Hausse des taux d'intérêt: l'échéance se rapproche | Rudy Le Cours | Canada

Hausse des taux d'intérêt: l'échéance se rapproche Rudy Le Cours Canada

Protecting your privacy while selling your home

Selling your home may be difficult, considering that you must open your doors to potential buyers. Your privacy and security may become an issue when showing your home to buyers, so it is important to consider all your options before you welcome someone into your home

For many individuals, it is very important for them to protect their privacy, while others are simply concerned that buyers will make assumptions about them and judge them instead of simply judging their home. However, the importance of protecting your privacy is all the same and that goes for anything personal from financial information, such as check books to banks statements and personal letters.

Private documents: Is it snooping to open a drawer? Not if the drawer is part of a built-in such as a kitchen cabinet or a dining room china cabinet. Buyers can innocently tug on a drawer to inspect its construction or depth and find important documents that you might not intend for anyone to see. If you have a lock on your file cabinet or desk drawer, now is the time to use it.

Don't leave mail where anybody can find it. Lots of sellers leave piles of opened mail neatly stacked on the kitchen counter. Buyers could find out how much you owe department stores or other credit cards. They can tell if you're late on your mortgage payments or other bills.

Remove diplomas and wedding photos from walls: Remove personal effects from your walls. From diplomas and religious artifacts to wedding certificates and personal photos, don't provide buyers with any personal information about yourself or your family. De-personalizing is also an important move to make when staging your home for sale anyway, so you can actually accomplish two things by removing the personal effects from your home.

Wedding photos might give away the seller's religion, as do certain religious artifacts left in the home. Buyers can be prejudiced. Don't give buyers a way to form any opinion about you at all. Don't let buyers form ideas about you from the type of music you like or the literature you read.

Don't leave your computer up and running during showings. Gaining personal information from your computer takes only moments for a professional hacker or thief, so be proactive and shut your computer down before your guests arrive.

Before you put your home in the market, prep it, empty out drawers, stage closets and pack up anything remotely personal including medications. Disassociate yourself with your home - remind yourself that it is a house - a product to be sold on an open market that is bound to see plenty of new faces throughout the term of the selling process.

Thank you to :

Anna Vozza is president of the Windsor-Essex County Real Estate Board

Http://agentspartsecteur.com

Canadian home resales

By Alexandre Deslongchamps

March 15 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian home resales fell 1.5 percent to 42,799 units in February, the second straight decline, the Canadian Real Estate Association said today.

The drop was most pronounced in Vancouver and the group said the Olympic Games may have had an effect on sales, according to a statement posted on its Web site. The average resale price rose 18 percent from a year ago to C$335,655 ($329,330), CREA also said.

“Housing markets are becoming more balanced,” CREA Chief Economist Gregory Klump said in the release. “Further expected supply increases will continue to take the steam out of housing markets as the year progresses.”

Canada’s mortgage rates are close to the lowest since the Korean War, spurring home sales and prices as the country emerges from a recession. Housing starts rose to the highest since October 2008 in February, and the government-owned Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. predicted on March 2 housing starts will rise this year and next.

The total number of homes for sale fell 15 percent from a year ago to 188,334 units in February, even after 73,849 units were put on the market last month -- the most since October 2008. There were enough homes on the market in February to cover sales for 4.7 months, up from January’s 4.5 months.

--Editors: Paul Badertscher, Andrew Barden

To contact the reporter on this story: Alexandre Deslongchamps in Ottawa at adeslongcham@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net; David Scanlan at dscanlan@bloomberg.net.

Canadian Real Estate Market in February

As written in the Toronto Sun .

Canada’s real estate market showed no sign of losing steam in February, with housing starts rising faster than expected and a new survey showing 10% of Canadians expect to buy a home in the next two years.

Seasonally adjusted housing starts were 196,700 in the month, up from 185,400 in January, according to figures from the Canadian Mortgage Housing Corp. That was above analysts’ forecasts for a 190,000 gain.

RBC’s 17th annual home ownership study found that the number of Canadians saying they are very likely to buy a new home rose from 7% two years ago to 10%. The number of people who view their house as a good investment rose to a 12-year high of 91%.

Canada’s real estate market has been one of the main drivers of economic growth, with housing construction helping to power a 5% expansion in gross domestic product in the fourth quarter.

Some economists have forecast that the property market will begin to cool from the second half, when the Bank of Canada is expected to begin raising interest rates and demand and supply of available housing becomes more balanced.

“The gain in February housing starts was concentrated in the multiple starts segment, particularly in Toronto,” said Bob Dugan, chief economist at CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre.

Urban multiple starts, or condos, increased by 19.1% to 89,900 units while single urban starts increased by 0.5% to 89,200 units.

Urban starts rose 28.6% in Ontario, 14.3% in Atlantic Canada, 10.8% in the Prairie region and 8% in British Columbia. In Quebec, urban starts dropped 14.1%.

Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 17,600 units in February.

According to the RBC poll, younger Canadians between the ages of 18 to 24 are likely to lead the market. About 15% said they were likely to buy, almost double the number in 2009.

About 60% also believe housing prices will continue to rise this year, up from just 25% this time a year ago. They also expect mortgage rates to rise, with two-thirds expecting to have to pay more, the bank said.

That belief is being reflected in the choice of mortgage, with 16% opting for a variable rate loan compared with 20% last year.

We would like to thank Ms. Sharon Singleton of The Toronto Sun

http://www.agentsbysector.com