Frank Steinhausen, Broker
FSteinhausen@REMAX.net
RE/MAX Rouge River Realty Ltd., Brokerage
Phone 905-428-6533
Fax 905-668-1850
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Archive for November, 2007
Tips for Finding the Perfect Neighborhood
November 27th, 2007 Categories: Buying real estate, Real Estate, Real estate investment
The neighborhood you choose can have a big impact on your lifestyle—safety, available amenities, and convenience all play their part.
- Make a list of the activities—movies, health club, church—you engage in regularly and stores you visit frequently. See how far you would have to travel from each neighborhood you’re considering to engaging in your most common activities.
- Check out the school district. The school boards in your town can probably provide information on test scores, class size, percentage of students who attend college, and special enrichment programs. If you have school-age children, also consider paying a visit to schools in the neighborhoods you’re considering. Even if you don’t have children, a house in a good school district will be easier to sell in the future.
- Find out if the neighborhood is safe. Ask the police department for neighborhood crime statistics. Consider not only the number of crimes but also the type—burglaries, armed robberies—and the trend of increasing or decreasing crime. Also, is crime centered in only one part of the neighborhood, such as near a retail area?
- Determine if the neighborhood is economically stable. Check with your local city economic development office to see if income and property values in the neighborhood are stable or rising. What is the percentage of homes to apartments? Apartments don’t necessarily diminish value, but they do mean a more transient population. Do you see vacant businesses or homes that have been for sale for months?
- See if you’ll make money. Ask me to get information about price appreciation trends in the neighborhood. Although past performance is no guarantee of future results, this information may give you a sense of how good an investment your home will be. I also may be able to tell you about planned developments or other changes in the neighborhood—like a new school or highway—that might affect value.
- See for yourself. Once you’ve narrowed your focus to two or three neighborhoods, go there, and walk around. Are homes tidy and well maintained? Are streets quiet? Pick a warm day if you can and chat with people working or playing outside. Are they friendly? Are their children to
play with your family?
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A Prenuptial For Homes
November 23rd, 2007 Categories: Buying real estate, Real Estate, Real estate investment
Focusing on resale potential before you buy a property is a little like considering the terms of the divorce settlement before co
nsummating a marriage. Yet, this is precisely what savvy real estate investors do. They plan out their exit strategy before they negotiate a purchase. Home buyers who give consideration to resale potential before they buy can reduce their chances of losing money when they sell.
Location is often touted as the prime value indicator for real estate. This is because properties in the best locations appreciate more during good real estate markets and hold their value better during down markets. The community in which you buy will have an effect on your resale potential, as will market conditions at the time you sell.
There’s usually higher demand for properties that are located in areas where the public schools are good. Because of the demand, these communities tend to be the most expensive. When faced with the alternative of costly private schools, many prospective buyers would rather pay for a more expensive home where they can send their children to the public schools.
Buying in a community that’s on the upswing can result in a big payoff when you sell. These communities are usually located adjacent to more affluent communities that are beyond the price range of most buyers. Look for communities that are close to public transportation, and within a reasonable commute distance of a major metropolitan area.
Location within a community can also affect a property’s resale potential. Usually, homes that are on busy streets, or next to freeways, will sell for less than similar homes that are located on quiet side streets. Being located across the street from a school, which can be noisy, may also result in a discounted price.
Buyers pay more for homes that offer easy access into the main living area. An entry that is level in from the street is ideal. A garage that opens directly into the kitchen area is also desirable. On the other hand, homes that are located up or down a lot of stairs are a hassle for most buyers. An inconvenient access can have an adverse effect on value.
If you buy a home that has an incurable defect, like a busy location or too many stairs, make sure that you don’t overpay. There’s nothing you can do to remedy an incurable defect. It can also negatively impact the price when you decide to sell.
The best time to sell a home that has an incurable defect is when the market is strong and the inventory of homes for sale is low. This is when buyers are willing to make compromises for the sake of being able to buy at all.
In a slow, buyer’s market, where there are plenty of homes for sale, buyers will take their time. They can afford to be choosy. You’ll have to discount your price more in a buyer’s market in order to look attractive relative to the competition.
It’s a good idea before you buy a home to check the permit history on the property. Make sure that you’re not paying a premium for remodeling that was done without necessary building permits. In some communities, homeowners are penalized if the building department becomes aware of work done without permits. You could incur extra expenses that you hadn’t anticipated.
THE CLOSING: Deferred maintenance usually results in a lower sale price. Your best protection is to keep your home well maintained.
Dian Hymer is author of “House Hunting, The Take-Along Workbook for Home Buyers,” and “Starting Out, The Complete Home Buyer’s Guide,” Chronicle Books.
Copyright 2003 Dian Hymer
Distributed by Inman News Features
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When To Plan Your Mortgage Burning Party In Durham Region.
November 18th, 2007 Categories: Buying real estate, Durham Region, Mortgage
The Toronto Star published an article about how house bidding wars in Toronto was stretching budgets. I am curious and amazed how a couple started out being qualified to buy a $450,000 home—it seemed to be as much as they could afford—a year later they bought a home for $700,000.
How do you go from paying a belt-tightening $2100 in mortgage payments each month to over $3300 per month? Even stretching the amortization to 40 years, it would mean that the payments would be about $2900. And their retirement party will likely be before their mortgage burning party.
I generously calculated that in the ensuing year they were able to save the extra $61,000 that kept them from a high ratio mortgage and there by adding mortgage insurance into the picture. I am flabbergasted.
That same article sited studies that indicated carrying such long term debt is quite a burden. A mortgage-burning party is a remote possibility. The stress causes anxiety or depression about trying to make ends meet.
It is not surprising that the rate of savings has gone down to 1.8% from 20% in 1982. Household debt has increased 43% from 1999.
The bright light in the GTA seems to be Durham Region. Although housing affordability is on everyone’s mind, most areas in Durham Region, including Pickering, Ajax and Whitby, price gains are slower than metro Toronto. That means that your mortgage burning party could be before you retire.
The home that this couple could have bought in High Park for about 
$700,000 could have been anywhere between $300,000 to $400,000 in Pickering, Ajax, or Whitby, depending on the neighbourhood. So not only could they have pocketed the extra $800 to $1200 per month (GO train fares come cheap for the extra commute) to enjoy their new home, they could have paid off their mortgage in plenty of time to enjoy their retirement
Consider your affordability options. Durham Region looks pretty good.
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Revisiting Flanders Fields
November 11th, 2007 Categories: Ajax, Area interest, Durham Region, Oshawa, Pickering, Pickering Village, Whitby
This is no ordinary reading of “In Flanders Fields.” The three people narrating are all World War II Veterans, for whom this poem has special significance. | Currently No Comments »
Durham West Lightning Girls Atom BB Hockey strike bronze
November 8th, 2007 Categories: Ajax, Area interest, Durham Region, Pickering, Pickering Village
It seemed, to the parents, that the storm was building since the start of the season. The Durham West Lightning Girls Atom BB Hockey were drawing closer to the winning side with each game until the Fall Challenge Tournament in Waterloo recently where they turned in an outstanding performance resulting in a bronze medal.
The under 10 year old girls held their own in the first game of the round robin. They finished with a 1 – 1 tie against a highly skilled Sudbury Wolves team.
The Lightning, charged from the close call in the first game, surprised the Burlington team, and their parents, with a nail-biting 3 – 2 win in the second game.
Losing their third game meant that the Atom BB team had to wait to hear whether they were playing for a second or third place in the next round.
Ending the round robin in third place, the girls were excited to enter the semi-finals playing against Oakville. Time was not on their side and they finished with a 2 – 3 loss. The Lightning would play for the bronze medal.
The girls looked outsized as they took to the ice for the consolation finals against the West Northumberland Wild. The Lightning came out striking taking the lead from the beginning. The London team was always trying to catch up.
Zoe, a first year goalie, put together three outstanding periods stoning the Wild in 25 of 26 shots. The Atom girls capitalized on the stellar goal tending scoring an insurance goal and putting in a 3 – 1 win.
The Durham West girls came home with a bronze medal. The parents are hoping to see the same excitement in the regular season games.
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Ajax Buys An Historic Church Building In Pickering Village
November 7th, 2007 Categories: Ajax, Area interest, Pickering Village, Real Estate News
Ajax has decided to preserve some of history of Pickering Village by purchasing the St. Francis de Sales church building (they didn’t get the parking lot beside it). It seemed like a steal: buying a church for $50,000.
Then I started reading about the church.
It was built in 1871 by the renowned architect Henry Langley. it features an octagonal spire; stained glass windows which bear the names of some of the early founding families, and a steeply pitched roof marked by three rose-coloured trefoil window dormers.
Now, I have seen my share of old churches. Although the floor boards are a little worn and the pews a little rickety, they still hold the spirit of the community inside.
I wouldn’t necessarily draw the same conclusion for the St. Francis de Sales church on Church Street, in Ajax.
The church was falling into disrepair by 1952: the roof was sagging, and the top of the building was leaning out. The parish community thought they might just tear it down or fix it up. They decided the church still had life left in it, added steel reinforcements to the walls.
The building continued to deteriorate, and more reinforcements were added to keep the walls from falling out. In 2005, the Catholic community in Ajax abandoned the whole building for a solid new foundation on Ravenscroft Road.
This is what Ajax bought—a tired church. They are looking for help, though. They would like to give this building a second life. Maybe one day, if it is not beyond repair, we will be able to enjoy a community gathering again under its fine dormers.
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The Perfect Storm: 3 factors leading to borrowing more than you can chew.
November 6th, 2007 Categories: Buying real estate, Durham Region
Something like the perfect storm of comsumerism seems to be taking place in and around the Greater Toronto Area and Durham Region. The perfect storm could mean leaving your children debt instead of riches.
Lenders are introducing new options that will help you to borrow more money, for longer, with less of your skin in the game:
- High ratio mortgages: Low down payment mortgages have been around for awhile. Banks will allow you to ante up to the home buying game with 5% downpayment. TD Canada Trust added to the mix with a 100% financing option. For the price of an insurance premium (and a good credit score), you can buy a house with out any of your own money.
- 40 year amortization: Lenders have also introduced a longer amortization period which means that you can take longer to pay back your debt. Since house prices have outstripped the gains made in income, this means that you can actually think about buying a home that fits your income bracket.
- GDS: Most lenders recommend that you don’t spend more than 32% of your income on housing. Stretching the amortization period, reduces your payment over the short term so that you can borrow more money while keeping the payments low.
All of these factors mean that we might be living pretty close to the edge of income. It wouldn’t take much to throw us over the edge.
That edge could take us right through retirement, funeral and probate. If 
Canadians are not wise about borrowing and saving money, they could be leaving their mortgage to their kids to pay off.
Make smart decisions when it comes to borrowing money and buying a home.
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Curiouser And Curiouser: Will it be a record year for Ajax-Pickering, Whitby real estate?
November 6th, 2007 Categories: Ajax, Buying real estate, Oshawa, Pickering, Pickering Village, Real Estate News, Selling real estate
The Toronto Real Estate Board president, Maureen O’Neill, put out the latest figures on how the real estate market is fairing this year. All things point to the second best year on record:
With 7,915 transactions, activity was up 10 per cent over the previous best for the month, set in 2003. Sales were also up 15 per cent over last October.
October’s strong performance has pushed year-to-date activity 12 per cent ahead of last year.
“There is every indication that 2007 will be a banner year for resale housing activity in the Greater Toronto Area,” said Ms. O’Neill.
The overall activity for Pickering, Ajax and Whitby is up this year. There were less listings, 1024 active in October 2007 vs. 1173 in October 2006. And there were more sales this October—396 vs. 342. Which means the market should be pretty good.
Let’s throw some other numbers into the mix:
- Percentage of listings sold: If there were 396 sales and 1024 active listings, then only 39% of the listings are selling. So you have a one in three shot at finding a buyer for your house. CMHC reports that anything less than 45% list to sales ratio is a buyer’s market.
- Average sale price: The average sale price in the 3 communities of Pickering, Ajax and Whitby was $291,028 for last October. For this October, it was $299,850. Not bad, a 3% increase. Increasing prices usually indicate more of a seller’s market.
Any statistician is going to caution you about looking at statistics in isolation because there can be a lot of variables that influence any of these numbers.
For example: the average price can spike upwards with a few luxury homes being added to the mix.
Bottom line is that it is a balanced market. Buyers are getting what they want, nice houses at good prices and sellers are getting what they want, home appreciation.
- As a seller, you need to be the best house for the money to entice a
buyer and be in the 39% that are selling. - As a buyer, prices are steadily rising and expected to continue that trend next year. It is a great time to get in the market and ride that upward slope.
None of this information should scare you away from the market. It is information that you can use to make a good decision about buying or selling a home.
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Kids And Clutter: Sort Out That Mess!
November 4th, 2007 Categories: Real Estate, Selling real estate
Are your kids’ rooms so messy that sorting things out 
seems just too daunting a task? If so, here are some strategies
for you to bring some order back to your children’s spaces.
1. First if all, do your kids actually need everything they own?
Are you still hoarding clothes and shoes they have grown out
of or toys that are now far to young for them to play with? Be
ruthless - pass them onto someone else, dump them at the
charity shop or throw them out. It is not use trying to tidy
around things which have outgrown their usefulness.
2. If any of your kids’ rooms are particularly bad (drawers
full of small pieces of rubbish, sweet wrappers, broken
Lego, pens without tops etc, try the ‘mining’ technique. Take
the draw (crate, box or bag) and tip everything out onto some
large sheets of newspaper. Then ‘mine’ all the useful items
and put them in a container. Everything that is left stays on
the newspaper. This is then wrapped up and put straight
into the bin.
3. Is there usually dirty washing in your kid’s rooms? Are they
loath to use the wash bin to put their soiled clothing in? If so,
why not have a different coloured laundry bin for each
child, or put a logo of their favourite character or pastime
on the front. This might encourage them to place their dirty
clothes where they belong.
4. Attach pegs or hooks behind each child’s door. This is
where they can hang their school uniform for the next day
as I think that trying to get them to fold their uniforms neatly
and place them in a drawer till the next day would be a
triumph of hope over experience! This way, when they
come home at night, when they change they can simply
place all items on the hooks and forget about them till
the next morning.
5. Now, one of the best organising solutions is smart, cheap
and effective. Buy a number of colourful plastic stackable
crates to house clutter. They can be colour-coded if desired
e.g. Blue for books, Red for Lego and construction, Yellow for
games etc. Not only this, but they can be used for shoes or
seasonal clothing which is not required. If you are able
to install some racking too these crates look very funky lined
up against a wall and this way they don’t have to be stacked
on top of one another.
Books look much neater if lined up in size order or colour
coded. A mish mash of books just stuffed in a bookshelf
any old how does not make for a tidy looking room. Likewise
with videos, or CDs. Store them with all red, green, yellow
coloured spines together. Not only does it look neater, but it
also makes titles easier to find too.
6. Should the rooms get to such a state that drastic measures
are needed, try a ‘2 minute pick up’ where you get the kids
to pick up as much rubbish and put it back neatly as they
can do in 2 minutes. This is an effective strategy, especially
with younger kids, because it is so much fun! Let them off
after 2 minutes if they have at least tried. You can do the
rest as a favour.
7. If any of your children have a particularly small bedroom raise
the bed on stilts. This way you will have all that extra room
underneath. It doesn’t need a DIY genius to rig some leg.
If you can afford the money, one of those high beds with
cupboards / sofas / writing desk contraptions underneath
might just be a solution to a too cluttered bedroom.
8. Small toys such as Barbies, Duplo bricks, etc can be stored in
drawstring bags hung from hooks on the wall. These are very
simple to make. Just an oblong piece of material, folded in half
and sewn up the seam and across the bottom with a hem round
the top through which a string can be threaded. The bag can be
pulled tight shut with the string.
9. Finally, try to encourage good habits by letting your children
help you with your own chores and always reward for a job
well done. If your kids have at least tried to keep things tidy,
you should let them know how you have noticed this with a
reward and encouragement to do it again the next time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mum of two, Gail Miller, is a UK artist and writer.
View her vibrant, contemporary artwork at her
website, Gails Art Gallery
http://home.freeuk.net/gails-gallery
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Article Source: www.homehighlight.org
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Fiscal Budgets Be Damned, Show Me The Money: Bringing home tax cuts to Durham Region
November 2nd, 2007 Categories: Ajax, Durham Region, Pickering, Pickering Village, Real Estate News
It seems that the Canadian government is doing a reasonable job of holding onto the fiscal purse strings. They are estimating a surplus of several billion dollars for this fiscal year. In economic speak, that means they are making a profit and can pay down some of their debts and interest on the debts. To you and me, it means that they are willing to put some money back in our pockets, so we can spend it.
The federal government has announced that they are reducing the GST another percentage point to 5%. They are also giving us a small personal tax break. These changes give easy fodder to a lot of government critics. I want to know:
How does these tax incentives affect you and me?
The meager tax cut is easy. It means that I can take my family to Wendy’s one more time, as long as no one super-sizes their meal. Spread out over all Canadians, the $740 million tax break will put about $30 in your pocket.
Now, the GST cut is a more interesting incentive. This cut seems to be taking a substantial chunk out of the governments surplus. Shaving 1% off the GST is going to cost the federal government $5.5 billion annually.
This is how I look at it.
Let’s say you and I spend about $25,000 of our hard earned income on 
food, movies, CDs, hockey games, soccer camps and the like. A 1% GST cut would put an extra $250 in your pocket. So now it is one more night out to a Leaf game, or half a week of golf camp for my son, or 2 tickets to Dirty Dancing at the Royal Alex.
Both of these benefits, the personal tax cut and the GST cut, mean that I can have some fun. It makes me feel good. And that’s what the government wants, isn’t it.
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