A recent article in the Globe and Mail identified this market trend, and blamed it at least in part on continued low interest rates and what they see as the real estate market “losing steam” in Toronto. We’re not sure we agree. Toronto Real Estate Board figures show continued strong market growth, with year-over-year price gains at 8.8% between January 2011 and January 2012.

Though one aspect of the prospective real estate market slowdown is the question of affordability – simply, the concept that not enough buyers can afford to buy homes at the prices that sellers are asking – TREB president Richard Silver disagrees that this is an issue. “A favourable affordability picture bolstered by very low posted fixed mortgage rates has kept home buyers confident in their ability to achieve the Canadian goal of home ownership,” he writes. “The buyer pool remains diverse in the GTA with strong interest in home types across the pricing spectrum.”

It is this strong price growth and a better supply of listings, not a lack of affordability, that may cause some slowdown in the pace of the market, according to TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis, Jason Mercer. “Low inventory levels have kept competition between buyers strong, resulting in robust annual rates of price growth over the last year. Strong price growth is expected to attract more listings. A better supplied market should result in a slower rate of price growth, especially in the second half of 2012.”

However, the relatively good afforability picture in Toronto means, in our opinion, that even if real estate market growth slows somewhat, it will not stop. You can read more about this in our blog post about whether there will be a “balanced market” this year, and what it means if so.

As with the past few months, we’ve still got historically low interest rates, which enhance affordability; buyers can afford more house for their money, and sellers can afford to sell their houses for more money. This is good for both buyers and sellers in the current circumstances. As always, you can see the numbers at the TREB website.

If you have any questions about the market, or you are looking to buy or sell a house or condo or just want to chat, feel free to contact us any time!

How Commission Works in Real Estate

We real estate agents love helping our clients buy or sell a home, and we are compensated for our work by being paid commission. This commission is paid directly to the brokerage. It is the brokerage who actually disperses the commission to the agent.

Richard Silver writes that he occasionally has potential clients who call him and ask directly: “What is your rate of commission?” “It seems that the consumer’s assumption is clear that ‘all Realtors provide the exact service but for different fees’”, Silver writes, but “that assumption is very wrong.”

In fact, the truth is essentially the opposite. Standard commission rate in real estate sales is about 5% of the listing price of the home, shared more or less equally between the buyer’s and the seller’s agent. The intricacies sometimes vary – the buyer’s and the seller’s agents may agree on a slightly different split, depending on the situation – but in general, most agents charge approximately the same rate of commission.

The services that agents offer, however, differ quite significantly. We wrote recently about the importance of client service in our practice, but service isn’t the only thing we provide when we sell your home or help you buy a home. We also provide – and pay for – many other services that help make the real estate transaction a smooth and advantageous one.

When You List With Us

Despite what the discount-listing agents may tell you – the services that let you list your own home on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) for a small fee and leave you to manage the rest – when you choose to list with a full service real estate agent, you’re hiring us to do more than just sell your home. We’re not just sales agents: as you’ll see below, we do multiple duty as project managers, negotiators, analysts, and we even provide cleaners, professional organizers, movers, packers and interior decorators.

Here’s a list of some of the things that you are paying for when we list your home. This isn’t a complete list, by the way; it’s just some of the things we do.

We analyze the current and historical markets, both in your specific neighbourhood and in Toronto as a whole. This helps us price your property appropriately.

We commission an infrared floor plan to be created and used with the marketing of the home. We work with a set of experienced professionals who use infrared technology to draw up a specialized, specific floor plan that shows off your home’s space.

We send in our “Spotless Squad”, our own team of trusted and experienced cleaning professionals, to clean and organize your home.

We arrange for home staging. We work with our own dedicated interior designers to make your home look its best. (In fact, a few of our clients have loved our staging so much that they’ve decided not to move after all!)

We get feature sheets designed, produced and delivered. These include a professional photo shoot that generates crisp gorgeous pictures and a virtual tour to be used in print and online marketing of your home, including a compelling written description. This package of information is made available online as well as at the home for agents who have potential clients and for open house tours (if you want public open houses). A neighbourhood description, and a top-ten list of why a potential buyer should consider your home the best one out there, is also well-written and well-researched.

We print and distribute “Just Listed” cards, which advertise your home to your local neighbourhood – neighbours often have friends and family who want to live close by, and they get a heads up just as the house goes on the market. These cards are very successful in generating interest!

We list your property on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service). The MLS is the place that almost everyone looks first in their search for the perfect home. A good MLS listing is crucial in selling your home. What we crafted with floor plans, pictures, descriptions, designers, etc… this is the big launch! With huge distribution, we get as many interested buyers as possible. Realtor.ca is the public website that gets its feed from the MLS service. Many individuals who are considering buying a home have this website as their homepage, even after they buy their home. It becomes an obsession.

Along with the MLS, we also feature your home on our website, sherkinlangerandcastle.com, on its very own website, on the Harvey Kalles website, as well as on our Facebook page, our Twitter feed, our blog and our email newsletters. We know the importance of social media in today’s online environment and it is our job to get the word out about your home.

We promote your home through Open Houses, which we host and organize personally. The first open house is an “agents’ open house”, in which we have a lunch catered and invite other agents to see the property so they can promote it to their own interested buyers. Following this, we organize and promote a “public open house” which is optional, usually held on a weekend, to market your home directly to potential buyers.

We advertise your home in our premium ad space in the National Post newspaper, The Harvey Kalles Collection Magazine and sometimes other print media if we believe it will maximize  the exposure. We use our success to your advantage: all of our ads for our listed properties are bright, beautifully designed, well-placed, and extremely prominent.

We manage the showings of your home, ensuring that they are as convenient as possible for you and that your property is shown in the best possible light.

We negotiate the best possible price for your home. With the current Toronto real estate market, many properties are attracting multiple offers. We know how to maximize the chances that yours will do the same, and that it will sell for as much as possible.

And finally, we keep you in the loop. We keep meticulous records of everything that happens with the marketing and showing of your home, and we update you regularly. We are also available at any time of the day or night in case you have concerns or questions or just need to talk to one of us.

How do you decide who to trust with the biggest investment you’re likely to make in your entire life?

Ultimately, it’s up to you. But we’d like to tell you a little story about how we practice real estate, because to be perfectly frank, we believe – and have been told by clients, friends, family and even other agents – that we run our practice differently.

The Time we Walked our Client’s Dog

It was a crazy day for us all and the snow was falling. (Yes, folks, there have been a few days this winter where it has snowed!)

Our client was delayed, and with the snow came crazy city traffic. Ferne got a call. “Can you or Nina get over to my place and feed and walk the dog? We have to get out to parent-teacher conferences tonight and we have to tidy the house for a showing. There’s no time to get the dog fed and walked too.”

Off we went racing – if you can call it that in the whirling snow – to Peanut the dog’s house, one of our current listings, to save the day.

We Do It All

We always say, “We do it all“. And we do. Beyond just real estate.

Our clients deserve luxury service. This is just the way we do things. We’re often making special arrangements for our clients, arranging for their carpets to be cleaned or their dogs to be boarded or their belongings to be stored. We think of ourselves as project managers.

If that sounds a little silly, think about it this way:

If you want to enjoy an experience, you expect top-of-the-line service as well as a top-quality product. We want you to have the total experience. We see ourselves as a high-end service provider, and this is our mantra: to provide the luxury service that you’d expect. Our goal is to make sure you’re happy and comfortable every step of the way. We, not you, are the ones who take care of all the thousands of details involved in a real estate transaction. The difference is that with us, you get the same high-end service regardless of type or price of your home.

In the end we are in the business of high-end service. And we understand that, and we love it.

Who knows, if you hire us, we might even walk your dog.

We’re proud to be top real estate agents: it’s good to be good at what we do. But this post isn’t about us. It’s about you, our clients and potential clients, and why it benefits you to work with a real estate agent with a record of success.

A while ago, we posted a guide to real estate statistics: what each real estate statistic means in practical terms. Today, we’ll explain how excellent performance in those statistics translates into a real benefit for the client.

Days On Market (DOM)

Our average DOM statistic was 28% lower than the Toronto Real Estate Board average of 28.7 days. That means that we sold our listings 28% faster than the average.

What it also means is that our clients, on average, had to keep their homes in pristine condition for a 28% shorter time. They had to leave the house for 28% fewer showings and open houses. They had a 28% shorter period of uncertainty as to what their home was worth, and they were able to move on with their lives 28% more quickly.

Sale Price and Percent of Asking Price

Simple sale price sounds at first like the most important real estate metric, and our numbers are pretty impressive: the average selling price of our listings was 178% higher than the Toronto Real Estate Board average price of $388,000. However, sheer sale price is only really meaningful when coupled with the percentage of the asking price that we’ve gotten for clients. Sale price can be high for a lot of reasons: for instance, real estate agents who work in neighbourhoods and in market segments with high average prices, as we do, will tend to have higher average sale prices than other agents, even if their houses sit on the market for months or if they’re only able to get 80% of asking for their listings

The metric to look at, instead, is sale price combined with percent of asking price. It’s been a hot market in 2011, with listings going for an average of 98.47% of asking, but our listings sold 1% higher on average, at 99.4% of asking (many of our listings went over asking). A 1% difference might not seem like much at first, but think of a million-dollar home, of which we’ve sold quite a few: 1% of a million is $10,000, which is a significant sum!

Beyond the Statistics

Overall, our statistics paint a pretty accurate picture of us: we work hard for our clients and we get excellent results.

The only reason we care about those statistics, though, is because they show us that we’ve been helping the most important people in our practice: our clients. We’re glad to be recognized for our achievements, of course. But ultimately, the primary reason we’re so glad to have been so successful this year is that our success means our clients’ success. And that’s the most important thing.

Home prices in the neighbourhood cover a similarly wide range, from small condos in the 200′s for the young urban singleton to 3- and 4-bedroom semis and detached family homes from the high 600s to over a million along the streets that branch off from Duplex Avenue, just west of Yonge. There’s also a lot of development happening in the neighbourhood, from The Madison along Eglinton between Yonge and Mt. Pleasant to The Berwick, just half a block from the Yonge and Eg intersection.

Here are some of our favourite destinations at Yonge and Eglinton; it was tough to choose, since there are so many great spots!

Sporting Life

This lifestyle megastore started out as an outdoorsperson’s paradise and purveyor of skis, snowshoes, hiking boots and other accoutrements to a healthy fresh-air-filled lifestyle. It’s still one of the best places in Toronto to get these things, but has diversified into a destination for upscale sportswear and outerwear as well. Ugg, Hunter and Boggs boots are available in every colour and tend to go flying off the shelves, as do Canada Goose down jackets and Prada Sport tennis and golf clothes.

Unlike most shopping spots along the stretch, it’s actually got its own parking lot, complete with attendants to point you to a spot. And their summer sidewalk sales are to die for. Definitely worth a visit or three.

North 44

If you know Toronto dining, you know North 44. It’s named for the latitude of Toronto and, although its owners are also responsible for other TO hotspots like Fabbrica and Bymark, it remains one of the most famous restaurants in the city and a standard for special occasions and entertaining big-name clients. The specialized cocktail list is long and the food is both delicious and creative, which is sometimes a rarity. Who can argue with dishes like herb crusted magret duck with duck confit risotto, rainbow swiss chard, spiced pear and natural jus?

Au Lit Fine Linens

Just south of Eglinton on Yonge you’ll find Au Lit Fine Linens, one of our favourite spots for gorgeous homewares of all kinds. (Plus, they’re having a white sale right now, so head over!) Au Lit specializes in luxury cottons and other natural-fiber bedding in generally muted shades. The aesthetic is elegant and contemporary, the sort of thing you’d expect to find in the penthouse suites in the surrounding condo buildings. Couple this with expert customer service and a bridal registry and you’ve got a popular neighbourhood shop.

Love Child Boutique

If you’re a parent who loves fashion, head on over to Love Child, a specialty children’s boutique that features clothing and accessories made with love by the owners, sisters Jacquelene and Dawn. It’s one of our favourite places to find gifts for the little ones in our lives, and it’s wildly popular with the many families with young children who live in the neighbourhood.

UPDATE: 67 Tanjo Court has SOLD!

There’s been a lot of buzz in the 905 in the last several years. Once considered ultra-suburban with a sleepiness to match, it’s become the focus of a lot of real estate activity as young urbanites seek an easily commutable sanctuary from workaday city life. Vaughan calls itself the “City Above Toronto”, complete with italics, but the thing is: it’s right. Vaughan has a lot of benefits – much larger lot sizes, plenty of trees and green space, plenty of house for your money, newer schools with excellent reputations – that are becoming harder to find in the city of Toronto proper.

67 Tanjo Court is one of these prime Vaughan homes. For a little over a million dollars – what you’d pay for an older, smaller home closer to downtown – you can own a newer, spacious, contemporary home complete with luxuries like a music room, a Jacuzzi tub in the master ensuite and a gazebo in the backyard. It’s an easy walk to two different parks (Gallanough and Winding Lake) and to Thornhill Public School, and just across Yonge from Thornhill Secondary. It’s on a tree-lined court, which means there’s much less through-traffic – a plus for safety and for traffic noise. It’s a great choice for commuters as well: it’s just a couple of blocks from Yonge Street, Toronto’s main artery to downtown – and to the subway.

You can see the home’s exact location on Google Maps. The listing details are on our website, as is a gallery tour of the home. If you’d like to see the home in person, please feel free to get in touch with us any time.

(If you read the Toronto Star, you may have come across Ryan Starr’s very complimentary article on the development. It was complimentary for a reason. These homes are really spectacular.)

One of the best, and most unique, features of the Merton is its sheer customizability. Many builders allow buyers to choose certain finishes, in an attempt to make the space their own, but Tibro, the developers of the Merton, take this further than almost anyone else. They’ll work within the shell of the home and create the space that you want. Included in the cost of the home is your own interior designer, who’ll work with you to make the space your own. You can even choose whether, along with a master suite, you want two more smaller bedrooms or one more larger one: there’s an optional dividing wall.

So, the homes are gorgeous. Lots of homes are gorgeous. But the Merton goes above and beyond with all of its other features as well. This home is “smart”, featuring a home automation system that includes sound, lighting, temperature, alarm and security – and you’ll even get your own iPad to control it.  Enter through your heated parking garage and mudroom and you’ll be whisked straight from parking level to anywhere in the home in the mirrored, marble-floored elevator.

Why all of this absolute attention to detail, this dedication to making everything perfect? “I need to have control over what happens,” says the developer, Sarit Chandaria, in Starr’s article. “You hear a lot of developers say you’re not just buying a home, you’re buying a lifestyle, but how many developers actually give you a lifestyle?” The Merton, according to Chandaria, is intended to do just that. It’s a high-end luxury developer that fulfills every promise it makes in the materials.

We think the Merton is changing the face of townhome residences, and we’re delighted to be representing them.

You can see our listing for 310 Merton here and 312 Merton here.

First in the series is 11 Hi Mount Drive, a beautiful bungalow on a wide, deep, treed lot in Bayview Village. This 3+2 bedroom, 3 bathroom family home has lovely open spaces and a basement walk-out to a stunning backyard with mature trees and tons of space. We knew from the beginning that it would be a popular property.

A while ago, we described 3 reasons why the Canadian real estate market is still doing well; our January market report, which we published today, also shows steady growth in Toronto’s market in particular. The one thing we did mention is that we may see a more balanced market this year, with a little more supply and fewer bidding wars.

11 Hi Mount, however, demonstrates Toronto’s market remains as red-hot as ever, at least in certain market segments. The home sold in 4 days for significantly over the asking price, with 13 registered offers.

Why did 11 Hi Mount sell so rapidly and so well? As in any real estate transaction, there are lots of different factors. It’s a spacious home on a large, wide lot with a gorgeous ravine-like view. The location is fantastic, in a prestigious neighbourhood with great schools and close to lots of amenities, such as public transport and shopping at Bayview Village. There’s a limited supply of, and lots of demand for, homes at this price point and in this neighbourhood. All of these things, together with the very strong housing market in Toronto, came together to produce this result for our clients.

As always, if you have any questions about any of our listings, or if you’re considering listing your own home, please do give us a call.

The fall market is traditionally a quieter time than, say, the madness of the spring market in the cycle of real estate, and as usual, things were a little quieter over the holidays before starting up again in earnest in January – we’ve got several new listings this month, including the newly-released Merton community of townhome residences. However, the Toronto market continued to exhibit year-over-year growth from 2010 throughout all of 2011. We’re still going strong.

Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) President Richard  Silver agrees. “We have seen strong annual sales growth through the 2011 fall  market. The increase in transactions has been broad-based, with strong  growth across low-rise and high-rise home types throughout the Greater  Toronto Area,” he said.

That said, we may see a slowing down in 2012 in the kind of mad bidding wars that we’re seeing at the moment, because, as Silver says, “the market has also become better supplied, with annual new  listings growth outstripping that of sales.” This means that, although prices will stay strong and homes will continue to appreciate in value – after all, the average price for November 2011 transactions was  $480,421, an increase of almost 10 per cent in comparison  to $437,494 in November 2010 – the market will potentially become more balanced for both buyers and sellers. (See our explanation of a balanced market, and what it means.)

This is good for everyone, and we’ll tell you why: because it keeps prices strong
for sellers but keeps Toronto affordable for buyers. A constant upward spiral of prices is unsustainable in the long run, and is frustrating and stressful for buyers; by the same token, a strong but steady trend of price increases makes the market itself more stable, which means there’s less risk to sellers of prices rapidly dropping.

Couple this with continued low interest rates, as we discussed in last month’s newsletter, and you’ve got a market that continues to be the best of both worlds for both buyers and sellers! You can see the numbers for yourself at the TREB website. And if you’re blinded by the stats, then you can find our guide to real estate statistics here.

It’s tempting to see your house-hunt as similar to dating, in that the goal is to find your perfect match and fall in love. But just like dating, it’s important to keep the practicalities in mind, too. Here’s how to protect your heart while you’re buying a home.

1. Don’t fall in love at first sight.

Starting the search for a new home is fun and exciting, and most of all, it’s novel. One of the best things about being a real estate agent is getting the opportunity to see all the different ways people live in their homes, and the effect is magnified when you’re picturing yourself in a space. You could hang that Morrisseau from your wedding over the fireplace, and look at that gorgeous Winnie the Pooh mural in the baby’s room! We could have dinner parties in here. Wow, did you see that glass-tiled backsplash?

It can be intoxicating, and it’s all too easy to fall immediately in love with a home. But remember that part of its appeal is its very novelty. The goal of a listing agent is to present the home in the best way possible and to minimize its shortcomings, and we have to admit that, as agents, we’re pretty good at that. But the job of your buyer’s agent is to help you keep a clear head, and not to fall for the glamour. We help you look past the sheen of newness and figure out whether the home is really the right match for you.

Ultimately, homes – like guys or girls, as your grandmother used to say – are like streetcars: there’s always another one coming eventually, even if you have to wait a little while.

2. Keep your priorities straight.

To a certain extent, the decision to buy a particular home is made with your gut instinct. But like any major investment or purchase, you need to keep your wits about you at all times. A home is the largest single investment that most people will make in their lives, and you want to make sure you’re buying a home that will satisfy your most important criteria.

A good way to go about this is to make a three-part checklist: “Absolute Musts”, “Nice To Have”, and “Doesn’t Matter”. Let’s say that you and your partner both commute to work by subway and you really need a home that’s near a subway station. It doesn’t matter how perfect a home is in other ways, if it’s not near public transport, it’s a no-go. Most homebuyers will have at least a few of these non-negotiables. Figure them out before you start looking, and then steer clear of homes that don’t meet them so that you don’t fall in love with the wrong one.

3. Don’t overspend.

You’ve found your dream home. It has the right number of bedrooms, the perfect dining room for entertaining, and the location is perfect. You even met the neighbours at the open house, and they’ve invited you over for dinner. It started out affordable, too, but now there’s a bidding war, and it’s currently $50,000 over the top of your budget. What do you do?

It’s so tempting to stretch just that little bit more for a home you really love. Only you know whether your household budget can bear a few hundred or thousand dollars per month. But if you’re going to get down to the wire on budget, do it with a clear head. Draw a final line and stick to it. If you’re stressing over your mortgage payments, your love of that new home could eventually turn to resentment. Choose a home you can afford and your love affair could last a lifetime.