This Blog is broken into different sections. For a history of new listings and listing changes refer to the real estate listings section.
For my blog about general real estate issues, commentaries, my ideas, and articles written in my bulletins please refer to the general section of this Blog.
At all times, please enjoy my thoughts and if you wish to share thoughts of your own, just send me an e-mail.
Jeremy
IMPACT OF NEW HARMONIZED SALES TAX
I've been known to 'Soap Box' here about the impact of taxes on the real estate industry, and the Liberals in Victoria have prodded me to do it again.
There is a new Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) coming to BC July 1st next year. Basically they are taxing the Provincial Sales Tax (PST) and converting it to a Value Added Tax, the same format as the GST. The Ha ...
...and the weather was pretty bad too. The real estate winter is starting to melt and I've found a pulse. Needless to say, based on the barrage of negative press, you have all noticed that the real estate market has been down.
To give you an idea, the list-to-sell ratio in November, December and January was 5% or less. This means that for every 100 listings, only 5 were selling in month. ...
CREA has now launched REALTOR.ca! This new site will now run parallel with MLS.ca. REALTOR.ca has the ability to seach and view listings based on a real map seach. This is a really cool site that is definately worth taking a look at especially if you're over browsing the MLS.ca site. Check it out at www.realtor.ca
CMHC has just held a conference and the hot topic is, as always, what is in the future for the market. The pundits have stated that they expect the Vancouver market to grow by up to 8% in the next year.
In a discussion with other Realtors in my office we found it hard to see examples where the market was up 8% this year in Langley. There have been rises however 8% would mean a $500,000 ho ...
BIG BANKING CHANGE
The Federal government has quietly changed the Banking Act with respect to mortgage lending. This is a huge change that was relatively unnoticed by the media.
For over 40 years the Bank Act required that buyers with less than 25% cash down had to have an insured mortgage. This meant that most young buyers paid an additional fee of between 1%and 3.75% depending on amoun ...
The Langley real estate market has taken off with a bang this year. As expected the market has regained it's vigor that was lost in the latter part of 2006. So far this year i am ahead of last year in sales and our RE/MAX Treeland office has done more sales in January 2007 than in January 2006, which was a record for a Janaury back then!
Although prices haven't risen yet i do expect some pri ...
The weather promises very little winter excitement over the Christmas break this year, but I can remember Christmas's past in the winter of Brookswood.
In the early 1990's perhaps '92 we had a cold snap where it rained onto an already frozen ground. This was the first time I saw serious rime ice in the Lower Mainland. Trees were encased in a thick layer of ...
CHANGES TO THE RESIDENTIAL TENANCY ACT.
As of January 1st, 2004 the changes to the Residential Tenancy Act came into effect. These new changes are, for the most part good and sensible. According to MLA Rich Coleman a lot of the changes are rooted in the government's desire to substantially eliminate the cost of arbitrations and disputes that are malicious or ingenuine or aimed at deferring a ...
In 1994 there were 3200 licensed Realtors in the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board. Then the market took a downturn. By the year 2000 we had only 1700 Realtors members. 47% of licensed Realtors left the business during that period.
In 2001 the market became active again. As of this month there are 2400 member Realtors in the Valley Board. Our membership is up 41% in 4 years.
I wonder if any o ...