Real Estate Blog - Buying

The Advantage of Buying a Home Right Before Year’s End

When people start to think about buying a home, they normally opt for the springtime to be their point of entry. After all, everyone knows that the spring and summer are the busiest times of the year for the real estate market. Everyone wants to move during their summer holiday, when the weather is warm, and the market is booming. However, these people are overlooking the value of waiting for winter. More specifically, for right before the end of the year...

Buying a home now, at year's end, comes with many benefits. Here are some top ones, according to Realtor.com:

• Builder Upgrades: "If you’re buying a house that is brand new, there’s a good chance builders may push to close the books on their year—and meet quotas. They may offer upgrades or…

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Improving Your Credit Score

When preparing to buy a home, most people can not make the purchase outright in cash. It is totally normally and acceptable to use a mortgage. As you go through the process of getting pre-approved for a mortgage so that you know what your home budget is, the bank is going to do something very important: a credit check. If you're thinking about buying a home but know your credit score won't be good enough, here are some ways you can improve it:

• Monitor your monthly payments closely! Make sure you are always paying your bills on time, that you are meeting your minimum payments and that you don't skip paying a bill even if it's in dispute. There are helpful apps out there, such as Mint, that can help you keep track of payment deadlines, goals,…

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The Financial Benefits of Owning a Home

The journey towards owning a home is filled with hight hopes and hard work. While many find it daunting, working towards owning a home incredibly important. For most people their home will become their largest financial asset. They may cost a significant amount of money, but that doesn't mean people should put off this milestone. Here are some of the financial benefits of owning a home: 

Forbes writes, "your equity in your home is the amount of money you can sell it for minus what you still owe on it. Every month you make a mortgage payment, and every month a portion of what you pay reduces the amount you owe. That reduction of your mortgage every month increases your equity." This equity can be leveraged to help finance and back other endeavours.…

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How to Find a Mortgage Provider

Most people do not buy their homes outright. If you can, you should. After all, who wouldn’t want to live rent and mortgage free? But when the average home price in Calgary sits at around $488,000, most people are putting a 10-20% down payment on a house and mortgaging the rest.

What is a mortgage? A mortgage is money a lender provides you for the sake of purchasing a home. You pay this off over time, typically within a 15-30 year range, and pay interest on the loan. Mortgages not only help you get into a home, but help build your credit history and enable you to slowly build equity in your property.

There are many different kinds of mortgages available, but before you can even begin to assess which is best for you, you need to find a mortgage…

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Lakeside Living in Calgary

Nothing says summer quite like sitting by the lake with a cold drink in one hand and a good book in the other. The air that sweeps over the water is cool and refreshing, the sound of the shore summer's best symphony. Dig your toes into the sand and wade through the water. If summer was something tangible, this would be it.    Does this all sound like a beautiful dream from a faraway place? A little too exotic for dry Alberta? For a long time it was nothing more than a pipedream. The only solution was to buy a vacation home someplace like Arizona or Radium. However, innovators quickly found a sweet solution: lakefront living.    One of the most popular trends in real estate  is crafting communities around man-made lakes to provide family's…

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Relocating Tips

Relocating is very exciting!

It means you get to start a new adventure in a new place. Did you know that on average people relocate once every five years? No matter what the circumstances are behind your relocation, we are here to help make the process go as smoothly as possible:

1). Make sure all of your closing and move-in documents are taken care of. This is why having a real estate professional on your side is such a big asset. We can walk you through exactly what you need and what to do as you say goodbye to your old home and welcome your new one. 

2). Have your affairs in order. This means making sure all your mail will get forwarded to your new property, that things like electricity, heat and internet are all set up, that any licences…

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Mortgage 101

Owning a home is no small feat. Why? Because they are a major financial investment. One of the main things to understand about owning a property is that you will likely start paying a mortgage.

So, what is a mortgage? A mortgage is the money you pay a creditor over time in exchange for them lending you all of that money upfront to pay for your property of choice. Essentially, it is a loan you take out to finance the purchase of a property. Depending on your unique situation, the creditor (typically a bank) will determine how much money they are comfortable lending you based on things like your job, credit score, assets, etc.. Finding out how much money the bank is willing to give you usually directly determines how much money you can spend on a…

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Walk Score

"Walk Score" is a real estate term that gets thrown around a lot, but is rarely ever  defined. So what is this all-important walk score? A walk score is a score an address is given between 0 and 100 regarding how friendly the area is based on walkability. Variables that go into calculating this score are:

• Area safety & Crime Rates
• Nearby Transit & Bike Routes
• Proximity to essential services such as Grocery stores, pharmacies, schools and businesses
• Composition of  land (Hills, Forests, Plains, etc.)

A walk score is a fast way for potential buyers to see how, essentially, accessible their new home is based on location.

Having a high walk score is often exalted as a wonderful thing, but having a low walk score is not necessarily…

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How To Find Your Forever Home

Some homes are temporary landing pads. They may be a rental place while you save for your first deposit, a smaller property you use to build equity towards something larger one day, or something else. Whatever it is, it served you well, but now it's time to find that forever home people write stories about.

By forever home, we don't necessarily mean forever. We just mean a property that is going to be a long term home, where you will likely spend the majority of your years. This home will hold a significant place in your heart and memories, so make sure to choose carefully! The following are some tips on what to look for and keep in mind as you search for your forever home:

First, recognize that this isn't a situation you need to rush into. Take…

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Finding The Right Retirement Home

Making the decision to find a retirement home can be difficult financially and emotionally. The reason? For most this means moving away from a home they have had for many years.

One local Calgarian described how difficult it was to make the decision to sell the home she had lived in with her late husband for over thirty years. They had made so many memories in that house, and poured their whole hearts into it. She noted that while leaving was hard, the transition gave her freedom to move into the next stage of life, onto the next adventure. Now she lives in a condo near her grandkids that has given her the financial and physical freedom to travel and spend more quality time with her family. She said the decision to find a retirement home was…

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