Real Estate Blog - July, 2015

Porting Your Mortgage

Have you ever heard of porting your mortgage? It is a great alternative if you find yourself in a position where you need to sell and buy a new home before your mortgage term has expired.

How Does It Work?

Essentially you are just transferring the terms of your current mortgage to a new property. That means that, if approved, you’ll get to keep your current interest rate and term and transfer it to the new property. If the new property is more expensive than your current property, you will have to borrow the additional funds to make up the difference. Any additional money you borrow, however, will not be subject to your locked in interest rate. New money will be handled under current interest rates and result in an overall blended rate for your…

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Important Neighbourhood Factors

When deciding on a neighbourhood to set roots down in, it’s important that you consider several things. You need to account for your current situation as well as potential future situations, especially if you are purchasing with mind frame that you intend to live in this home for foreseeable future.

Amenities

These are probably the most important and easiest to research on your own without realtor assistance. One thing to pay attention to is the schools in the area. Are they ranked well for performance? Are they within in walking distance or is bussing required? Are there both public and private options? Are elementary, junior high and high school facilities relatively well-located in terms of your neighbourhood?

Secondly, hospitals. Where is the…

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Easy curb appeal

Curb appeal is important. Not only does a well-manicured façade keep your neighbourhood looking great, but it also makes your home much more appealing for potential buyers. If you are planning to put your house on the market, here are a few easy projects you can tackle to create quick and easy curb appeal.

Gardening

Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a true green thumb to knock this out of the park. If your home has rather plain frontage, adding a garden bed can be a quick and easy way to spruce it up. You don’t have to line your home’s exterior with beds either, get creative. Creating a circular flower bed in the centre of the lawn and incorporating small shrubs and decorative rocks is a good way to create a focal point without too much effort.

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What to do if your home doesn’t sell

It’s a position that no one wants to be in, but it happens. It might just be a bad time for the real estate market, or it may be that your particular home style just isn’t in demand at the moment, whatever the reason, don’t fret.

Bright Side

Unless you are moving because you have to (moving for a new job), you are probably in a position where you can just take it off the market and try again in a few months or a year. The chances are that the lack of a sale has nothing to do with your home and everything to do with a million other variables that just happen to not be in your favour at the moment. The good news is, you can always re-list.

What If You Have To Move?

If you are in a position, however, where you have to move and have a schedule to…

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Price Your Home Right

Deciding on a list price can be difficult, especially if you let the sentimental vaue of your home cloud your judgement. You need solid information when determining the price of your home, because if it’s over-priced, you can bet potential buyers will know it and use it as bargaining leverage. Do your research.

Look At Your Neighbourhood

Although you may have sunk a lot of money into your home in renovations, your neighbourhood will ultimately have the biggest impact on your list price. You’ll need to review similar homes in your neighbourhood (style, size, features) that are for sale and set your price to be comparable to those homes. Even if there aren’t any homes for sale at the moment, your realtor will be able to help you track down homes that…

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Churches and Historic Buildings

It may not occur to you to care about how many or what types of churches are in your neighbourhood, or how many historic buildings dot the city, but it’s good to know about. Churches, aside from fulfilling religious needs, do serve other purposes – and so do historic sites.

Churches

Churches are really great pieces of architecture, typically, and can make for a day of fun. Visiting historic churches in your area, can be just like visiting all the churches in Rome. You may see some things you never knew your city had to offer, like gothic architecture, beautiful stained glass, and even some impressive history. You can make a whole day-trip with family, friends or even visitors, by plotting an excursion to local churches or religious sites.

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Check Out Your Local Parks

Parks are wonderful for many reasons, most importantly that they provide great spots for kids to be active and burn off steam. But some parks offer much more than just wide-open spaces for kids and dogs to run around.

Parties

Some parks offer barbecue pits and covered areas (like a pergola or gazebo) for public use. This can be a great spot to host a family barbecue or reunion without shelling out tons of money on a venue, or trying to cram everyone in your home. These features can also be used for smaller celebrations, like kid’s birthday parties or just a family lunch.

Beat The Heat

Many neighbourhood parks these days include splash pads. Splash pads are touch sensitive sprinkler systems that allow kids to run around and get wet on hot days,…

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Shopping in Edmonton

Sometimes the things to do in any given place are just as important as the housing options available to you. Lots of people place a high-importance on access to activities that are important to their lifestyle. For some this is finding adequate indoor and outdoor fitness opportunities, or having many restaurants to choose from, and for others still, it’s having plenty of places to shop. Luckily when it comes to shopping in Edmonton, you have many choices.

West Edmonton Mall

The best known shopping in Edmonton is West Edmonton Mall. Not only does it have a waterpark, amusement park, ice rink, bowling alley, casino, and wild life attractions, it has a massive collection of retail stores that include several designer boutiques. It’s also home to…

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Rethink The Vacation Home

When people think of vacation homes, they tend to picture a nice place in the mountains, on the lake, or even in a different country. But instead of focusing on exotic locals, like isolated mountain tops, why not think about something a little more like home?

Stay in Canada

Sure, there are mountains and beaches in Canada, and if you can afford to buy a home in Banff or on a lake in the Muskokas, then by all means…. On the other hand, there is a lot of great and affordable real estate out there in equally as beautiful locations, if you look.

Consider Other Provinces

Determine what you are looking for. Do you want a beautiful view? Do you need lots of space or just a little in the home? Is land equally, more, or less important than the home…

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Water Safety At Home

If you have a swimming pool at home then you need to have safety precautions to go along with it. Different places have different rules but there are a few no-brainers that everyone should consider before buying a home with a pool, or having one installed.

It Doesn’t Matter

Whether you own an above-ground or in-ground pool, it needs a safety barrier. Some sort of dedicated fencing for in-ground pools, will protect against children falling in or anyone else for that matter. After all, people may get into your yard at night, or animals, and the last thing you want is them flailing around, trapped within a pool cover. Above ground pools could utilize a locking gate across the ladder, or if it has a deck lead out to it, a gate at that point.

Clean…

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