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Expert advice, market reports, and tips from the Niagara Region real estate professionals.
In today’s newsletter I’m going to cover an area where I am personally deficient. That comes under the heading of repair and renovation, and specifically asks, what degree of quality should be used to rectify problems as they occur.
One of the biggest benefits to purchasing your own home is the ability to build equity in your property. This equity can come in handy down the line for refinancing, renovations, or taking out additional loans - such as a second mortgage.
Fraud! It seems to be more prevalent every day. Bank fraud. Identity theft. Social media scams. Mortgage Fraud. Schemes to take your money for goods and/or services that will never appear or be performed. As a result, defense mechanisms are springing up that make our life more complicated but at the same time more secure.
The recent Ontario court case of Drumonde v. Spellay, 2025 ONSC 3221 highlights critical issues for families inheriting cottages. After their mother’s death, three siblings disputed the fate of a family cottage. The Will intended the property to remain in the family, allowing siblings to opt out for $5,000. The defendant sibling, who lived there year-round for 22 years and covered expenses and upkeep, opposed a sale and offered the $5,000 buyouts per the Will. The applicant siblings wanted to force the sale of the cottage under the Partition Act, arguing that the cottage should not have been converted into a principal residence for their siste
If this year follows the pattern of the past couple of years, we can expect a continued strengthening of market dynamics, both with respect to average price and also with unit sales right up to the end of June. But then a tapering off of both on to the end of the year. So, let’s take a look at May’s stats and see if that is what is happening
Square footage. It’s an important parameter in real estate. Both in residential and in commercial. In residential, square footage is an important factor when it comes to computing value. You see two properties on the market. Both 3 bedroom bungalows. All things being equal: location, condition, amenities.
Shakespeare might have thought ‘to be or not to be’ was the ultimate question, but he wasn’t living in 2025 trying to minimize bank fees and interest charges while maximizing financial returns—and having to pay $9 for a clamshell of raspberries. This month, we’re tackling a modern dilemma: ‘Should I get a variable or fixed rate on my mortgage?’ Not as poetic, but way more practical. Let’s dive in.
Whenever an Agent, whether newly licensed or veteran, interviews with us to see what RE/MAX Garden City Realty Inc. has to offer, the discussion soon reverts to culture. Every real estate firm can provide an Agent with a business card, a sign, and a phone. All an Agent really needs. But each firm has its unique claim to fame as it were. Ours is our culture. You spend a significant chunk of your life at work. We want to be sure when our Agents walk through the front door it feels like home. The atmosphere is positive, supportive and inviting. And the key to our achieving that is our amazing support staff. From the front reception, through all departments like marketing, social media, technology and management right to our back office administration, they get it! Our Agents are our clients and we’re here to serve them.
In Ontario, purchasing a home is often the largest investment you’ll ever make. Yet, even after diligent inspections, some problems-known as latent defects-may not reveal themselves until after you’ve moved in. Latent defects are hidden flaws not discoverable through a standard visual inspection. In this example we will consider electrical issues concealed behind walls, including outdated knob and tube wiring.
Whenever we sit down to review the numerical sales data, month by month and year by year, we always look to see if there are any trends evident. I speak here both in terms of number of unit sales and also average residential sale price. And then we ask ourselves the question – “Why did this happen?”. What we are trying to do, of course, is extrapolate out and thus predict what will happen in the months ahead. We primarily follow unit sales and average residential sales prices. As I’ve said before, I don’t particularly track new listings coming in, because these numbers are unreliable. They include properties that expire and are re-listed as well as listings that are re-serviced. So, while available inventory is a useful barometer, new listings are not.
Last issue we took a look at commercial investments and saw how they stacked up compared to residential rentals. And, we saw there were a lot of advantages for the commercial landlord. Not just in removing him from the oppressive control of the Residential Tenancies Act. But also, huge advantages when it came to cash flow and return on investment. Chiefly because many, if not most commercial tenancies are what we call ‘carefree net leases for the landlord’ or TRIPLE NET LEASES. Simply put, this means that all the expenses typically associated with rentals and borne by the residential landlord are passed on to the tenant in commercial situations.