Real Estate Blog - Real Estate

Preparing For Tax Season

Cue the scary music: it's tax season. For most people this is the most dreaded time of the year. Taxes seem like a dark hole of confusion and money flying out of your bank account. What can you do to make it out of this season alive? Read on to find out.

There are many reasons we pay taxes, the foremost being that taxes allow the government to run expensive programs that benefit citizens, such as the military and healthcare. Think of taxes as a way the government forces you to save for upcoming expenses: pay your taxes now, little by little, and a trip to the clinic is covered. Not only are taxes important to pay, but you have to pay them or else you will be seriously penalized.

Filing your taxes does not have to be a painful experience. There are a…

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January 2016 Statistics

Every month we post the real estate market statistics from the previous month. This is a good way for us to summarize city-wide activity in the market and also give you some insight into what is predicted for the current month. We recognize that not everyone is numbers focused, but here are two good reasons why you should be reading these posts:

1). The housing market is a reflection of the city’s economic condition, so you gain insight into that sector, too.

2). They enable you to be an informed buyer / seller / investor.

So, without further ado, here is the January housing market statistics summery:

2016 has started off as a buyers market, just like this time last year. CREB® chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie explains this by saying, “The…

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2016 Housing Market Outlook

The 2016 Housing Market Outlook by RE/MAX is officially available and filled with important information for buyers and sellers alike. To read the whole report, click HERE. It is definitely worth the read, giving you an inside look at what the projections are for the housing market in 2016.

The report covers all of Canada so that you can get a birds eye view on what the market looks like as a whole. In this post, we will be highlighting the information specific to Alberta and Calgary. However, we highly recommend reading up on the other provinces.

Here are some key things to note from the report as we head into 2016:

As we are all well aware of, the sudden drop of oil prices was a shock to the system for every sector, including the real estate…

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December 2015 Statistics

Can you believe it’s already 2016? It seems like just yesterday it was 2012. 2016 has a lot of promise, full of adventures and changes that we are really looking forward to. In the meantime, we have a review of what happened in the housing market during the last month of 2015, December.

While December is a great month to close on a house sale to squeeze in end of the year tax savings and take advantage of builders wanting to get rid of inventory, this December’s market slowed down. With Calgary’s economic condition borderline critical, December did not leave room for massive purchases. That on top of the money people were already spending on gifts and parties for the holidays left little room for the housing market to flourish.

The CREB® housing…

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Tax Savings

While Christmas is only ten days away, there is another big event looming. The year is almost over, which means that Tax season will be upon us before we know it.

Taxes are not fun. Whether you have a professional to do them for you or not, taxes are a massive chore that many dread all year long. For some, they look forward to receiving a cheque in the mail from the government. For others, they brace themselves for the cheque they will have to write to the government.

No matter how old you are or what your current occupation is, there are ways to save come tax season. With some strategic planning, you can prevent yourself from owing more than you need to.

Here are our top ways to save during tax season:

1). Be organized. Make sure you separate…

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November 2015 Statistics

CREB® has released the November housing summary recap. Here are some of the highlights that you should be aware of:

November was not a tumultuous one for the real estate market. Despite the downward trend in activity, conditions are remaining stable enough to not cause too much worry. One good thing about less activity is that the housing market is officially a buyers market right in time for you to close a deal before the new year.

What is the headline CREB® gave the November housing statistics? “Weak sales activity relative to inventory places downward pressure on prices.”

High inventory levels in the Calgary resale sector persisted through November. These inventory levels were paired with weak sales levels, leading to a buyers market. Monthly…

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October 2015 Statistics

Hello, Winter!

Calgary has received its first official dump of snow. As of today, Starbucks has rolled out their holiday drinks and Christmas lights are starting to join the city skyline. It is time to say farewell to crunchy leaves and pumpkins, which we hope you did by taking them to the city wide recycling centres. For more information on that, check out the following link: City of Calgary Leaf and Pumpkin Recycling.

As our final goodbye to crisp autumn days, we have the CREB (Calgary Real Estate Board) October statistics summery. Want to learn more about real estate market conditions so you can be an informed buyer/seller/investor? Read on.

Elevated inventory levels continue to dominate the market in the resale sector which is significantly…

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November 2015 Market Statistics

Fall has arrived! September, a month of transitions and new focus, has become a beautiful October. Let’s all just take a moment to appreciate the fact that September passed without gracing our lawns with snow. Thank you, September. You were good to us.

September was a good month for real estate. Not necessarily a great month, but nothing the market can’t handle.

After four months of relatively stable, unadjusted benchmark prices, September saw a 0.26 percent decline in benchmark prices, settling at $456,100, on average, per unit. This price decline was most strongly seen in the apartment sector where inventory levels rose higher than they typically are.

Residential sales were much lower than the five and ten year averages. Why was this? CREB®…

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August 2015 Statistics

The resale market in Calgary’s residential sector saw a drop in units sold which has eased absorption rate. City wide sales declined by 27 percent with 1, 643 units sold in August. This is 12 percent lower than the ten year averages we have previously been on par with.

Why is this happening? “Persistent weakness in the energy sector weighed on sales activity this month, which once again retracted to levels well below the norm for the city,” said CREB® chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie. We may be back on our way to stability after the market crash, but it will still take a long time to fully recover. Luckily for us, Calgary is the ultimate comeback kid.

Weaker sales activity has resulted in properties being on the market for a longer time, the average…

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July 2015 Statistics

The summer is typically a popular time for those hoping to buy and/or sell a property. With school in hiatus for the summer, backyards emerging from their snowy slumber, and vacation days stored up, many people take advantage of the time and begin their real estate journey. This is the summer trend.

If there was one word to describe the real estate market this July, it would be “consistent.” Nothing out of the norm happened. It stayed consistent with typical summer trends. While this may seem dull, it is a sigh of relief for Calgarians who have still been nervous about the market after the oil crash back at the start of the year.

Sales activity for the month of July was consistent of the 10 year average. The declines we previously saw in…

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