Archives – February, 2010
Home #1 – Asking: $769,900, Sold: $765,000 – $4900 below asking
Home #2 – Asking: $599,900, Sold: $637,098 – $37,198 above asking
Home #3 – Asking: $299,900, Sold: $327,000 – $27,100 above asking
Home #4 – Asking: $519,900, Sold: $569,500 – $49,600 above asking
These numbers totally speak against any sort of falling market in these areas. Roncesvalles is like the wealthy neighborhoods in Toronto Lamb mentions later in the discussion (Rosedale, Forest Hill and Moore Park) in that there wasn’t a lot of development in Roncesvalles and the surrounding area in recent years. (more…)
February 26, 2010
Eppel: There is some merit in the idea of taking advantage of other people’s panic-selling situations, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily out there yet in the real estate market.
Cooper: I’d say wait.
Post: How long?
Cooper: I don’t know.
The funny thing about Cooper and the doom and gloomers like her is they purport to be experts on the economy, yet they almost never see any of these economic woes coming and they have no idea how long these woes will last. Worst of all, they don’t offer any viable solution to people on what to do during a recession. The doom and gloomers seem to say you should basically bury your head in the sand: keep working, thank God every day that you still have your job, save up every penny, scale back your lifestyle, become a miser, and live in fear of what may come. Who wants to live like that? Who actually does? No one. (more…)
February 25, 2010
The fallout was the 1990-1991 recession and a bleak period for the real estate business. In fact, between 1986 when the boom peaked and 1991, the number of new homes constructed per year dropped from 1.8 million to 1 million, which was at the time the lowest rate since World War II.
Fast forward to recent years. Enter the Bush Administration in 2001. More than ever, with Bush as president (and VP Dick Cheney for that matter) the line between business people and politicians become ever more blurry. The US financial institutions looked back and remembered what Uncle Sam had done for the S&Ls in the 1980’s with the last Republican president. With someone like Bush in office, the US financial institutions decided it was high time to go on another lending spree. But they bet even heavier on getting bailed out than the S&Ls did because Bush and Cheney are money people too. (more…)
February 24, 2010
I’ll explain what happened with the Savings & Loan scandal. The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s (commonly referred to as the S&L crisis) was the failure of 747 savings and loan associations (S&Ls aka thrifts). A Savings and Loan is a US financial institution that accepts savings deposits and makes mortgage, car and other personal loans to people. The key development in the S&L world at that time was the US government under Ronald Reagan decided to guarantee any loans these S&L companies made. So if a person who received an S&L loan defaulted, the US government guaranteed these S&Ls they would compensate them in full for any losses they incurred. (more…)
February 23, 2010
Kalles also notes the hysteria during this boom:
Kalles: My brother bought a house at $2.8 million, $700,000 over asking … (The house had) seven offers.
Then the doom and gloom pundits threw their hats into the ring. The Post asked the group: (more…)
February 22, 2010
Lamb: There are people who have been transferred here and they want to buy a place, or they’ve gotten a divorce or they’ve separated from their girlfriend. We see that every day. But it’s not like it was.
One would think that if things were so bad out there that there would be lots of foreclosures. Yet Lamb says there are almost none, and he’s talking about where is brokerage is focused: downtown Toronto, probably one of the most over built places in the entire Toronto area.
Stinson: We’re actually going to see a real real estate market where people are actually buying, selling and moving because they have a reason to buy, sell and move, instead of treating it like a stock market where I’m selling or buying because I’m going to make a whole bunch of money. (more…)
February 19, 2010
I almost always find talk in the media about the economy abstract, misleading and depressing. Most pundits who opine on the economy don’t give a clear picture of present and future conditions because it’s such an enormous topic. I find they’re really only talking about themselves in the end, not the many different realities out there many different types of people are facing.
So it was very refreshing to find something in the media that had both the pundits and people actually currently working in real estate talking about the economy, recessions, and the real estate market. A very interesting 2009 article on the state of the economy and real estate market in the Toronto area came up in the National Post. The Post put together a group of well known people in the Toronto real estate and business communities to discuss these matters. The group included: (more…)
February 18, 2010
A Plaxo plug-in supports major address books including Outlook/Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Mac OS X’s Address Book, though other ones can be supported through an application programming interface. Additionally, Plaxo can also be maintained through an online version. (more…)
February 17, 2010
Keep Your Network Balanced: some social media experts say you shouldn’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know offline. Their rationale is these people may try to use you to get to the people they want to reach in your network. This is not necessarily a bad thing if it happens. If you help someone out in this way, you’d be justified in asking the same of them. If you don’t know a person you’ve referred, contact the person you’ve referred them to and just say you’ve been acquainted with this person but don’t know them that well so you can’t really vouch for them. At the same time, you should try and track down as many people as you know as possible to add to your friends lists. It will make the networking smoother for you. (more…)
February 16, 2010
When you are out social networking, you should be demonstrating your expertise whenever possible as well as encouraging people to visit your website. This will not only increase your website traffic but the backlinks to your website will increase your search engine ranking as well. Whenever possible, have your backlinks sending people to more comprehensive information on whatever topic you’re commenting on in whatever social media situation you find yourself in. (more…)
February 15, 2010
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