fbpx

Utilities Transfer Information

Ok, so you’re just about to close on your home purchase or sale, what do you do for the utilities? Does it just magically get setup for you? Maybe, or maybe not ;^)

Property tax bills should be moved to the new owner, generally done by the city or your lawyer on closing.

Here’s additional information:

Read More

Talking Ottawa Real Estate with Rob & Dan

Rob and Dan Discuss Ottawa Real Estate, Cars, The Glebe, Centretown, Old Ottawa South, Old Ottawa East, Mechanicsville, Westboro, Hintonburg, real estate Statistics, the Rideau Canal and NCC, Suggestions for First Time Home Buyers and a whole bunch of other great real estate info.

Be sure to subscribe to the newsletter on the right for real estate related updates.

First-Time Home Buyer Incentive UPDATE

 

According to CMHC-SCHL the Government of Canada just released several tools and resources to help with the First-Time Home Buyer Incentive program.

These include:

1/ the product highlight sheet (PDF)

2/ the online calculator on the government website

3/ all about the program on the government website

4/ all about the process on an awkward government website, that may or may not work for you

 

Possibly, the most important question is how the “loan” is paid back. According to a quick review of provided info, you can pay back the full loan if you want at any time. If you sell the home you need to pay back as a percentage of the sale price.

For example, you “borrowed” 10% of value of a new home. When you sell you must pay the government of Canada 10% of the sale price, whether value went up or down.

For resale (not new) homes the max is 5% of value.

Why not borrow the full amount you can, and then if value goes up a lot, pay off the full loan just prior to selling? Not yet clear how this would be handled.

I expect there will be MANY more questions about the process and requirements. It really doesn’t seem like the government thought this program through…but it does line up nicely for a fall election.

There is no doubt that first time buyers are finding it MUCH harder to buy a home in the Ottawa market. Hopefully this program will help in a meaningful way.

Why is it so confusing to google real estate listings?

The 2 most accurate ways to get information about a real estate listing are to:

1) Look it up on Realtor.ca (also known as MLS.ca)

2) Go directly to the listing agent/brokerage’s website, if you know it.

Google’s search algorithms are always changing and you never know what you will see when you search in Google. It’s confusing.

Stay tuned for my upcoming email explaining how real estate listings are distributed on the internet.

First Steps to Home Buying

How to buy the BEST possible home

 

Buying a home may initially seem daunting but following these steps can help to simplify the process.  I see many first time buyers unsure of how to begin searching for a home and these are the tips I give them.

Read More

Progressive Organizations and Charities

Canadian Election coming soon, this is an invite to Progressive Organizations and Charities that may need short term offices, meeting rooms and hot seats to come have a look at the 25OneCommunity space at 251 Bank Street.

More info and photos: HERE!