Archive for category Affordable mortgages
Will house buyers embrace the internet?
Posted by admin in Affordable mortgages, CMHC reports, Canada, Fraud awareness on March 16th, 2010
Buying or selling a home is among the most stressful experiences in anyone’s life, but it appears that estate agents are not at the heart of the problem.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has given a clean bill of health to the industry, pointing out that satisfaction levels are up.
However, the watchdog has shed light on the increasing influence of the internet on the way we buy and sell homes.
Now it wants to free up businesses that match private buyers and sellers in order to encourage more competition.
What is the future for internet sales?
At present, online services are dominated by the traditional estate agents rather than so-called “introducers”.
These introducers provide a website where buyers and sellers can find a property they like but are then left to conduct negotiations between themselves.
In the US, these currently have 15% of the market compared with only 2% in the UK.
The OFT wants to free them of the burden and cost of some of the regulations that come because each introducer is currently regarded by law as an estate agent.
They could be free from price negotiations and responsibility for ensuring that the property is described properly in an advert.
However, private buyers and sellers should be aware of the greater risks involved. For example, adverts could mislead a potential buyer about the state of a property, or the neighbourhood it is in, because those running the website would not have a legal responsibility to check that the claims are true.
Strong Housing Market
Posted by admin in Affordable mortgages, Canada, Mortgage, Ontario on January 18th, 2010
A new Royal LePage survey predicts Canada’s residential real estate market will remain “unusually strong” through the first half of 2010.
As confidence in the economic recovery grows, average prices are likely to increase, the real estate agency says.
Royal LePage executive Phil Soper says the real estate market enters 2010 with “considerable momentum from an unusually strong finish to the previous year.”
The stimulus effect of low borrowing costs has contributed to a sharp rise in demand that has driven activity to new highs, he says.
The data backs that up. New data released Thursday from Canada’s largest real estate market, Toronto, showed existing home sales were up a massive 115 per cent, year over year, in December.
Those gains came against a particularly poor showing in December 2008, but the 5,541 sales reported by the Toronto Real Estate Board are the strongest December on record back to 1980, BMO economist Robert Kavcic said in a note to clients on Thursday.
Listings in the city were down 47 per cent, year on year, causing average prices to be pushed up 14 per cent. “Too much (cheap) money chasing too few goods,” Kavcic said.
The average home price in 2009 climbed four per cent to $395,460, the TREB said.
That follows the national trend, according to Royal LePage. House prices appreciated in late 2009, with fourth quarter price averages higher than fourth quarter 2008