Blog Toronto Real Estate

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.

Having Fun At Our Real Estate Viewing Centre

Halloween is always a terrific time to decorate and dress up to join in the kid's fun and games.  Since this our first Halloween in our new office, we decided to put a couple of signs out to let the families know we would be open that evening for trick and treating.

Three of our wonderful staff members, Melissa, Ashleigh and JP decided to dress for the occasion and have some fun too.

We're participating in the community in other ways as well.  The local Norway Public School is having their annual parent talent night fund-raiser and we're providing some of the sponsorship for that.

We're also partnering with the local YMCA starting in January to pay 50% of the cost of a child's tuition to become a certified baby sitter.  Figure our granddaughter can take advantage of that :)

Back To The Blogging World With Gusto

It's been awhile but it feels good to be back... it's an indication that other things have smoothed themselves out finally.

Specifically our new Real Estate Viewing Centre is now complete!  The final touches were done last week and we're fast forward from here on.

It's a great location for clients to meet with us to discuss their needs and wants... both for buying and selling... and we've got 3 client counseling areas set up on the main level so people can get on the internet and view the newest listings not yet available on the public MLS site and can take a look at comparable sales in their neighbourhood if they're interested in selling.

The back area of the main floor has private desks for several Team members and our entire Client Care staff are located upstairs on the second floor level. The basement level also has Team facilities for future expansion.

The building is an interesting configuration... narrow at the Kingston Road end and widening out considerably at the back.  The previous owner had been in the building since the 1940's so absolutely everything needed to be updated.

We'll be having an open house for the neighbourhood from 2-4 pm on Saturday November 25th   and a special, invitation-only party for our clients that evening from 7-10 pm so please plan on attending.

The Children's Miracle Network Benefits From Every Team Transaction

Have you ever been down to the Sick Kids's Hospital on University Avenue?  It's got a beautiful atrium lobby with lots of sunshine and a very cheery atmosphere.  Behind the scenes of course is where the work goes on to make our children healthy after a serious sickness or injury.

The Thomas & Sally Cook Team has made it a goal to increase our contributions to the Children's Miracle Network (CMN) which supports Sick Kid's Hospital every single year.  Every time one of our clients buys or sells toronto real estate, we have our RE/MAX Hallmark office deduct a portion from our commissions which then goes to CMN.  Our entire Team contributes including each buyer specialist and of course Sally and I.

In 2005, we had our best year ever... a contribution of $15,390.  With your help and support of our Team, we hope to make 2006 even better!

What An Intrusion !!!

It all started the middle of April when Rylie's bike was stolen from our garage behind our home.  We'd lived in the house for almost 8 years and never had a problem so didn't ever lock the 'man door'.  We thought it was a random, one-time occurence but we were very wrong.

Two weeks later, Sally's bike was stolen so, since the cart had already left the garage, we started locking the man door.  Late one evening in early May I was packing up to fly to a seminar the next morning.  I'd left my cell phone headset in Sally's car in the garage so ran out quickly, unlocked the door, dashed to get the headset and then slammed the door shut on my way back to the house.

You guessed it... I left the garage door key (attached by the way to Sally's car key) dangling in the garage door!  The next morning I'm just about to get into the airport limo when Sally shouts "My car's gone!".  The bike thieves have just escalated the game.  A police report was made and the insurance company told Sally that she'd never see her lovely copper-coloured Infinity FX35 with the distinctive BUYHOME licence plate again.

On the following Saturday (3 days later), Sally and Rylie are riding in a rental car on the way to go shopping just three blocks from our house when Sally sees a car approaching that's the same colour and model as hers.  As it passes she notices the tow hitch (unusual for this type of car) and then notices the plate... it's her car!

Rylie gets on the phone to 911 and Sally follows the car (keeping in mind all the shadowing techniques she's learned from watching cop shows on TV) and tracks it to a house about 5 minutes from where we live.  To make a long story short, the police showed up, chased the two suspects and lost them whereby Sally ran around the block and pointed one of them out to another approaching cruiser... one captured and one escaped.

Sally's car was still full of their stuff when Sally picked it up from the impound lot to take it in for repairs.  The whole process... getting the car stolen, the chase and recovery and now driving it with other people's stuff in it... was very stressful for Sally (and Rylie too).  To quote Sally... "It felt like they were injected into my personal space... a sickening feeling".

Needless to say, we're now locking the garage full time and have ordered a security system for our entire house.  Better late than never!

Moral of this story for you... Do the same, lock up your belongings and don't assume that just because it hasn't happened before, that it won't happen to you.  Pay attention to neighbourhood stories too.  After the fact, we heard that other neighbours have had stuff stolen from their garages off the laneway.  If we had known beforehand, we might have paid attention and secured our property a little better.

Home Buyers Were Very Disappointed...

Recently one of my Toronto real estate condo listings sold to a very excited buyer.  They had already put in offers on 2 other condos before coming to my listing but they were told by their bank that they could only afford to go to a maximum $150,000 purchase price.  The other sellers weren't willing to come down to that price.

As usual, I asked the buyer agent "Have your clients been pre-approved by their lender?" The answer was yes... they had their pre-approval all taken care of.

Finally they had secured the home of their dreams at an affordable price and were really excited.  End of a happy story right?

Unfortunately NO.  Their bank had previously only asked them the most basic questions about "What is your income?" and "What are your debts?" and did NO backup work to confirm anything.  They even ignored that fact that these buyers had a line of credit at this same institution which they had maxed out.

When the banker was presented with an accepted offer, only then did the banker do their work and happen to notice that this line of credit really limited the purchasers to a price of maximum $135,000.  The buyers had spent all this time looking, putting several offers in and finally finding their dream home and now all these dreams were shattered!  They couldn't buy it after all.

Moral of this story... INSIST that your lender do a credit bureau immediately and that you supply your lender with proof of income and proof of down payment.  You have to supply this information anyway so it is far better to do it ahead of time, get what we call a "full mortgage pre-approval" in writing and remove any uncertainty from your home searching!

If you would like to learn more about how to arrange a full mortgage pre-approval, and get many other Toronto real estate home buying and mortgage financing questions answered, consider attending one of our home buyer workshops held in 5 different classroom locations across the GTA.  You can look at upcoming dates and locations at www.HomeBuyerAcademy.ca.

Just Call Us Nanna, Grandpa and Uncle!

WOW!!! We're now grandparents to a lovely 7 lb 14 oz baby girl, Devyn Elizabeth Gear who was born Thursday April 13th, just before Easter. Congratulations to mommy Jodi and daddy Alan!

I love those little hats they put on babies just after they're born to keep their heads warm.

Sounds a little strange to be called Grandpa... since I'm only 29 (in my mind at least) :) and Rylie is now going to be an Uncle.

Seems now my 'reticular activator' is on and I'm noticing other babies everywhere. Several of our clients have recently become happy parents and, in many cases, this is causing them to consider moving up to a larger home too.

Congratulations to all new parents out there and may all our babies be happy and healthy.

I Was 'In The Zone' On Sunday

Being 'in the zone' to me means that mind and body are both sharp - both functioning at peak performance and everything is working as it should.  The mind's awareness is 100% and the skill level is right up there.

I used to get that feeling a lot in my skydiving days in the '70's.  After almost 1,100 jumps, the body learns to react quickly and time almost stops... everything that happens in those 30-60 seconds of freefall is crystal clear.

Just for a moment that happened when I was skiing on Sunday with my 13-year old son Rylie.  When our family was out to Whistler in February, Sally and I took lessons... something we should have done before!  The instructor was terrific and broke down the process of making a smooth turn into all its little steps.

As in skydiving, I found that a lot of the processing of that learning goes on at night while we're sleeping and over time.  A certain task or movement might seem difficult while right in that class but it does sink in afterward.  That's what happened on Sunday.

When Rylie and I went down our first slope on Sunday morning, I found myself doing naturally what the instructor had told me weeks before and, by afternoon, I got that 'in the zone' feeling - the feet were moving, the knees were leaning and the hands/arms were manipulating the poles in exactly the right way for my turns.  Fantastic!  Unfortunately it only lasted several seconds but I can see the potential there.  I can hardly wait to take lessons when next year's season rolls around.

I guess the moral of this story is "An old dog can always learn new tricks".  Take advantage of any learning opportunity you come across, even as a buyer or a seller, and use it to increase your skill level and enjoy being 'in the zone' whatever you're doing whether it's work or play!

RE/MAX Team Ranking Results Are In For 2005

It's now official.  RE/MAX International has just released their 2005 Team ranking statistics for RE/MAX agents world-wide.

The Thomas & Sally Cook Team at RE/MAX Hallmark ranks the #1 Team for RE/MAX in Toronto, #5 in Canada out of over 16,500 Realtors and #38 world-wide out of over 110,000 agents in almost 40 countries in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

Click here to see the official RE/MAX statistics.

Our thanks for our Team success goes to the 348 happy buyers and sellers who trusted us with handling their real estate buying or selling transaction during 2005.

We hope that you'll continue to send us your referrals and calling us to help with your move up to your new home when the time comes. 

Thanks again from Thomas and Sally, our Buyer Specialist team members and our oh-so-important support staff.