Recently, the Competition Bureau announced that it has reached an agreement with the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) that will ensure that real estate agents to offer a variety of services and prices, including simply posting a property on the Multiple Listing System (MLS). The agreeement, which will remain in force for 10 years, is [...]
Back in June 2005, TIME magazine put what in hindsight turned out to be a massive housing bubble on its cover, cleverly calling it “Home $weet Home”. Inside, the main story titled America’s House Party raved about how disk jockeys, hair dressers and Taco Bell cashiers were making fortunes flipping houses: You shouldn’t get the [...]
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) tried its best to beat back the charge by the Competition Bureau that CREA’s rules that limit the choice of consumers as “anti-competitive”. The Association voted to change the rules requiring agents to represent sellers for the entire duration the property is listed on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). [...]
Attention Ottawa-area readers: CBC Ottawa is looking to talk to a regular investor between the ages of 25 and 50, who actively keeps an eye on the stock market and may have lost money during the economic downturn and are changing their investment strategy. If you are interested please contact Sannah Choi at 613-288-6471. You [...]
In his book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, economists Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner point out that a real estate agent has the incentive to sell a home quickly, not get the best price for the seller. Consider a home that is listed at $400,000. Assuming that a selling agent [...]
The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), which owns the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), has rules preventing realtors from listing a home in the database for a flat fee. A homeowner simply wanting to list her home in the MLS and is willing to do the legwork to sell her home on her own cannot do [...]
We are just recovering from a punishing recession in which millions of jobs were lost and portfolios were decimated by a market downturn. Across the border, home owners are defaulting on their mortgages in record numbers because they loaded up on mortgage debt at teaser rates and are unable to make mortgage payments when the [...]
A recent UBC report that found real estate in many Canadian cities to be overvalued got much play in the media. It found that home prices are over-priced by as much as 25% in some cities. The surprising part is the cities mentioned wouldn’t be the first ones that come to mind as overvalued: Montreal, [...]
House Lust by Newsweek reporter Daniel McGinn is an eye-opening account of the obsession that many Americans have for their homes, which first led to one of the biggest boom in housing prices and later turned into a bust with far-reaching consequences. A Washington Post columnist quoted in the book probably defined the term best [...]
The news on the housing front out of the U.S. continues to be bleak – prices were down 12.7% on average in 20 markets in February 2008 compared to the same time last year, with prices dropping 20% or more in Las Vegas, Miami and Phoenix. In Canada, at least one analyst boldly declared the [...]
