) on hand to show kids his enormous Superbowl ring. 

Our professional Team photographer, Georgie, took photos of the wee ones with Santa.  We've put a little Xmas border around their pictures and sent them out to the proud parents.

One of the afternoon's highlights (other than seeing lots of cute kids) was a neighbour dropping by for a bite.  He has been living around the corner from our office his entire life and has some great stories including damming up a local stream to go swimming in the summer and having his family's groceries delivered by horse and sleigh in the winter!

In the evening, our clients came around and were given a tour of our new office.

We had door prize draws for lots of items donated by many of our Preferred Professionals (Click Here for a list) including Leafs hockey tickets donated by John Both, our landscaper.

Two psychics were in attendance telling people's fortunes during the evening and, for our grand finale, we drew from a list of people who have referred friends and family to us so far in 2006 for a free one week trip to a Caribbean resort including airfare for two.

We asked the neighbourhood and clients to bring used clothing or canned goods to donate to Senior Link, a local group which assists seniors. We collected several large bags full plus a local lady called me to drop by and pick up 3 boxes of nearly new clothes which she had recently cleaned from her closet and neatly organized for us.

All and all it was great fun and a wonderful chance to see our clients again and catch up on news.

Sally Says Shopping Around DOES Make Sense

After living in our home on Boardwalk Drive, and having part of it as an office for our Thomas & Sally Cook Team for eight years, I decided it was time to do some renovations and give the house a face lift... new hardwood upstairs and refinished hardwood on the main level, carpet, painting, wrought iron pickets and handrails, kitchen cabinets and appliances.

As my life is very hectic, having the time away from my Toronto real estate clients to source all the kinds of materials, colours, furniture etc…was going to be a challenge.

My first good investment was to hire an interior designer who was able to provide all the samples I needed to create my vision. Then I needed to start looking to find who was going to give me the best prices.

A contractor friend of mine told me about an appliance place that had a great selection and good prices. After doing my research, I decided on a specific line of appliances and negotiated a discount with them from the floor prices and felt pretty good about the savings I had just obtained.

The sales person told me sort of casually that if I was to find a better price with another store, they would match it. I have heard this before when I have bought other large ticket items but never acted on it thinking they must be the lowest if they are offering this; not this time.

I decided to call a few other appliance dealers - one I was referred to by another friend and one I found by calling 411 on the name of a company I remembered hearing about in the past - plus I checked out the big stores such as Home Depot and The Brick.

My first call had me talking to a man who’s family had been in the appliance business since the 1950’s. He was wonderful. He gave me great advice and amazing prices! I was so surprised that after calling the second place (prices were better than the original quote but not as good as the one I had just received minutes before), I called back just to make sure we were talking apples vs. apples.

I then contacted the original company I had placed the order with and told them I was going to go with the appliance dealer who had offered me the great prices. But, as I had given them a deposit when I was in their store, they did not want to let me have my money back. They did however match the new quote and I had just saved a whopping $1,200!!

I probably spent about an hour in total making the calls to the two competing companies and then renegotiating with the original company but it was definitely worth the effort! I also found out that the Big Box stores are not necessarily the deal they hold themselves out to be.

If you are interested in upgrading your appliances in the near future, give me a call at 416-691-8118, Extension 303 and I’ll let you know the best contact names and numbers.

We Need To Sell Our Home On Blantyre Avenue… And We’re Willing To Take A $40,000 Discount To Do It!

Toronto (ON) - My name is Sean McGroarty – my wife and I had our home custom built at 110B Blantyre Ave five years ago and it's time for us to sell. We’ve purchased another home with a closing very soon. To prevent making double payments on taxes, utilities and insurance, we are offering our home at a $40,000 reduction to move it quickly. We have a beautiful detached 4-bedroom home on a 200’ deep lot with lots of bells and whistles. Including the finished basement (which as a walk-out by the way), there is over 3,700 sf of finished living space on all three levels. One of the benefits over other homes is that we’ve already paid to have the landscaping updated, installed all the window treatments and upgraded the appliances, master bathroom ensuite and light fixtures.

We were asking $949,000 and have now reduced it to $909,000. That’s $40,000 off our asking price. An almost identical home on the same street by the same builder sold recently for over $1,000,000. That’s a savings of almost $100,000! We will be accepting offers on a first-come, first-serve basis (no holding back offers). If you would like to view our home personally, or just get a bit more information, Sally Cook gave us permission for you to call her directly. Her cell number is 416-456-9197. If you would like to see more exterior and interior photos of our lovely home, take a look at a video or check out our floor plans, please click here.

October Toronto Home Sales Down 4.3% BUT...

October Toronto real estate sales are down 4.3% but 2006 is still on track to be the third best month in Toronto MLS history!

Hand-in-hand with the cooler autumn weather, the GTA fall housing market is cooling off from a sizzling summer of resales.

In October, 6,876 resale homes changed hands in the GTA, according to Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) statistics.

Although last month’s resales were up from 6,622 in September, they were down from 6,976 in August.  What we are seeing is an increase in the listing inventory which gives buyers more choice.

Traditionally, the summer housing market slows down while people vacation and enjoy the hot weather, only to pick up again in the fall. The trend has reversed this year as the GTA’s record-breaking housing market finally eases up a bit.

To put things in perspective, however, Toronto real estate “year-to-date figures show this year's house and condo sales are within one and a half per cent of 2005’s record pace and October home sales were four per cent higher than September’s, indicating a solid autumn market," says TREB President Dorothy Mason.

The average resale home price in Toronto was $356,423 last month, up two per cent from September and up four per cent, year over year.

Some economists think that examining median prices for homes is a more accurate reflection of whether prices are moving higher or lower. The median price is the point at which half of resales sold for less and half sold for more.

In October, the median resale price for a Toronto detached home was $375,000; that’s the same median price as June. In October 2005, it was $358,000, which means that median prices are still inching up.