Vancouver Real Estate News Blog - November, 2011

Potential Home Purchases

One of the big challenges in finding a potential home to purchase is to determine which neighborhood suits you and your family best.  Do you want a quiet neighborhood with architectural charm, or a more developed area with lots of young families and children around, or are you looking for the cosmopolitan feel of a city area? 

What are the best ways to checkout potential neighborhoods?  The starting point should always be a list of the critical factors for you and your family.  

What are your drivers?  Is it:

• Access to public transportation? 
• Proximity to work?
• Great schools?
• Public parks?
• Active recreational areas?
• Art and Culture?
• Specific shops or restaurants? 

Once you have a mental or actual list of the things…

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Kitchen Trends: The Next Big Thing

Many real estate experts steadfastly believe the kitchen can make or break the sale of a property.  Old appliances, outdated colors and poor workflow design can dramatically alter buying behavior.  We spend much of our lives in the kitchen, considered the heart of the home; most buyers want to have a kitchen that attracts them, comforts and functions for them and is a space they want to spend time in.  For those who entertain, the kitchen becomes critical to the success of the dinner party, soiree, or special event.

Kitchen experts predict some significant changes in kitchen trends for next year; multi-functional is the watchword for kitchen trends.  The kitchen needs to do more, be more and function in many different ways.  Finding equipment, layouts…

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Home Inspection: Smart Seller Tools: Critical in Today’s Market

While the Real Estate Market in Vancouver has been steady and stable even while other markets crashed and burned; it becomes essential to close every potential cost and opportunity to lose value during the sale. 

The home inspection is often a condition of the sale, which allows the potential buyer to see the areas needing maintenance, or likely to add to their outlay in the near future.  The typical home inspector will go from foundation to roof; looking at electrical, plumbing, structural or foundation condition, and mechanical condition of heating and cooling units.  Buyers look to the home inspector to provide them with vital insight to costly financial investments lurking in the house.  This could include aging plumbing or hazardous electrical…

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Do You Still Need Realtors in Today’s Housing Market

There are more than 16,000 realtors listed in the Greater Vancouver area today, but the question remains do you need them?  The Vancouver housing market has remained stable and steady, and prices have been on an incline even during the rough housing times in other markets.  This seems to be a straightforward market, why call on a professional?

Today’s Realtor offers a more competitive edge for both the buyer and the seller.  There are three types of realtors, Buyer’s Agent, Seller’s Agent and Dual Agencies (offering both). 

For the Buyer, the Buyer’s Agent works with their wish list and the available properties to get the house they are dreaming about.  The Realtor would be helpful with new changes in real estate laws, mortgage and down payment…

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Winterizing Your Home

Nothing is as reliable as the return of the cold weather and the high cost of heating your home as the mercury level drops.  Weather experts are predicting this will be especially cold, with temperatures below normal and precipitation levels above normal.

There are some simple and inexpensive solutions to improving your odds in the war against the rising costs of heating your home for the winter months.  Some of the winterizing improvements can be done in a quick weekend project others are even simpler. 

Winterizing is about controlling the air loss and improving the efficiency of heating the area.  Air loss is one of the major culprits in heating costs.  Check doors and windows for excess air loss.  This is an easy fix with caulking, threshold…

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Vancouver Real Estate Welcomes the World

The attraction of Vancouver has been legendary for years.  Vancouver is nearly always in the top five rankings on the Best Places to Live lists.  This beautiful area attracts tourists, immigrant investors and retirees.  But one of the biggest stabilizers to the Vancouver real estate market has been the immigrant investor. 

There has been a strong interest in this cosmopolitan beautiful port town for decades.  The close proximity to Asia and the US has made it a favorite with investors worldwide, but most recently an influx of Chinese investors has served to strengthen the market even further. 

The immigrant investor is extremely important to the real estate market stability and steady increase in property prices in Vancouver. 

The requirements…

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Vancouver Real Estate Still a Strong Investment?

There are indicators that the steady increase in housing prices in the Vancouver Real Estate market could be heading for a corrective lowering in the near future as other areas like Toronto start to attract more interest.  Real Estate pundits offer a variety of reasons for the impervious Vancouver market, but there remain concerns about what will happen to the market when the interest rates are adjusted in 2013.  

Will Vancouver continue to be a growth market in the near future, is this still a great place to invest in holiday homes, retirement properties and foreign investment. 

There has been much speculation about how Vancouver has remained unscathed by the economic woes that have created bubble and burst problems world wide in the housing…

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Vancouver Real Estate Buddle

Through out the post-2008 economic woes of the world; real estate markets have been a barometer of economic conditions for the local area.  Worldwide, real estate bubbles and bursts have been indicative of economic stability and even employment opportunities as the housing market in most areas is so deeply interlaced into the economic conditions. 

Vancouver, BC has been seemingly impervious to the bubbles and bursts the rest of the world has been balancing up until now.   This strong economic area has held the housing prices steady or increasing even in some of the worst of the world’s economic times. 

There have been questions lately in real estate industry about the steady rise in Vancouver real estate prices.  The concern is that the steady…

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Low Cost Ideas to Increase Real Estate Values

The housing market has been rough in the past few years.  Trying to get full value for your home with record numbers of foreclosures can be challenging.  So, how do you improve your real estate property values without breaking the bank? 

There are some quick and inexpensive options to improve the value of your home.  Selling your house is all about focusing on the unique features and making the square footage as attractive as possible.  There are some real estate expert tricks that can make a big impact for little investment of money or time. 

All of these ideas are focused on improving the selling potential of your home when showing it to potential buyers.  The first is actually only a time cost.  It is the de-cluttering and neutralization of the…

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