Real Estate Blog - houses for sale

Marketing Your Home

Start by cleaning up and simplifying the home as much as possible. Your goal when marketing your home is to showcase the home, the part buyers are looking to purchase – if your things in the home don’t compliment it, remove them! It’s easy to get sentimental but you have to think like a buyer when prepping your home for showings or marketing photos. Keep things minimalized.
Now what?
Find a real estate agent with a great sales record. With their assistance marketing your home across a variety of mediums will be easy, from newsprint to popular websites. You want your home to be highly visible to the widest possible audience and in order for this to be effective you want to take flattering photos and be descriptive. Highlight your home’s best features,…

1395 Views, 0 Comments

Some of the Reasons to Say YES to a Real Estate Agent

Why should you get a real estate agent?

For one it’s less of a headache when you can work with someone who knows all the answers. As a buyer you will have a ton of questions, from what conditions are important include, to what you can use as leverage in a negotiation. Real estate agents will also have access to listings (their current client’s) before they hit the general market. This means you could have the upper hand on a new property which can make the difference between swooping in or getting caught in a bidding war. Depending on what you are buying (house, apartment, condo) there may be more to it then you foresaw. An agent will help you navigate dealing with a condo board, by-laws and can direct you toward an excellent lawyer if you don’t have…

1666 Views, 0 Comments

Shopping in the Foreclosure Market

Essentially a foreclosure is a home that is bank owned. This typically happens as a result of previous owners defaulting on their mortgage payments. Because they could not afford to make the payments on the house, the bank reclaimed the home. Generally speaking this situation has pros and cons for a potential buyer.
Pros of shopping for a foreclosure
Typically (although not always) the bank is looking to recuperate the money it was owed by the previous owners. This means that a home may be listed well-below its value, or at a price that will cover the banks losses, rather than garner a large profit. This is not always true, however, so it is important for you to discuss the asking price with your realtor to decide if both the price and the property are…

1384 Views, 0 Comments

Using Home Staging to Sell Quickly

In a buyer’s market, or a saturated market, selling your home can be tough – there is a lot of competition out there. Staging your home is one way that you can set your property a part from others, but home staging isn’t only beneficial in a buyer’s market. In a seller’s market, homes may be selling quickly but oftentimes that will depend on the price range your home fits into. Even in a seller’s market there may be niches where a seller finds quite a bit of competition and this is where they can utilize home staging too.
Home staging is the practice of completely setting your home up as if it were a show room. You choose stylish furniture and accent pieces, it doesn’t have to be a lot either, just the basics to give potential buyer’s an idea of how the…

2339 Views, 0 Comments

Housing prices rose in first quarter in Edmonton

According to Realtors® Association of Edmonton housing prices rose in first quarter. Residential properties were up 5.8% compared to last year. Sale of Single family homes were up 5.1% and condo sale was up 11.0%. Indicators are there is more demand in the housing market.
In 2013 from Jan – March all residential sales were 3478 and this year was 3679. Listing inventory was also up as compared to last year. It was increase of 3.9%. Single family listings were 5.5% and condo listing was dipped half of 1%. Average days on market per listings in March was 44 days.

2403 Views, 0 Comments

More Positives in Edmonton Real Estate

The Edmonton real estate market is promising to remain healthy according to forecasts announced by the Realtors Association of Edmonton early in January. According to this announcement, current home owners can expect to see a 3% increase in the value of their single-family homes, with condominiums and townhomes seeing an approximated increase of 2%.

First Time Buyers

For first time buyers these statistics can seem alarming, but what the Association also stated was that the sales of condominiums and alike homes will increase this year – with about 11 500 predicted to be purchased (an increase of 1000 from 2013). The reason this increase is predicted is because while the Edmonton real estate market is healthy and growing, condos and townhomes (also…

1335 Views, 0 Comments

Edmonton Real Estate and First-time Home Buyers

If you are looking at purchasing some Edmonton real estate but are just getting your feet wet in the real estate market here, there are a few things to consider. It can be very exciting when you finally decide to buy your first home, and many people hop right online and begin browsing through listings. It’s only natural to dive right in like this, but actual house-hunting isn’t the first step you should be taking. What you need to do first is figure out what you can afford.

To do this, begin by talking to your bank or a mortgage broker. Together, they will show you how all your current assets, debts and expenses, come together to paint the picture of the price-range you can comfortably afford to shop in. Once this is taken care of, you will…

14015 Views, 0 Comments

Edmonton Real Estate Sales were high in November

Winter did not slow Edmonton real estate sales in November according to figures released by the REALTORS® Association of Edmonton. One month sales in November were the highest in five years. The figures are based on sales through the Multiple Listing Service® System in the Edmonton CMA.

The number of all-residential sales in the Edmonton CMA in November (adjusted to account for late reported sales) was 1,116 highest number of sales in the month since 2009. There were 672 (622 reported) Edmonton sales of single family homes, 349 (323 reported) condo sales and 83 (77 reported) duplex/row house sales in November. Total residential sales were up 10.5% over November 2012 with SFD sales up 7.9% and Edmonton condos sales up 13.7%.  

The average…

1455 Views, 0 Comments

Youthful buyers continue to drive housing sales in October

REALTORS® Association of Edmonton released market housing statistics for the month of October based on sales through the Multiple Listing Service® in the Edmonton CMA. The all-residential average price in the Edmonton CMA is $337,599 as compared to $332,232 in October 2012, a +2.5% change. The median price for a home in Edmonton is up at $327,250 compared to $315,600 last October.

All-residential sales totalled 1,454 (adjusted for late reported sales, 1,346 reported) in October, a positive change of 15.6% from the same month last year when there were 1,258 residential sales. There were 888 (822) adjusted SFD sales, 449 (416) adjusted condo sales and 90 (83) adjusted duplex/rowhouse sales (reported sales in brackets).

“Total annual sales are…

1330 Views, 0 Comments

September housing prices up 5.4% from last year

The REALTORS® Association of Edmonton released market housing statistics for the year to date (YTD) including the month of September. The all-residential average price for the first three quarters of the year in the Edmonton CMA is $350,741 as compared to $340,090 in 2012.

In September, the all-residential average was $352,057, up 5.4% from a year ago and inching up from $351,455 in the previous month.

Year-over-year sales were also up 19.4% with 1,466 (adjusted, 1,357 actual) all-residential sales in September. There were 13,691 residential sales in the Edmonton CMA in the first three quarters of 2013 as compared to just 12,876 sales at the same time last year.

“Our members report that the market is very active with many properties…

1752 Views, 0 Comments