Real Estate

The following article is a guest post by Sean Cooper who blogs about personal finance at Sean Cooper Writer. According to a poll by CIBC, the average homeowner won’t pay off their mortgage until right before retirement – age 58.  I plan to do it a lot sooner – by age 31.  I bought my…

Any real estate agent will tell you the service he or she provides is worth every penny.  But in a hot real estate market like Toronto, do you really need one? According to the latest figures from the Toronto Real Estate Board, the average home sells in just 20 days, so you can see why some home…

When I was nineteen, the brakes on my car seized, damaging the calipers and whatever was left on the rear pads.  I got a quote from a local mechanic chain with both “budget” and “brake” in their name, so I thought they must have the best price on brakes. At the time I knew nothing about…

Another disadvantage when considering downsizing your home is that even a smaller house will not cost that much less than the one I have now.

A recent TD Bank survey showed that while a quarter of first time home buyers did so on their own there is a growing trend of buying a house as a group.  In fact four out of 10 people surveyed think that buying property with friends or family members is a great way to get…

One of the regrets we had with our first home is that in the eight-and-a-half years we lived there we never got around to finishing the basement.  We vowed not to make the same mistake when we built our new home nearly three years ago.  So after we had the basement framed last summer we…

Owning your own home has always been an important part of the Canadian dream, but times they are a-changin’.  The high cost of housing in many major cities and the more transient nature of the workforce often make people rethink this choice. Related: How much house can I afford? If you’ve already made the decision…

It can be a challenge for first time home buyers to come up with a down payment.  With soaring Canadian real estate prices, crippling student loan debt, and low starting salaries, it can take years to save the required minimum down payment. Canadians do have some options to help them buy their first home.  This…

Rental Real Estate Like purchasing your own residence, buying rental real estate for income works best when you take a long-term approach.  It requires time commitment, experience and patience. Buying a property in a good, growing area with high demand for rental housing and making the initial improvements to make it a quality rental is…