The following article from OREA was published in Canada NewsWire on December 13, 2011.

As housing market increases homebuyers need to be informed about costly oversights

According to a recent RBC report, the number of homes for sale in Ontario is on the rise and affordability province-wide is stable. The rush to buy with more available homes on the market could mean more mistakes made by consumers.

A panel of experts from the Ontario Real Estate Association (OREA) board of directors advises against making hasty or uninformed choices by avoiding five common errors:

1. Not knowing what you can afford
Barbara Sukkau, president of OREA and a Realtor based in St. Catharines, says that mistakes made in a competitive environment can be costly and restrict lifestyle choices.

“Many people don’t know that there’s an easy way to calculate how much house they can afford to determine, regardless of competing bids, what lifestyle they want to maintain within the market,” says Sukkau. “In addition to the cost of the home, potential buyers should consider the land transfer tax, closing costs, moving costs and leave room for any unforeseen extras.”

In fact, Realtors often use a calculation called the Gross Debt Service Ratio. Sukkau explains how to calculate what you can afford at http://bit.ly/OREAaffordabilty.

2. Not preparing your finances, or getting pre-approved
“Many sellers will require a potential buyer to get pre-approved. When there are competing bids on the house of your dreams, pre-approval could give you the edge,” says Patricia Verge, OREA board member working out of Ottawa.

“Pre-approval can take up to a few days after you provide your bank with things like verification of income and down payment,” Verge adds.

If a buyer meets the lender’s requirements, then written confirmation of pre-approval will be provided. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, this pre-approval is time sensitive and is not a guarantee of receiving a mortgage loan.

Verge also cautions buyers against using their pre-approval as a final budget. “Potential buyers should balance their debt load and other financial commitments with what the bank is willing to lend,” she says.

3. Not knowing your must-haves
Tom Lebour, OREA board member working out of Mississauga, notes that his clients aren’t always sure about what they’re looking for.

“Clients often fail to consider what amenities are in the neighbourhood they’re looking to buy in, especially when relocating from the city to the suburbs. How ‘walkable’ is a neighbourhood to places like grocery stores, schools and banks? This feature is important to many homebuyers, but they can fail to think about it in the excitement about the number of bathrooms a house has. Create a list by thinking about a day in your life and the various things important to you and your family.”

4. Not getting a home inspection
“I always advise buyers to have their own home inspection done, even if the seller offers the results of a previous inspection and even if others are keen to put in an offer,” says Phil Dorner, OREA board member working out of Belle River.

“Ensure that you have a qualified and bonded home inspector perform a full inspection as part of your offer. An investment of a few hundred dollars could save you thousands down the road.”

5. Getting emotions involved in negotiations
Buyers and sellers will often let their emotions get the best of them, says Mike Douglas, OREA board member from Barrie.

“Emotions can get in the way of negotiations because sellers inadvertently assign real value to their memories, which don’t hold financial value for the buyer. We do our best to help our clients keep their emotions out of the equation,” Douglas says.


Independent of market conditions, home staging is a highly effective marketing tool used to maximize the selling price of Toronto area homes and condos.

StagingWorks is the premier Toronto home staging company. We provide a complete range of professional services which include vacant home staging, occupied home staging and condo staging. We have staging packages to accommodate most budgets and serve Toronto, GTA and surrounding areas.

Please visit our home staging portfolio for more samples of our staging projects. Give us some some details on your home and when you’re planning to sell, and get a free home staging estimate. Or, call us for a free estimate at (647) 409-2091 or anne@StagingWorks.ca.

StagingWorks has been voted Toronto’s top home stager by Toronto Life.





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The following article by Susan Pigg was published on Moneyville on November 29, 2011.

It could well become the cocktail-party question of the holiday season: Is Canada’s gravity-defying housing market headed for a fall?

Britain’s venerable magazine The Economist says Canada is one of nine countries in the world where housing is overvalued by 25 per cent or more right now — and among four where prices are in line with those in the U.S. “at the peak of its bubble.”

The others are France, Australia and Belgium, it says under a headline that claims “the bursting of the global economic bubble is only halfway through.”

It’s the B-word being heard halfway around the world and comes in the wake of a recent Bank of America Merrill Lynch report that warned Toronto’s record-setting pace of condo construction could see a significant correction over the next two years.

Are the predictions alarmist, common sense or simply sour grapes from countries being crushed by the economic fallout of the subprime and euro zone crises?

“I think the (Canadian) housing boom is over,” says Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC World Markets Inc. who agrees that Canada’s housing sector is “overshooting.”

“The only question now is how do we correct? I think the most likely scenario is that the housing market will stagnate over the next three to four years” until prices fall back in line.

The Economist notes that much of the world’s economic woes can be traced back to years of unprecedented growth in house prices in countries such as the United States and Ireland, culminating with “the bursting of the biggest bubble in history.”

Home prices in the U.S. have dropped 34 per cent since 2006. In Ireland they’ve plummeted by almost half since the Celtic Tiger lost its roar.

In the last year alone, they’ve climbed 5.5 per cent across Canada according to October statistics.

“In some countries, such as Australia, Canada and Sweden, prices wobbled but then surged to new highs. As a result, many property markets are still looking uncomfortably overvalued,” the magazine claims.

Real estate watcher Ben Myers of Toronto’s Urbanation called The Economist’s methodology “flawed,” saying it’s too simplistic to properly assess the health of a market as regionally varied as Canada’s.

It also doesn’t take into account how the strength of our banking sector has made Canada a safe haven for investors looking to buy up hard assets like real estate. It’s estimated that some 45 to 60 per cent of the 43,000 condos now under construction across the GTA have been pre-purchased by investors, most of whom intend to hold and rent them out.

Given tough lending standards in Canada, there are very few homeowners — less than 5 per cent — at risk of being overextended on mortgages, statistics have shown. So it would take a “trigger” like escalating interest rates to send real estate prices crashing here, and they’re unlikely to start even edging up until 2013, says Tal.

That should give homeowners time to get their financial houses in order, and there are “encouraging signs” that’s happening.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said Tuesday in its third-quarter report that the growth of mortgage loans has slowed to an average of $159,740 and the average equity level has climbed slightly to 45 per cent as homeowners focus on paying down mortgages.


Independent of market conditions, home staging is a highly effective marketing tool used to maximize the selling price of Toronto area homes and condos.

StagingWorks is the premier Toronto home staging company. We provide a complete range of professional services which include vacant home staging, occupied home staging and condo staging. We have staging packages to accommodate most budgets and serve Toronto, GTA and surrounding areas.

Please visit our home staging portfolio for more samples of our staging projects. Give us some some details on your home and when you’re planning to sell, and get a free home staging estimate. Or, call us for a free estimate at (647) 409-2091 or anne@StagingWorks.ca.

StagingWorks has been voted Toronto’s top home stager by Toronto Life.





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The article below by Rachel Naud was published in the Calgary Herald on November 10, 2011. It touches on a number of very practical points.

Selling your home can be one of the most personal transactions you’ll ever experience.

Think about it, your home is where you make your memories, mark your milestones, celebrate your achievements and learn from your failures.

It’s hard to put a price tag on the place where you built your life.

Yet when it comes to selling your home, homeowners are wise to leave their emotions at the door.

That’s probably the first thing a homeowner needs to know and do before putting up a for-sale sign.

If you want to sell your home for top dollar, home sellers need to have their home “move-in ready,” says Carmen Paradis, a realtor with Re/Max Real Estate Central.

“Buyers want a house they can just move into,” says Paradis.

“They don’t want to have to do anything. People do not want to do the work. They just like to move in and live.”

And although some home sellers may translate this to mean they have to completely renovate their bathrooms and kitchens before putting their home on the market, Maxwell Canyon Creek realtor Joe Samson says this isn’t the case. In fact, sometimes he even advises against it.

“If you’re trying to sell a home that’s below the average selling price, there’s no point in spending $15,000 on a kitchen renovation,” says Samson. “Renovate to what your surroundings are. Don’t get carried away and out-renovate your neighbours.”

He says if a buyer walks into your starter home and sees high-end appliances and granite countertops, they’ll also most likely see a higher price tag.

“If buyers are looking for a house in the $300,000-range and nine out of 10 houses are $300,000 but yours is $350,000 because you have all this beautiful stuff in there, it’s going to take longer to sell, if at all,” says Samson.

“Doing renovations like that will force you to sell higher than your direct competition. You’ll never get your money back.”

Instead, both Paradis and Samson say the biggest investment a homeowner can make to fix up their homes doesn’t cost much at all – paint.

“Paint is biggest thing you can do,” says Paradis. “Sometimes, even if you wash your walls, you can’t get smudges or fingerprints off. Paint fixes that.

“It can also fix odour in the home. Odour turns people off. Especially if the home sellers smoke.”

When it comes to choosing a paint colour, Paradis recommends going with a neutral colour that will appeal to a wide range of buyers. The same rule applies to carpets.

“Some people really like colour but it doesn’t appeal to everyone,” says Paradis. “So let’s say you put in a carpet two or three years ago but it’s purple. You may want to get rid of that.

“Replacing your carpet is one of the most inexpensive things to do but it will give you great bang for your buck. People walk in and it feels fresh and clean and gives you a lot of value because you have more people interested in your house.”

Paradis also recommends fixing all those little projects you have been meaning to get to for years, such as squeaky door handles and loose railings. “It’s the little things that turn people off,” she says. ” It just doesn’t look good.”

Curb appeal is also huge. So if you have chipped paint, an unkept yard and garbage on your lawn, you could scare away potential buyers before they even step in the door.

“If the house looks unkept, quite often people make the decision even before getting out of car,” says Samson.

“They’ll say forget it. I don’t need to see this house.”

Instead, Samson suggests homeowners make the outside of their home look engaging, welcoming and well maintained.

“You want to create an image so people think your house feels like home,” says Samson. “They want to envision themselves living there, not seeing themselves fixing up the outside for two months.”


Independent of market conditions, home staging is a highly effective marketing tool used to maximize the selling price of Toronto area homes and condos.

StagingWorks is the premier Toronto home staging company. We provide a complete range of professional services which include vacant home staging, occupied home staging and condo staging. We have staging packages to accommodate most budgets and serve Toronto, GTA and surrounding areas.

Please visit our home staging portfolio for more samples of our staging projects. Give us some some details on your home and when you’re planning to sell, and get a free home staging estimate. Or, call us for a free estimate at (647) 409-2091 or anne@StagingWorks.ca.

StagingWorks has been voted Toronto’s top home stager by Toronto Life.





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The article below by Susan Pigg was published in the Star on Tuesday November 15, 2011.

There may be widespread economic panic in the rest of the world, but Toronto’s housing market keeps plowing ahead unscathed:

Consider these numbers:

• $478,137: The average price of a house in the GTA in October, up almost 8 per cent from $443,633 at this time last year, according to the Canadian Real Estate Board.

• $362,899: The national average price of a house, up 5.5 per cent from October, 2010.

• 16: The number of bids Monday on a Cleveland St. detached house in Toronto’s Yonge-Davisville area which sold for $146,000 over its $839,000 asking price.

“There was no shortage of headline news in October about global financial market volatility and economic uncertainty, but it doesn’t appear to have dampened homebuyers’ spirits,” said Gary Morse, president of the Canadian Real Estate Board in explaining why resale house buying activity picked up again in October after a strong September.

Realtors say they continue to see “cautiously optimistic” homebuyers buoyed by continuing low interest rates and Canada’s resiliency through the global economic crisis.

The only slight downturn appears to be in the high-end market — homes listed for more than $2 million — where both buyers and sellers tend to be more heavily employed in sectors with closer ties to global stock markets.

While a substantive increase in new listings has helped ease the bidding wars and upward pressure on prices that plagued the Toronto market in the spring, realtors say, competition remains fierce in some prime neighbourhoods.

Midtown realtor Richard Byford says he was “pleasantly surprised” to see about 70 couples, many with babes in arms, file through a weekend open house at the three-bedroom Cleveland St. home in Davisville Village he had listed for $839,000. But his jaw dropped when 16 officers were registered as of Monday.

“Low interest rates are driving a lot of it (continued demand despite the economic uncertainty) because it’s seen as free money,” says Byford.

Almost 400,000 homes have changed hands via the MLS system in Canada so far this year, up 1.8 per cent from the same period last year.

The average price nationally for a home stood at $362,899, up 5.5 per cent from October 2010.


Independent of market conditions, home staging is a highly effective marketing tool used to maximize the selling price of Toronto area homes and condos.

StagingWorks is the premier Toronto home staging company. We provide a complete range of professional services which include vacant home staging, occupied home staging and condo staging. We have staging packages to accommodate most budgets and serve Toronto, GTA and surrounding areas.

Please visit our home staging portfolio for more samples of our staging projects. Give us some some details on your home and when you’re planning to sell, and get a free home staging estimate. Or, call us for a free estimate at (647) 409-2091 or anne@StagingWorks.ca.

StagingWorks has been voted Toronto’s top home stager by Toronto Life.





Please take 60 second to complete our poll on the left side of the screen.