Buying Our Home After 2 Years

From the Mak Family…

It’s almost Hallowe’en and my son, NTM, has already decided his own plans, costume and schedule!

Now that he’s a teenager, this might be his last year Trick-or-Treating—and I’m not sure how many photo ops he’ll allow us!

He’ll need a ride to his target neighborhood, but for the first time, I don’t have to chaperone him in the cold!

I’m sure he’ll have a blast, and I look forward to taking my Dad Tax from his pillowcase of loot!

And of course, I’ll happily take all the chocolates with nuts! 🙂

Buying Our Home (Part #1)

Buying a house can be exciting and nerve-wracking.

As a real estate agent, I’ve given plenty of advice to my clients over the years, but sometimes theory and practice can be two very different things! This is Part #1 of the series to share my first-hand experience and the lessons I learned along the way!

Did we make a big mistake?
When we moved into Lorne Park, Mississauga, we chose a house that was literally across the street where our son, NTM, would start Junior Kindergarten. It was a great school and he really enjoyed it.

As he neared his last year at the school, we were on the look-out for the next house. There was no particular rush, so we spent a couple of years visiting every new home that came on the market.  We even put an offer on a house that wasn’t even on the market!

We were searching for something specific. I wanted a Colonial-style house with more room than our existing house.  While my wife, Tina, wanted a house that she could re-design from scratch. It was a challenge finding something that fit both our needs and budget.

We looked into building an extension or maybe a custom build, but that had too many financial risks and from what I hear, it turns your Family Life upside-down.

Plus, I’m a realtor, so you know, maybe I could just GO AND DO MY JOB to find a house!

The main problem with our requirements was that many homes were partially or fully renovated.  For example, if a homeowner spent $50k upgrading the kitchen in the past 5 years, we would have to tear it out if Tina wanted to build a new one.  That’s destroying a lot of value!

The math didn’t sit well with me, and so our search continued.

Then one day, a house came up. Our house came up.

On the outside, it was a larger home with the style I liked.  On the inside, it hasn’t been renovated for decades, so we wouldn’t be destroying much of the value if Tina wanted to refresh anything. Plus, I felt it was underpriced, so that’s a bonus too!

To me, it was a 10 out of 10.  This was it!  Then I walked to the backyard and saw the pool.  Suddenly it turned into an 11 out of 10!

The thing is, we never wanted a pool.  With all of the safety concerns for kids and costs for maintenance, we explicitly filtered out houses with pools.  Yet this one, for some reason, spoke to me and we had to have it.

We put an offer on Day #0 before anyone got a chance to see it (and before it was sent out in the daily emails) and then our offer was conditionally accepted.

The Lesson:
Know what you are looking for.

In my buying process, I always suggest having “Discovery Tours” to see what kind of house is out there for your price range.

If it’s your first time looking for houses and you see the “Perfect House”, how do you know it’s right for you or that it’s overpriced?

But if it’s your fifth time out and you’ve already seen 15 other homes and lost two offers, now you have much more confidence about your purchase.

So with a lot of preparation and some luck, we finally found the house we were looking for.

Stay tuned for Part #2 in our journey.

A Big -0.50% Interest Rate Drop!

This is the fourth drop in a row by the Bank of Canada and it was a big one!

After the U.S. Fed’s -0.50% rate cut, the BoC followed suit, lowering rates by -0.50% due to inflation falling below the 2.0% target.

In September 2024, the average home sold for $1,107,291.
This is up +3.06% from last month and down -1.1% from last year. There were 4,996 sales in September which is +8.47% higher than in 2023.

The market remains in a stalemate, with both sides waiting for the other to make a move.

With one more rate cut expected by the end of the year, let’s see if it gets Buyers off the fence to buy homes!

Is it the right time to buy or sell?
Call me at (416) 276-4895 and let’s have a chat!

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