The Barrie Real Estate Blog

Blog update

2009-11-06T14:59:00.005-05:00

For my most recent posts including audio podcasts and video, visit EYE ON BARRIE REAL ESTATE

Barrie market statistics and insight for buyers sellers and investors plus a timeline of interesting and sometimes entertaining posts accumulated over the years

EYE ON BARRIE REAL ESTATE

A few words on Paint

2009-05-27T12:43:00.002-04:00

Taking a break for a few minutes from painting the basement apartment in the townhouse in preparation for the new tennant moving in in a few days. The old but once trendy burgandy is dissappearing behind a thick coat of primer taking it from the dark funeral parlor feel of the last ten years to a much brighter pastel yellow called "Harvest Wheat". Though the rooms will actually be slightly smaller after the primer and paint are done, they are looking much more spacious as they begin to brighten up.

There are too many colour choices if you ask me, especially if you asked me the question yesterday while I was stairing slightly glazed over at a wall of a hundred thousand or more paint chips with names that do nothing for the male of the species. For nearly 20 minutes I read off an endless collage of odd and edible names like Monroe Bisque, Buttered Ham and Spanish Olive and when the home depot girl asked me "can I help you" I forgot where I was for a second or two and almost ordered drinks.

It amazes me every time though how something as simple and cost effective as a fresh coat of paint can transform a space and bring a room up to date. One other thing I learned some time ago is there is no savings in selecting a cheaper brand of paint, brushes or rollers. You only end up doubling even tripling the labour time and effort for an inferior result. Get a quality brand of paint that is going to do the job well in one thick coat. Check the links below.......Back to work.

Blog Post : Paint by Numbers

Behr Paint

Benjamine Moore Paint

One often overlooked room that could sell your home

2009-05-25T00:35:00.008-04:00

Location , location, location. It might sell the neighbourhood but it wont necessarily sell your Barrie house. Your home needs some assets that will set it apart in its price range and make it stick in the minds of the potential Barrie buyers who will be visiting your and probably a half dozen or so other homes that day. We are taught that certain things will help to sell a home. An updated master bath with a soaker tub, a modern kitchen with higher end appliances and walk in closets are features that along with having your home well staged and clutter free will score it points with buyers who will be filing through to give it the once over.

If making gender specific remarks might get me in trouble then let me apologise here and now, as the rest of this article will be my observations over ten years as a Realtor of men and women and some of their differing home shopping behaviours. The above mentioned details of a home tend to catch the attention of the woman more so than the man in most instances. He is paying as much or more attention to her enthusiasm as to the home and if she is enthusiastic he will smile and follow along knowing her happiness is good for him too. If there is nothing about the home that appeals directly to him rather than saying so he is more likely to encourage the searching to continue and might make a couple “yes but” comments about the existing or potential faults such as the need for a new roof or windows, perhaps the lack of room in the driveway.

If there are at least one or two things about the home he sees that appeal to his testosterone driven needs such as a recroom hideaway, he will quietly continue to nod and smile, envisioning himself in the future picture possibly in front of a 60 inch big screen watching the super bowl half time show. Or maybe its the image of being surrounded by a dozen candles while in the corner soaker tub and Dianna Crawl playing softly in the background. I'd bet on the former to be safe.

There is one room in the house that is usually the last one to visit if at all. The garage. Typically the door is opened for five to ten seconds during a home showing. Everyone peeks in, the light is switched back off and they leave. On the few occasions I have had to show a home with a garage that even Jay Leno might approve of, the response is usually “honey why don't you go check out the bedrooms and those closets again, I’ll be in here” as he steps in and soaks it all in.

The last home like this I sold in 48 hours. It was only a single garage but it was insulated, had bright fluorescent tube lighting, a high wall mount heater and a rubberized painted flat grey floor. Across the back wall were black metal cabinets with stamped and chromed steel doors and a wall to wall work bench below. To finish it off was a beer fridge and a TV on a high wall bracket in the back corner. The owner had spent $500 on the cabinets, $400 on the foam insulation and $40 for the garage floor paint and for under $1000 dollars, turned the garage from a room likely to be overlooked into a big boy’s sanctuary making an older roof and windows things that could be dealt with.

You can spend $4000 or more on a new roof and three times that on new windows as part of your preparing to sell investments. These are all good things to make your home more saleable don’t get me wrong. At the very least you should stage your home and bring the interior finishing's up to date with paint and decent floors. My suggestion is instead of looking on the garage as the place to stack up all of your clutter while the sign is on the lawn, give some serious thought as to whether this might be the one room in your home that could set it apart from the competition and earn you back the expense and effort invested, a few times over.

This funny video emphasizes the point somewhat.

:: Celebrity Real Estate ::

2009-05-21T10:09:00.003-04:00

I just found this voyeuristic site and was disappointed though not surprised to not find my house listed amongst what has to be the biggest list of upper crust movers and shakers homes all gathered into one interactive site.

Some details on the properties and an aerial; shot of each of their humble abodes had me entranced for about 30 minutes last night and I barely made it from a to c. Must run, my gate keeper just called, my personal trainer has arrived.

http://www.celebrityaddressaerial.com/

5 Parkway Place Barrie

2009-05-12T16:24:00.012-04:00

PRIDE OF OWNERSHIP IS REFLECTED IN THIS HOME'S MANY RECENT UPDATES INCLUDING MODERN EAT IN KITCHEN WITH BAMBOO FLOORING, UPDATED BATH, FLOORS, FIXTURES, CUSTOM CROWN MOLDINGS & WINDOW CASINGS. GENEROUS SIZED BEDROOMS, FAMILY/THEATRE ROOM WITH FIREPLACE, VINYL WINDOWS THROUGHOUT. OUTFITTED AND HEATED GARAGE. PEACEFUL YARD WITH PATHWAYS AMONGST TREES AND NATIVE PERENNIAL GARDENS TIERED DECK ACCESSIBLE FROM TWO LEVELS. CLICK ON THE AUDIO LINK BELOW TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS GREAT HOME.

OFFERED FOR SALE AT $239900

SOLD

Mike and Shelley look at the Barrie spring 2009 mortgage and real estate market

2009-05-01T23:09:00.006-04:00

The credit crises in the US has opened up some opportunities for home buyers on this side of the border. Listen to what Barrie Mortgage Specialist Shelley Black has to say about financing and the great rates currently available to Barrie and area home buyers.

Barrie School information

2009-04-19T16:16:00.011-04:00

Schools are the number one consideration of Barrie Real Estate buyers with children.

The urban planning behind the City of Barrie has resulted in easy accessibility to schools and other community resources. Most of Barrie's elementary and secondary students live within walking distance of their schools. If you are interested in Barrie Real Estate and have school aged children, take a look at the interactive map and the list of Barrie and area elementary and secondary schools. Public bus services link all areas of Barrie to our Secondary schools and to Georgian College.

Simcoe County District School Board
"The mission of the Simcoe County District School Board, serving diverse growing urban and rural communities in the Huronia and Georgian Bay region, is to ensure students reach their full potential to become responsible and contributing members of an ever-changing global society through quality programs which develop the skills of lifelong learning in a safe, caring environment enhanced by community support"

Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board
"We are a dynamic, growing Catholic School Board offering boundless opportunities for personal growth. Our students have the liberty to become life long learners through our commitment to Catholic curriculum rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Through respect, dignity and understanding of each individual learning process we inspire our students to evolve into secure, confident and successful young adults"

The map link below will show you proximity of schools to areas of preference in planning your home purchase. Any further information on Barrie's education system I would be happy to provide for you.

Map of Barrie area School locations - (Interactive)

Keeping insects out of your home

2009-04-18T15:03:00.023-04:00

Suddenly it feels like spring in Barrie. The snow is gone, the days are longer. I've seen my first Robins and this morning I saw some lady bugs crawling along the railing of the back deck. I thought the following article written for Food & Home Magazine last year was worth re-post on the blog.

When I was growing up just south of Barrie in an area bordering the woods and surrounded by overgrown fields that would have inspired Mark Twain, bugs were fascinating little critters. We would spend entire summer days discovering and observing them. This was the Serengeti through the eyes of a curious 12 year old boy.

Flash ahead to the present; those woods and fields of south Barrie exist in memory only. Urban expansion has transformed my old stomping grounds into subdivisions and parkettes and if you can find a boy with a stick in his hand there's a good chance it’s attached to a video game console.

As a home owner making my small contribution toward urban sprawl I find I've become a little more territorial against the lowly bug. They were here long before any of us and will no doubt adapt to whatever environment we leave behind for them in time, but once we have staked our claim to a patch of land, there's no room in the plans for multi-legged critters.

Some bite, some sting; they buzz and chirp, burrow and tunnel, mulch and munch with more determination and strategy than a four star general. The best you can do in your war against them is try to eliminate the source of their attraction, secure your perimeter and attempt to eliminate the enemy with repellents and poisons. Allow your defences to weaken and they will be back.

You could easily fill an encyclopaedia on this topic, but for now let’s focus on recognizing and resolving some of the more common household pest problems.

First thing to do is identify and eliminate the potential ingress points bugs like to use. Ripped or missing screens, holes in brick mortar and poorly caulked gaps in window and door frames top the list. Take a close look around the house, and think like a bug. "How am I going to get inside?" A good temporary fix is to loosely stuff steel wool into these spaces which works especially well where wasps or hornets have found entry into walls or overhangs of the house.

To avoid ants keep the kitchen counters and sinks clean and the floors swept. Get some plastic containers for dry foods stored in cupboards. Aside from having the strength equivalent to you or I carrying a Lincoln Navigator on our backs, ants can smell a crumb from across the street and can text message thousands of their friends within seconds once they do.

Cover fruit bowls with plastic wrap to avoid fruit flies, and don’t allow food waste to ripen in the kitchen trash, or before you can say "There's a fly in my potato salad!" you will stumble upon a full blown indoor bug banquet in the trash bin.

Keep outside wood surfaces stained or painted and dry if possible to deter the many wood eating insects common to Ontario. Store fireplace wood outside and away from the house.

Lawns and gardens are home to many pests, although some insects actually contribute to your lawn's and garden’s health. It’s good to know which is which. There is an endless number of products and solutions, many of which are natural, to repel, deter, and/or eliminate common household pests.

Check out the web links below for starters. With a little research you can find tips and solutions that are right for your problems.

http://www.ontarioinsects.org/AboutInsects.htm#insects

http://www.pmra-arla.gc.ca

http://www.pioneerthinking.com/garden-pests.html

Barrie area Power of Sale

2009-04-17T23:51:00.010-04:00

A bitter reality of the economic changes we have been going through is the growing number of homes up for sale, repossessed by the lenders and listed under power of sale. At any time in the past ten years the number of power of sale listings registered through the Barrie and District Association of Realtors rarely climbed above three.

As of this afternoon the number of residential properties under power of sale was 42, down slightly from earlier this year. The opportunity for obtaining a property at the lower end of market value or less presents itself as it is in the best financial interest of the lenders in possession to unload the property and eliminate the costs and liabilities associated with having a home sit vacant for a long period of time.

Donald Trump spoke this week on a morning talk show about the opportunities that exist in the current market for those with the cash or leverage to take advantage.

If you would like to be notified of all existing power of sale properties registered through the BDAR as well as be notified instantly by email when new POS properties come onto the market then visit HotBarrieListings.com and enter your personal property preferences and in the comments field indicate “POS properties only”

Is your mortgage due for a tune up?

2009-04-17T18:55:00.016-04:00

How often to Barrie real estate owners think about their mortgage? Do you know your rate? Do you know when your term is up for renewal? Do you know what happens if you don't renew your mortgage? Many Canadians don't. It's no wonder when it comes time to renew a mortgage, many people fall into the auto renewal trap.

An Angus Reid survey, commissioned by ING Direct found that more than a quarter (27%)of Canadians with mortgages that have come up for renewal allowed their mortgages to automatically renew – meaning they didn't perform the same due diligence upon renewal as they did when they first got their mortgage. Letting your mortgage automatically renew often means you missed an opportunity to save money.

The same survey found that 40% of Canadians waited until 30 days or less before their closing date when they first applied or got pre-approved for their mortgage. Exhibiting the same behavior at renewal time leaves little time to exercise your options. Most big banks send out mortgage renewal letters around 30 days before you need to make a decision, which doesn't leave much time to negotiate or shop around for a better rate.

Canada's big banks also typically offer their posted rates to clients upon renewal. Their posted rates are about one per cent higher than what the average Canadian normally gets. On an average $200,000 mortgage with a five year fixed term, amortized over 25 years, a one per cent difference could save you roughly $10,000 in interest over that period (calculated using average current five year fixed rates of 4.24% verses 5.24%).

How to avoid the traps

• Know your options and exercise them. Remember that you are in control of your mortgage at renewal time, not your lender. It's your opportunity to make changes to your mortgage that will save you the most money over the long term.

• Don't wait until the mortgage renewal letter arrives in your mailbox. Pay attention to your mortgage term and when it's coming up for renewal. You can usually check your renewal date online.

• Start shopping around for rates at least 120 days before your mortgage comes up for renewal. Rate guarantees, offered by most banks, mean you will get the bank's lowest rate for a set period of time, usually 90 to 120 days, and if the rates go down during that period, you automatically still get the best rate.

• Savings may be realized in renewing before the end of your mortgage term given the historic lows rates have dropped to of late. Even after a penalty for early renewal some are finding their monthly payments drop by hundreds of dollars, more than making up for any fees imposed. Fees and penalties in most cases are tacked on to the new mortgage requiring no out of pocket expense to the borrower.

Knowing and avoiding these traps will help you take control of your mortgage and save your money. Book an appointment with your Mortgage rep and have them go over your mortgage to find out if you are getting the best deal available to you in the current market.

Preparing your Barrie home to sell

2009-04-15T12:58:00.013-04:00

Barrie has about 2000 homes for sale right now. Imagine standing in a crowd of 2000 people wondering what you could possibly do to stand out from the crowd?

Every seller wants their home to sell fast and fetch top dollar. Does that sound good to you? Well, it isn’t luck or chance that will get your home sold in a market saturated with listed properties. A well thought out plan and some professional know how on sprucing up your home is going to make it stand out from the 8 to 10 other properties a home buyer is likely to view in one weekend afternoon. Here are some good tips and examples of how to prepare a house and turn it into an irresistible and marketable home though the sale of the subject property for $20k over list is wishful thinking today and more reflective of that not long ago boom market.

2009 Canadian Residential Real Estate Market

2009-04-13T14:09:00.011-04:00

CREA President Cal Lindberg speaks on the 2009 Residential Real Estate Market in Canada

Mike's Website Review - How Realtor's Help - Canadian Real Estate Association

2009-04-13T01:27:00.017-04:00

HowRealtorsHelp.ca is a site for home buyers and sellers presented by the Canadian Real Estate Association containing some strait forward information for buyers and sellers. It contains tools for buyers and sellers, checklists for preparing to buy or sell and an interactive game "The Real Estate Challenge" to test your knowledge.

Simcoe County grants for first time home buyers

2009-04-12T15:37:00.014-04:00

The Federal and Provincial governments have provided the County of Simcoe with $1.026 million funding to provide down payment assistance to a minimum of 118 households under the Homeownership component of the Canada-Ontario Affordable Housing Program. The funding provides down payment assistance to moderate income individuals and families giving them the opportunity to move from rental accommodation to homeownership.

Applicant Eligibility
To be eligible for down payment assistance, the prospective purchaser must meet the following minimum criteria:
• Minimum age of 18 years with a gross household income below $62,800
• Total assets of the household cannot exceed $20,000
• Be a renter household in the County of Simcoe
• Purchase a sole and principal residence within the County of Simcoe
• Cannot own or have an interest in a house or land
• Be able to secure financing on the property
• Must not owe any social housing provider arrears
• Complete a Homeownership Application and provide all necessary documentation.
Unit Eligibility
• Maximum eligible house price of $208,000, located within Simcoe County
• Down payment assistance will be 5% of the cost of an eligible home under the
program to a maximum of $8,695
• Eligible homes include new or re-sale detached, semi-detached, town (condo and
freehold), stacked homes, row houses or apartment. Applicants purchasing re-sale
homes must provide a copy of a home inspection undertaken at the homeowners

for more information please visit: Canada-Ontario Affordable Housing Program

RRSP withdraw limit for home purchase raised

2009-04-12T15:26:00.010-04:00

Canada’s Economic Action Plan addresses something myself and members of the Realtor’s Political Action Committee have been pushing government for for a few year now.

The Feds have finally increase the RRSP withdraw amount from $20,000 to $25,000 to purchase a home. Additionally the recent budget adds as much as $750 in tax relief for closing costs.“.The Home Buyers’ Plan introduced by Canada’s government allows first-time home buyers to withdraw from a RRSP to purchase or build a home. Budget 2009 increases the limit to $25,000 from $20,000 for withdrawals after January 27, 2009. As well, first-time home buyers can also benefit from up to $750 in tax relief on closing costs.
For more information please visit: http://www.budget.gc.ca/2009/

Can't afford healthy foods? Move to Barrie

2009-04-11T18:06:00.008-04:00

Megan Ogilvie TORONTO STAR Feb 10, 2009
HEALTH REPORTER

Filling your shopping cart with fresh fruits, green veggies and whole grains in Barrie will net you bigger savings than an identical trip through the grocery store in Toronto, St. Catharines or Hamilton.

A new report found "startling discrepancies" in the cost of basic healthy food at grocery stores across Canada – and across the GTA – a sign that healthy eating is out of reach for many Canadians.

More about buying Healthy foods in Barrie

Mike’s website review - SmartMoves.ca

2009-04-11T11:36:00.014-04:00

Every year tens of thousands across Canada undertake an activity that will traumatize most of them. Yes that’s right, moving.

This trauma is greatly reduced when you have an organized plan of attack and a clear strategy. One of the least likely sources for straightforward and nerve calming advice on the topic is Canada Post who have a website that covers pretty much every aspect of the big move from preparation tips and downloadable checklists to completing your change of address and notifying utility and service providers from the comfort of your computer. The site is called Smart Moves and I highly recommend you have a look and add it to your favourite bookmark list.

SmartMoves

:: The Barrie spring Real Estate market

2009-04-07T10:33:00.032-04:00

The weather in the first week of April is as confused as the Robins and those optimistic drivers who took their snow tires off in March.

The Real Estate market has been about as predictable as the weather has been over the past year. Finally the buzz around my office has returned and my cohorts can once again look you strait in the eye without their voices going up two octaves when they reply on being asked "how's things going?"

It is getting busy once again.

Buyers have left the den, seen their shadows, yes and more importantly they are seeing mortgage rates are at record lows and the neighbourhoods are thick with an abundance of listed properties containing anxious vendors waiting for an offer to come to them.
Average prices are down over last spring and this spring's market is the first one in a dozen or so years where the buyer is in control at the negotiating table. (click links below for detailed statistics)

Now is the time to begin the hunt if you are planning a summer time change of address. If you are serious about a move, go to HotBarrieListings.com and start receiving instant updates on newly listed properties that match your custom search criteria.

After a long hibernation I am well rested and ready to help you buy your new home. Give me a call.

MLS® Statistics

Employment Trends

Interest Rate Changes

Consumer Confidence

Migration

:: Barrie Real Estate: 2009 = Buying opportunities ::

2009-01-02T10:23:00.058-05:00

2009 holds opportunity for buyers

If there has been a time over my nine years working as a Realtor where the home buying public has had a financial advantage I can say with absolute certainty it is now and over the course of the next few months.

A snap shot of the Barrie area real estate market and the economy in this first week of 2009 shows us a higher number of greatly reduced property prices than at any time in the past ten years. Many of the homes I see for sale have been listed for months and as shown in the examples below continue to lower their prices every few weeks in the hopes of finding a willing purchaser.
Many are selling out of necessity over choice which for the buyer means their is additional room to negotiate prices down even further than the reduced list prices shown.

The efforts of our government to stimulate the economy has given us greatly reduced lending rates which right now are sitting lower than the average of the past ten years. This translates into lower monthly mortgage payments and a greater portion of your monthly payment going toward the principle that pays down the house.
2008 saw record numbers of resale homes listed for sale in Barrie, lower list vs... sale price ratios and longer list to sell times. Many homes that were pulled from the market in the weeks before Christmas will re-emerge on the market over the next few months in what is traditionally the high volume time of year. In short we are likely to see even greater numbers of homes for sale in the Barrie area between now and the end of spring which will keep the balance of negotiating power in the hands of the buyers.

It is entertaining somehow to watch the hordes who will line up in sub zero temperatures to save $50 to $100 off of a TV or computer component at the Boxing day sales each year or will burn $2 worth of fuel while lined up to save 2 cents per litre on a tank of gas.Right now the real estate climate is such that those people could effectively save themselves many tens of thousands of dollars on a home right now. Translated into bargain hunter lingo; enough coin to buy a new flat screen TV and a few full tanks of gas every year for the next twenty five years if they take advantage of the home buying opportunities available this year.

List price January 2008
$339900
Current list price
$299000

List price June 2008
$349000
Current list price
$299000

List price April 2008

$389900
Current list price
$312000

List price April 2008
$324900
Current list price
$259900

Subscribe to HotBarrieListings.com and be kept up to the minute on new listings. (never a line up)

You will also receive email alerts when prices are reduced on active listings that match your search criteria.

Barrie 2009 Market forecast
Best time to step up during a market correction

:: Divided we fall ::

2008-12-13T12:24:00.018-05:00

To all who work within or are dependent on income from someone employed by the automobile industry in one capacity or another, my sincere sympathies to you and your families on the current state of economic affairs we find ourselves in.

I liked nothing more in better times than hearing news that a plant was expanding or that a new car, truck or parts plant was coming to a town in Ontario or anywhere else for that matter. It signified to me that our economy was healthy and steaming along and people were financially confident enough to be buying new cars and new employment opportunities were being generated as a result.

I would be a hypocrite if I did not express at the same time the equal sympathy due to those in the construction industry. The men and women who surveyed, cleared and graded the land, created the forms and poured the foundations, welded the steel frames and attached the aluminum outer shell. who designed and built the interior framing and installed the electrical, heating and pluming systems, tarred the roof and hung, taped and painted the drywall. Those who fabricated, warehoused and delivered the building materials and anyone else who gave their sweat blood and toil to the construction of those buildings that house the people who work in the automobile industry and who build all of our homes stores aand offices and by their own hands created the skylines of our towns and cities.

Most of the above mentioned workers and many more are feeling the impact to their ability to earn a living from the economic slowdown we are in. Many find themselves having to put off the purchase or lease a new vehicle given the current economy and I know this directly impacts upon the automobile industry. It is a delicate system our economy, much like in nature if one species is negatively affected it is not isolated to them, it spreads throughout the ecosystem.

New construction is down considerably in the past two years which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of layoffs in our construction industry over the past 12 months. Not headline news somehow but significant news to each of these workers and their families none the less. The impact to each of them and their families is as real and as significant as is for the families dependant on the automobile industry for their food and shelter. If the automobile industry and those it employs are worthy of a financial helping hand from the government, in fact from all of us, so then are the construction workers and anyone else who’s livelihood is or will be impacted. The very same economic changes pressuring the automobile industry to adjust its production to pre boom capacities once again are forcing others employed in the province of Ontario to do the same.

I worked in construction for eighteen years prior to becoming a real estate agent. The Sky Dome, Toronto Airport Terminal 2, Scotia Bank Plaza, Metro Convention Centre and Roy Thompson Hall are a few of the projects I was involved with. About this time every year, a week or two before Christmas a job foreman would call the workers together and hand out our pay checks. This was a standard Thursday afternoon routine only you knew that on one of those Thursdays in the few weeks prior to Christmas there was likely a pink slip rendering you unemployed, usually until sometime in March or April. Ask anyone you know within the industry how familiar that sounds. During the recession of the early nineties there were more unemployed than working construction workers in Ontario.

I struggle to see how people working in the automobile industry hold separate status above all skilled workers in Ontario. I do not in any way undervalue what they do, I only point out that what they do and what happens when they are no longer required to do it, is not exclusive to them in this province or anywhere else.

To everyone who gets out of bed and trades a piece of themselves for the food on their table, the roof over their head and the education of their children, union or non union, regardless of your title, I wish you the best of the season and remain hopeful that 2009 will see us moving in the direction of recovery.

Interesting Read: Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life

:: I qualify: Therefore I am ::

2008-12-12T11:50:00.024-05:00

Consumption on a per capita level in the United States and Canada has grown in our lifetimes reaching a point within the last ten years that could be considered glutinous. If nothing else it certainty has proved to be unsustainable as we are witnessing in our economy

You cant just blame consumer society for this. It has been instilled into us from birth through marketing. Our sense of self worth and the value of life in general is dictated to us. From the growing numbers of glossy weekend news paper inserts to magazine, television and radio advertising. Where ever we go, our landscape is overwhelmed by media marketing. I can't even stand at a public urinal, a mans most solitude moment, without being face to face with an ad telling me what I need to do next after I zip up in order to add the value that is missing from my life.

Not only is consumption pushed on us, we are massaged by it and subconsciously forced to compete with ourselves and compare ourselves with our peers by the messages within. We are so inundated with bits and blurbs of what we are missing and what life can be if we choose this or that. It has us blinded to the here and now and has us living in a perpetual state of motion towards some consumer nirvana that lies just out of reach.

You can't be without satellite radio when they offer the first three months free. You can't refute the zero down zero interest for twelve month terms on the new car to replace the perfectly functional three year old car. Especially now that it is dated according to media determined society standards. Your home is incomplete without the don't pay anything till 2009 hot tub you will use only six times a year and even that is incomplete without the time share or cruise package that Marcy and Jim told us about.

I qualify: therefore I am. That should be the catch phrase to symbolize the last decade.

Well the rubber has now met the road and the financial slack with the carrot on the end is being reeled in. There is a contraction taking place and it needed to happen.
What I think is going to and is already happing as a result is reassessment of our material values for many. A new mass mindset where society will dictate less on what I drive, my car works fine thank you very much and I am quite comfortable with my four blade razor, I don't need to move up to the new six blade Gillette decapitator.

I don't need ten more separate twenty nine dollar a year Internet programs and services and that latest terabyte hard drive, though it rolls off the tongue nicely and does get my ram flowing, it really makes no sense when I have barely filled even half of my current hard drive.

I might even start to buy my groceries based on what I can consume thereby throwing out less and reducing the number of condiment jars in my refrigerator by twenty or thirty. I will learn to be content for more than a year with my current television, cell phone and digital camera regardless of the technological advances the next year brings and as hard as it will be, I will come away from Costco having purchased only the items I came for.

People are beginning to take a breath and starting to allow practical logic to govern their purchasing behavior once again. As they do they will find that not only can they manage but they will realize their financial health is stronger than it has ever been. Business is tweaked right now to keep production in pace with the demand of the consumer junkies we have become and the next few years will continue to be a period of adjustment.

It will run contrary to those of us within the Real Estate industries expectations of the past ten years as well, with people learning to value their homes in a manor our parents and grand parents once did as we begin to see a house as more than an investment or financial leverage tool.

People are going to trade up less often as a result but it will also mean that many, many more who are learning to act with more fiscally responsibility and live within their means rather than their credit card limits are soon going to be in a position to buy into the real estate market. Millions who otherwise would never have learned to save a down payment or build a credit rating will become purchasers of real estate over the next few years. I think this will more than compensate.

:: Barrie Real Estate 2009 Market forecast ::

2008-12-07T09:36:00.033-05:00

Discussing the highs and lows of the year as it draws to a close along with preparing plans of action for the next year's market are annual rituals of the Realtor. Another is attempting to forecast the Real Estate market for the coming year in so far as how it will financially enhance or impact on all of us. No one has the crystal ball (snow globe?) that can predict the next year's market with 100 % accuracy but some amongst us are better than others at reading the signs and interpreting the past and present to project on what is to come .

2008 in review
From early in 2008 a suspicion (at least amongst many Realtors) began to manifest itself that home prices which had risen with consistency for each of the previous eight years were beginning to look like they were hitting a plateau.
People moving to Barrie and continuing to work primarily in the GTA have always made up a significant portion of new buyers but prices had increased to a point where in addition to the dramatic increases in gas prices, many of these home buyers were opting to either buy a lesser home or condo within the GTA while others have stayed out of the market completely in 2008.

We also began to see an easing back on price increases for the first time since the early part of the "new millennium". As a result fewer existing home owners were seeing the year over year equity increases that has instilled the confidence in previous years to cash in and buy into a higher priced home now within reach. The trading up buzz was gone and people were instead sitting tight and the lure of the bigger home fell into remission.

Homes typically beyond the average 1st time buyer range ($275,000 and up) were starting to take longer to sell as a result and by early summer record numbers of listings in this price category were accumulating. With this, the shift from a seller controlled market to a buyer controlled market had taken hold. The gap between list price and final sale price on homes over $275000 was growing, further evidence that we were now into a buyer's market.
In spite of the signs, home owners were slow to accept that for the first time in a few years their home did not increase by a five figure amount over last year and in fact may have even decreased some in value over the past 12 months. It was also an adjustment period for many Realtors who got caught up in the whims of ambitious vendors and found themselves saddled with stagnant listings that languished on the market indefinitely only to expire, and often reappear under the banner of another overly anxious Realtor.

One of many examples of market denial amongst sellers this year occurred for me in a listing presentation this spring where a couple insisted on my listing their home for $25,000 more than I had determined it to be worth telling me they had talked to other agents and one of them was willing to list at the price they wanted.

I told them shopping around for a Realtor who agrees to take an over valued listing is much like shopping around for a doctor until you find one who tells you you are at your ideal weight.

It is only in the last quarter of 2008 that the realities of how the overall economy is affecting home values and sales volumes has started to take hold on the majority of Barrie area home owners.
Consumer confidence on the whole went for a slide in 2008 mainly due to uncertainly at a global level in the economy especially during this later half of 2008. We now live in an age of competing 24 hour cable news channels that have created killer bee like colonies of financial experts available to the news networks 24/7. In previous periods of economic challenge, a few minutes of the 30 minute evening news and a blurb in the morning paper kept us as aware as we needed to be on the economy. Today the constant drone of doom and gloom is hard to escape.

The good news is - good news is likely to become a marketable media commodity once again in the new year and the emergence of a fresh (and potentially intelligent) government in the US will certainly account for a major part of that mind shift.The year will finish up with about 400,000 home sales Canada wide (down 15%) and with overall home prices down 3% nationally with a further 2% drop anticipated before prices begin to rebound. In Barrie the impact on price has again been mainly in the over $27500 range with average detached home prices below that mark actually rising slightly over last year.

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2009 Predictions

Looking forward to 2009 we should begin to see stability returning to our economy here in Canada while south of the border there are greater depths to climb back from that will take them longer and continue to be reflected in their real estate economy. Demand for homes locally is off though less than in many regions of the country, and certainly not by enough to produce further price drops of any real significance through out the next year, at least not in the first time buyer price range. CMHC does predict that buyers will continue to have the balance of the negotiating strength tipped in their favour for at least the next year.

Anyone selling in 2009 can find comfort in knowing that even with the present economic uncertainty, their property is still likely to sell at a higher price than it would have at any other point in the past 15 years. As for what 2009 means for buyers, you have the negotiating strength and there will continue to be increased inventory to select from as in 2008. The number of good purchasing opportunities is high and betting on the likelihood of bargains similar to stories of buyers grabbing homes in parts of the States for half price is a long shot at best, now or at any time in the future here in Barrie. Barrie will remain one of the Provinces targeted municipalities for growth over the next twenty years.

There is allot of trepidation amongst potential home buyers, uncertain as to if and when to buy and for them I offer this advice; When it becomes clear to the masses that the market is on the rebound there will be a sudden flood of buyers who have been holding back. The ensuing frenzy will quickly shift the negotiating strength back to the seller when that happens. The main thing to consider if buying is in your plans; There wont be a better opportunity within the next five years to buy a home than what next year is going to offer.

;; When should Barrie home buyers step up?

2008-11-24T16:57:00.029-05:00

Buy low, sell high, the universal principle of investment and if it were as simple to implement as it sounds we would all be reaping the rewards.

The real skill is in best determining where the bottom of any market is before it passes by and it takes a few months of steady value increases to know we have hit it. It also lies in having the confidence to step up.

The logic one needs to apply is really no different than that used by a practical shopper in Wal Mart. When an item you have wanted goes on sale you snap it up, you don't shy away from it because the price has dropped. Perhaps if the headlines you've been seeing for the last six months read "Sweater market in trouble" then shopping for sweaters at any price tends to become an unnerving experience. That is exactly what happens in Real Estate and the media hyperbole typically overwhelms the opportunities lying within.

You can wait until the eventual upswing confirms the bottom has come and gone but by then the sense of urgency is returning to the real estate market and the squeamish have become frenzied buyers once again taking to the streets to stake their claims. Vendors quickly become aware that the negotiating control they lacked when prices were stagnant or heading south has now shifted back over to them.

Ok, so where are we now on that curve? Have we hit the bottom yet?

In Ontario and much of Canada over the better part of the last year demands for housing have softened. The biggest factor is the down shift in consumer confidence brought on by what we are seeing in the United States, and to a lesser degree here at home. It is a self fulfilling prophesy. The news tonight interviewed a couple in the mall and asked if they will be spending as much this Christmas. The answer was a resounding "no, the economy is too unstable." Meanwhile they stated their employment situation is unchanged. They and everyone are paying far less for gas and heating fuel than a year ago. Chances are they are in better financial shape all around than last November but the mood has changed.

Responsible spending within our means is taking hold, what will we do? Less spending and less borrowing to spend means fewer goods need to be produced by companies that expanded to accommodate a boom without any thought to it ending at some point. Now companies are downsizing to adjust and unemployment numbers are on the rise. The local widget plant is laying off 200 workers and when we see it on the six o’clock news our consumer confidence drops a little bit more and so on….

At some point when we begin to sense things are stabilizing the media hype shifts to everything is rosy mode. Stories on new and expanding businesses, profit gain and closing bell increases on the stock market get people excited and they start to spend their money and up their visa limits once again. New housing starts increase and we all do our happy dance spending and buying for a few more years. Donald Trump and Warren Buffett probably read Marshal McLuhan's works.

In the US it isn't quite that simple. More than just confidence has shaken their financial foundation. Their experiment with high risk lending has put them into a situation that will take a couple years at least to correct. Hopefully measures will be put in place to assure it can’t happen again, measures like we have here in Canada already that regulate lending practices.

Right now in the Barrie area, home sales are down; the number of active listings continues to accumulate with the inventory of resale home listings at record highs. Residential real estate prices on properties under the $250,000 mark have held their value and for the most part, continued to climb during the past year, all be it at a slower rate than in each of the previous eight years.

The under $250,000 range has been the most active for sales over the past year in the Barrie area. This is the price range most first time home buyers default to where carrying costs remain within range of what they were comfortable with paying in rent. In each of the next few higher $50,000 ranges the percentage of total sales drops lower and the gap between initial asking price and the percentage of initial list price received on sales drops as well the higher you go. A combination of factors is challenging sales in the above $300,000 range, The first and most obvious is higher carrying costs and tighter qualifying requirements. A wave of fiscal and environmental conscience has started to effect the housing industry the same way it has impacted on the auto industry. The Hummer is out, the Prius is in.

During the housing boom we just came through you saw a return to low interest rates that allowed many the opportunity to buy their first home. Builders responded in kind with record numbers of new home starts in most years. Many of these people bought townhouses or lower end homes being what they could afford, then within a year or two these buyers realized their home had appreciated by $25,000 to $50,000 and they now qualified for more and had equity to trade up into a bigger and better home with little perceived impact on their monthly budget. (One more entry level home for the market and the next first time buyer and one more buyer for the higher end market homes being churned out as fast as the land could be cleared.) That cycle has slowed and most who bought their first home in the past couple years are sitting tight and many who bough a higher end home in the last few years are looking to sell and find something more affordable. Those higher end homes are taking longer and longer to sell and are accumulating to record levels in and around Barrie and other Ontario communities.

Homes over $300,000 could drop more in price before we see a levelling off and a climb once again. This could take another year or so. Home buyers whose price range is under $300,000 are less likely to see average prices drop much if at all any time soon. What buyers have in their favour right now is a slower market where the urgency of the seller often translates into substantial dollars saved off the list price through negotiation. (This is where your Realtor proves their worth.)

A home listed for $250,000 today could possibly be had for $235,000 to $240,000, maybe less after some back and forth bargaining. Once the market is in full recovery mode the seller is more likely to guard the list price, confident that demand will bring other buyers willing to pay more.

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Questions to ask yourself;

Are homes in the price range I am interested in more like to go up or down over the next year? How much more? Am I going to save anything by waiting a year? Are interest rates more likely to go up or down if I wait a year? Will negotiating strength work for or against me a year from now?

The fact is interest rates are low and pressure will likely take them even lower in the coming months. Negotiating strength still lies with the buyers due to the abundance of active listings and a hesitant buying public most of which to their own disadvantage will not step into the market until it heats up again. It is a good time if you are buying your first home. First time buyers are benefiting well from our current market conditions.

As I said in a previous post. Stop reading the paper and watching CNN and spend some of that time looking at the nice thick catalogue of homes for sale.

:: Barrie Ontario: My Home Town ::

2008-11-22T10:40:00.018-05:00

Written for CBC Radio`s Vinyl Cafe program & featured in Reader's Digest Our Canada magazine march 2009

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Barrie is my home town. It’s the town I nervously wandered away from early in the eighties right after high school in pursuit of knowledge and abundant riches laying in wait elsewhere in the world and it is the town I returned to once again some eighteen years later.

I never knew at the time exactly what it was that drew me back to Barrie but in the eight years since returning I have been slowly figuring it out. I quickly learned as most do who come back to their home town years later, that the place I left existed for the most part now, only in my memories and if I had matured during my absence, so then had Barrie.

The woods and fields that border Barrie’s outer most edges were at one time the equivalent of the Serengeti, at least through the curious eyes of a 12 year old boy. Wooded ravines and overgrown fields where we spent most of our endless summer days as children catching frogs and snakes, flicking grasshoppers into spider webs, upsetting ant hills, building precariously placed tree swings and forts from materials absconded from building sites and on at least one occasion in the woods I recall making ourselves physically sick smoking stale cigars my still best friend Stan swiped from his dad’s top dresser drawer. We tried washing away the acrid taste with a concoction of gin, rye whiskey, and various liqueurs poured in presumably undetected amounts into a mason jar from bottles in my mothers liquor stash.

That stage where I played out my childhood has been replaced over time with manicured lawns, paved driveways and in ground pools amongst seemingly endless rows of subdivision homes. The pond that was sacred to us where we once caught turtles and tadpoles in is now a large rectangular cement lined water reservoir surrounded by seven foot high chain length fence and tucked into the back corner of a subdivision of over three hundred homes.

The dance the mind does between past and present is never more energized as it becomes when driving through the stomping grounds of your long ago youth. I can’t possibly be the only one who while waiting for the traffic light to change at Big Bay Point Road and Yonge Street, has squinted for a brief moment in the direction of the Zehrs mega grocery store while mentally envisioning the old farm house and barn that once stood abandoned and alone at this corner against a backdrop of fields line with 100 year old maple and oak trees evenly separated by field stones piled three or four feet high over decades.

The wooded areas along the old creek bed itself still exist and on a revisit a quarter century after my last walk through those woods I was taken aback to see that the well worn paths that are still clearly etched into my memory were now undistinguishable and over grown in contradiction with the reality that the youth population of the area had more than tripled along with the number of schools in the area since I left.

The intrigue of nature to young boys exists no more apparently and if you spot a kid with a stick in his hands today it is more likely to be attached to a video game console in a family room than a tree in the woods. I can not imagine technology has or ever will be able to create a virtual electronic conquest that could replicate the instantaneous adrenaline rush a boy feels on hearing an encroaching freight train whistle while standing at the halfway point across a two hundred foot long, forty foot high trestle such as the one that was part of our extended route home when pop and chips were not staple items in the family kitchen but were the reward at the end of a mile long walk to the store that often filled entire Saturday afternoons for me and my friends.

What has remained unchanged in Barrie is the sense of community that is unfelt in bigger cities I have lived in. I can’t exactly put a finger on it except to call it a spirit that underlies the conversations overheard in our stores, coffee shops and bank lines. It is an intangible energy that gives ease to connecting and conversing with the people around you who you may not exactly know by face or by name. It is much like the connection one experiences while away on vacation on learning the person next to you is from your home town or province. It’s the sense that things we share are more profound than things separating us at any moment. It is also the feeling that events and changes covered in the pages of the local news paper have in part happened to you. A sense of belonging and significance again not available somehow to the masses living in large metropolises that extend beyond their own horizons but unique to cities and towns who’s edges fall within walking distances.

Politically Barrie can best be compared to a teenage boy clumsily adjusting to its ever growing feet and constant need for bigger shoes and longer pants. Growth spurts that have taken Barrie from the town of 36000 I left in 1982 to what I hesitate to call a metropolitan city of just over 130000 today. Those who step up to the municipal task of representing Barrie tend not to be motivated out of personal gain, and typically meet with the challenges of a rapidly rising population and expanding borders with diligence and consideration for Barrie’s roots and the image it presents to all who live within and visit her.

Barrie is a town where you are as apt to run into a past or present NHL hockey player as you are your own neighbours while out buying your groceries and when you do the back and forth conversation flows freely as once again, the Barrie spirit cares not which end of the gene pool you may flow from.

In Barrie we curse the first snowfall then quickly forgive it the very next day for we are at the heart of some of the best skiing, both downhill and cross country and our outlying regions are weaved together by countless numbers of snowmobile trails that can take you hundreds of miles in almost any direction. When Kempenfelt Bay finally freezes up to an adult body weight supporting thickness some time after Christmas, Barrie gains a new back yard and playground for a couple months. A vast plain of white, peppered with hikers, skiers, snowmobilers and hundreds, perhaps thousands of ice fishing huts hunkered together in mini villages, no two alike in design or colour. Like little forts for grown men hiding themselves away for endless hours and giving rise to the expression “Give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he’ll sit in a plywood box in the middle of a lake and drink beer all day”.

This same bay plays host spring, summer and early fall to drifting sail boats and the pleasure crafts of the cottagers who line Lake Simcoe or who travel to the lake from the Trent Severn waterway. They move about in every direction leaving crisscrossing wakes and a horizon splashed with coloured sails carving their way through the warm summer wind. Around the bay’s edges, our clean swimmable beaches are busy with sun seekers and splashing children, the waterside paths and parks, active with bikers and bladders runners and walkers, stoopers and scoopers. From May through October hardly a weekend passes without a festival alongside of Barrie’s shoreline offering up the wafting smells and smoky tastes of great outdoor cooked summer foods, live jazz, rock, blues and country music , open air theatre, fireworks, crafts and antique markets. The geography surrounding Barrie provides for some of the finest golfing this country has to offer on dozens of challenging courses. On hot summer nights the downtown stretch of Dunlop Street in Barrie takes on a Mardi Gras like feel as nocturnal pleasure seekers attired to attract move between the clubs and bars filling the summer air with cologne, perfume and pheromones until the early morning hours.

This is Barrie in a nutshell. For me there was never a greater time or place to grow up than Barrie in the seventies and eighties as a tail end baby-boomer kid. Yes much of what I have stated here about Barrie past and present may well describe other similarly sized cities and experiences across Canada but only one holds the distinction of being at the centre of my own universe.

:: Why is Bob Dylan standing in my driveway? ::

2008-11-12T14:33:00.017-05:00

I suppose when the home you live in is the childhood home of someone who went on to achieve celeb status in the world you expect the occasional gawker stopping out front to ponder or snap a picture.

If you are John Kiernan of Winnipeg Manitoba you have grown used to this as his home is the home musician Neil Young lived in as a teen ager. While his father Scott Young was pounding out sports stories to meet his deadlines with the Globe and Mail and Sports Illustrated upstairs Neil was honing his talents and unique vocal styles in the basement with his high school band The Squires.

On Monday John looked out his front window to see a cab in the drive and his wife talking to a couple guys he did not immediately recognize, one of which looked a bit out of place for Winnipeg in November. Decked in designer leather pants and cowboy boots the one guy did start to look familiar as he approached him, then when it hit him, he realized he was face to face standing in his driveway with non other than Bob Dylan.

What does one do? Of course he invited Bob and his manager in to look through the house. “How long do you have for the tour?” Kiernan asked, meaning the tour of the house. Dylan replied: “We’re touring for another two weeks.”

Dylan had many questions, particularly while viewing Neil’s old bedroom now painted pink for Johns 16 year old daughter. “OK, so this was his view, and this was where he listened to his music.” He quipped and he soaked it in.

No doubt as he made his way through the house, Bob Dylan was aware of his own parallel experiences growing up in the same era in Hibbing Minnesota, outside of Duluth and about 350 miles to the south west, sitting in his room, listening to his music, looking out his window.” “He was introspective and thoughtful,” Kiernan said. “He had an interest in music beyond himself.”"