Local Kamloops News

If you have been thinking about selling your home, you probably heard that it’s best to wait until spring.

Many people think of the spring as the best time to sell their home because people are not overwhelmed with the holidays. Plus, school is just coming to an end in the spring, making it the ideal time to relocate your family. If you want to sell your house before the holidays, here’s how to do it fast.

Take Advantage of Less Competition

One of the biggest perks of selling your home right before or during the holiday season is less competition. In general, most people wait until spring to list their homes. What this means for you is that there are going to be fewer houses for buyers to look at, increasing the competition in your favor.

Absolutely!

Are we just saying this to get you to sign a listing contract with us? No way.

Let’s be honest, our job as Realtors is to make a living, right? The only way to make a healthy living in real estate is by creating strong relationships with clients, which is contrary to the popular belief of just selling more homes. Reason being, we are after referrals; the only way of earning a referral is by doing an outstanding job.

When we advise clients to list their home during winter months, it’s because we firmly believe that it’s in their best interests. We’re not being salesman, because like we said above, we are in the business of creating strong relationships.

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Buyers move for two

Real estate trends vary a little from year to year

Sometimes it’s a buyer’s market, and other times sellers are favored. Knowing what is going on in financial and investment sectors can often signal you whether it’s time to buy or sell. 2016 is in it's the last quarter with some very low inventory available in Kamloops, we are seeing homes in the average price range and lower are selling fasteroften going into multiple offer situations. Millennials (born between 1982 and 2002) are finally beginning to invest in real estate in larger numbers, which should continue to rise. This is still a year that favors both buyers and sellers in various markets.

The Millennials

As more and more Millennials are considering their future retirement, eighty-percent

Canada’s rental vacancy rate edged up in 2016

Mainly due to the supply of apartments increasing, but rental housing was harder to find in Vancouver and Toronto, where a long housing boom has driven real estate investment and a condo building boom.

Canada’s vacancy rate increased to 3.4 per cent in October from 3.3 per cent a year earlier, as the number of new units hitting the market outpaced the rise in occupancy, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp said on Monday.

The vacancy rate is the percentage of all available units in a rental property, such as a hotel or apartment complex, that are vacant or unoccupied at a particular time. It is the opposite of the occupancy rate, which is the percentage of units in a rental property that are occupied.

Toronto-Dominion is raising mortgage rates again

This time the lender is going much farther than its recent hikes.

Starting December 1, all fixed rate mortgages that take more than 25 years to pay back will cost borrowers an extra 10 basis points, or 0.1 per cent. TD is also implementing an extra cost for mortgages on rental properties, charging borrowers 25 basis points more.

The changes follow Royal Bank of Canada’s precedent-setting decision early in November to hike rates, and to also charge more for lengthy mortgages. The latter move marked the first time such a policy was implemented in Canada.

In response, TD increased its own fixed-mortgage rates a week later, but took a more measured approach. Royal Bank hiked its fixed five-year

British Columbia home prices continued to drop sharply last month but the declines are being driven by the Vancouver market where sales continue to slump, say realtors in the province.

The British Columbia Real Estate Association, which represents about 20,000 realtors, said Tuesday that there 7,272 sales through Multiple Listing Service last month, a 16.7 per cent drop from a year ago. The total volume by dollars was $4.4 billion last month, a 24.2 per cent decline from a year ago.

The average sale price in the province was $606,787 in October, a 9.1 per cent decline from a year earlier.

“Housing demand remained mixed across the province in October,” said Cameron Muir, chief economist with the association. “Home sales across the Lower Mainland

On Monday the 17th of October, stricter new federal rules about who can qualify for an insured mortgage took effect across the country.

Now, all new mortgage applicants have to pass a ‘stress test,’ which tries to predict whether they can keep up with mortgage payments, at their current salary levels, if interest rates were to rise.

Low interest rates have fueled red-hot real estate markets in south-central Ontario and, especially, Vancouver. As real estate values have skyrocketed in both places, uneasiness has grown about affordability and whether real estate has become a bubble economy. Because of mortgage insurance guarantees, Ottawa has a stake in home buyers not buying more than they can afford (leaving aside risks to the wider economy).

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Keep Emotions in Check Purchasing Real Estate

Getting too emotional when buying a home can cost you big time! The last thing you want to do is create a lot of extra stress for yourself when buying real estate. In order to make your purchase go smoothly we want to offer some excellent first time home buying tips. It is easy to make home buying mistakes especially when you have never done it before!

Whether buying or selling a home, emotions are always involved in the real estate process. So how do you keep your emotions from hindering your judgment when buying a home? It can be tricky, as optimism and excitement are prone to be high. However, it’s important to keep a clear and level head when it comes to making one of the biggest purchases of your

Well 2016 is three quarters over, that was fast.

For people who happen to be planning on purchasing a house in the last part of 2016 or early 2017 there is a great deal to look forward to. Why?

MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND THE NEW MORTGAGE RULES FROM OCTOBER 17 2016 HERE

A number of factors this year have dovetailed to make this an ideal time for home buyers to get out there and make a (winning) offer and finally allow them to buy a house in Kamloops. Here are six house-purchasing factors to be grateful for:

Reason No. 1: Interest rates are still at record lows

While they might creep up, it is nevertheless true that interest rates on home loans are at historical lows, you only need to read the news and speak to a lender to confirm this.

How to Pick a Neighborhood to Live In

The process of buying a home can be incredibly exciting. Imagining you and your family living in a new, better space where you can all enjoy yourselves is motivation enough to work through all the challenges of finding and buying a house. Let’s face it – knowing how to pick a neighborhood is important!

When you buy a home, you are buying more than just a building. You are purchasing a lifestyle. Where your home is located, the neighborhood that it is located will influence the lives of you and your family for as long as you live in that house. This makes choosing the right neighborhood an integral part of choosing the right home. So how do you pick a neighborhood?

When looking for a home, most people will