Great News! Mortgage Insurance reduction!

The provincial government has recently enacted legislation that will benefit anyone buying a home. The previous rule stated that you needed to provide a minimum of 25% of the purchase price to avoid having to pay mortgage insurance.

And now, that threshold has been lowered to 20% in Ontario.

What does it mean?
Well, now someone with $60,000 for a down payment can buy a $300,000 home without having to pay for mortgage insurance, which would have added an extra 2.5% to the purchase price.
Previously, you would have required $75,000 to buy that same house without the mortgage insurance!

You can read more details about it in the The Star. Click here for the full article.

Psst, can you spare a million?

If it seems like there are more homes in the GTA hitting the $1 million-plus price tag, it's true. Theresa Boyle's article at The Star gives you an explanation of what happens when buyers are priced out of the really high-end neighbourhoods but still want to buy a new home.

In short, the strength of the current resale real estate market in the GTA is partly due to the momentum carried over from the strength it had at the end of last year. And low, stable interest rates are also a contributing factor.

Boomers Are Making the Move

From this article in the Toronto Star, the Baby Boomers are leading the way into homes that are very specific to their own needs and wants. That doesn't necessarily mean "down-sizing".

Buyers switching from size to style

According to this article in the Toronto Star, the era of super-sized houses may be coming to an end.

Personally, I tend to disagree with this. I think there will always be a market for this style of home, especially with the old centralized-city model rapidly disappearing in favour of urban centres and local malls and big-box retailers.

People will always want a choice. Some want big, some want small, some want to be downtown, some can't wait to get away from it. The choices have never been greater.

Live maps of the GTA

Here are some interesting maps of the GTA, that are periodically updated.

Murder map of GTA


Marijuana Grow-Houses in the GTA

Several past articles on title fraud and mortgage fraud

September 10, 2006 10:58:43 AM - Here's another column on real estate and title fraud in the Sun.

September 9, 2006 11:15:26 AM - More news on the issue of real estate fraud and the Land Titles system in today's Star

September 8, 2006 3:24:12 PM - The provincial government is taking steps to combat real estate fraud. Read it in today's Toronto Star

Former Marijuana Grow Houses -inspections required

August 3, 2006 -- Marijuana Grow Houses - Under provincial legislation that became effective on August 1, 2006, municipal officials are required to inspect marijuana grow houses once they have been identified and shut down by police. Contact Steve for more details.

City Services - who does what?

Check out the new City Services on my website www.happyisthehome.com - left menu, under "Important Resources".

One stop shopping for all the points of contact and phone numbers into all of the cities and regional governments in the GTA.

July 6, 2007 - Mortgage Fraud

2006-07-06

Mortgage Fraud victim to test the law. A great reason to protect yourself with Title Insurance! Read it here.

July 5, 2006

2006-07-05

Average home prices are expected to rise by a national average of 0ver 9% this year (4.4% in Toronto). Read about it here

March 9, 2007

March 9, 20079:45:58 AM - A Registry for Grow-Ops?

I've always been an advocate for full disclosure in a real estate transaction. As one of the biggest purchases that most people are likely to make, I feel that you're entitled to know exactly what you're spending your money on; especially if the house was a former grow-op because there can be serious health-related issues, too. You can read more about the province's ideas on dealing with the problem in today's Toronto Star. Click here for the article.

June 30, 2006

2006-06-30

Property Tax Assessments Frozen
June 30, 2006 -- The provincial government has announced property tax reassessments by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) will be cancelled for 2006 and 2007. This means that the current assessed values will be used for the purposes of calculating property taxes in 2007 and 2008

July 2, 2007

2006-07-02 Condo purchase - new or resale?

Check out the column in Sunday's Star by Ellen Roseman

From June 6, 2006

2006-06-06 With 9,434 sales recorded last month, May 2006 has proven to be the best month ever recorded in the 86 year history of the Toronto Real Estate Board, TREB President John Meehan announced today.

"The May figure is up over two per cent from May 2005, when 9,209 sales were recorded, and up almost two per cent over the previous best ever month, June 2004, when 9,275 sales were recorded.

The Toronto re-sale market is as healthy as it has ever been." The president noted that the average price came in at $365,537 last month, compared to April's $366,683. "The key is that 17,685 new listings came onto the system in May, which pushed total inventory levels to 26,220 active listings at month-end. Both figures are up considerably over their year ago levels (seven and five per cent, respectively), and this is keeping price inflation to a reasonable level."

Breaking down the total, 3,504 sales were reported in TREB’s 28 West districts and averaged $340,841; 1,739 sales were reported in the 14 Central districts and averaged $483,682; 1,898 sales were reported in the 23 North districts and averaged $390,999; and 2,293; sales were reported in TREB’s 21 East districts and averaged $292,600.

Migrating

I had been using my website for real estate related commentary and links to articles in the media but this is a much better way to do it and over the next while, I'll be moving the articles from my website over here. Consider it a work in progress.

Welcome

Welcome to my new, interactive site for commentary, observations and opinions about the real estate market in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area).

I'm a realtor who is licensed in Ontario and have a client base that stretches from Burlington in the west, to Courtice in the west and north to Stouffville and Ballantrae.

Since my business is referral driven, it takes me pretty much all across the GTA and I can say that the while many articles in the media will generalize about the GTA real estate market, I can certainly say from experience that it's much more pocket-based - in that there are pockets or areas with the GTA that can be very hot at some point, while some other areas are almost the exact opposite.

The great thing in general though, is that the real estate market in Toronto is definitely thriving on probably one of the largest up-cycles we've ever seen.

My intention with this blog is to use it as a place for some periodic commentary and observations about the real estate market. It's a much simpler medium to use for something like this than to update my website (www.happyisthehome.com) on a regular basis. Instead, I will have my website link here.

Please feel free to post your own comments and observations as you wish.

-steven