Do you ever stand in the middle of the kitchen, stretching out crumpled plastic film that’s been used for food packaging to see if you can recycle it? As much as we all want to “save the planet”, it’s not always easy. Sometimes, the packaging is clearly marked as recyclable, other times not so much.…
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Conventional thinking suggests we all love a neat and tidy garden – flowerbeds are organised and weed-free, hedges clipped, roses in bloom and trees shaped to perfection. When selling your home, this is the perfect philosophy to attract the greatest number of potential buyers. Of course, it’s not the only approach to gardening. An increasing…
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Summer is a great time to enjoy the outdoors, and it’s also an opportune moment to assess how you feel about the interior of your home – is it really “doing it” for you? Is it time to step it up a notch? Interior design fashions come and go, and so it’s easy to think…
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With rental markets easing in many parts of Canada, investors cannot assume they’ll easily find a great tenant and the rental income will keep rolling in. Perhaps that’s true for some, but most investors need to work a little harder to find good and loyal tenants who’ll respect the property. A rental house or apartment…
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The day you own your first home is joyous – finally you’re on the property ladder with a place of your very own and the opportunity to build your wealth. And after probably saving for years for your deposit, there should be no small measure of delighted relief that you’ve achieved your goal. Of course,…
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Is Canada’s real estate market really diverging into two separate camps – the urban centres that are supply-constrained and in high demand, and cities with too much to sell and too few buyers? Sitting in this latter camp are Toronto and Vancouver, which are our most expensive cities but suffering from oversupply and constrained spending…
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Who doesn’t love the idea of selling your home for more than expected? No one, of course. But what are the features of a home that command a premium with today’s cautious buyers? The American aggregator Zillow loves to delve into its database and come up with answers to these types of questions. There’s no…
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Confidence is returning to the Canadian real estate market with resales tracking 2.8% higher in June and values stable, just 0.2% lower. It’s the third successive month that we’ve seen resale data move upward, indicating that Canadians have put aside previous concerns about the economy, job security and the furore over American tariffs. All three…
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Owning a home is more affordable now than at any time in the past three years, according to analysis from the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). A negligible drop in values – down 0.2% in June compared with May – combined with an aggressive campaign of interest rate cuts by the Bank of Canada (BoC)…
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Reading the tea leaves of today’s Kiwi property market is not an easy task. Sales are up, yet prices are flat. Record levels of inventory are starting to dwindle with a reported 5% fewer properties coming onto the market than 12 months ago. The Official Cash Rate (OCR) has dropped 2% since last September, but…
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