Toronto Real Estate Home Inspectors - How to Choose One

The home inspection industry is currently not a regulated industry, which means that anyone can call themselves a home inspector and charge a fee to look at homes and give you a report or opinion on the condition of the home. So until the home inspection industry gets its own version of REBBA making it illegal to charge a fee for a home inspection related service, without first being registered and insured, how do you choose the right home inspector?

I think we would all recognize that this picture would be of someone you would not like to have inspecting your home, yet home inspectors are rarely this obviously unqualified. So, always make sure that they are a member of the Canadian Association of Home and Property Inspectors (CAHPI) and in Ontario, Canada, they should also belong to the Ontario Association of Home Inspectors (OAHI). These two organizations have their own rules, regulations, ethics codes and training qualifications that must be met in order to remain a member.

Make sure that they have errors and omission insurance that is up to date and paid for, just in case they do miss something that should have been detected. I believe that Insurance coverage is a requirement for both of the above organizations, however it is best to ask and even to see an insurance policy "slip" stating that the insurance coverage is valid and active.

In Ontario, Canada, all REALTORS® must advise their clients that a home inspection is recommended service. Most will even give you a few names to choose from. You should call at least 2-3 home inspectors and interview them to find out what they do and how much they charge. Some may provide extra services for a premium or use specialized equipment that goes beyond a basic home inspection. You can expect to pay close to $400 for a home inspection on a home up to 2,500sq ft if it is not too old. Older homes may cost more as they often need to be home thoroughly inspected and my have crawl spaces and awkward spaces that the home inspector needs to get into to inspect the home. Larger homes will often cost more as there is more home to inspect and it will take longer and may even involve multiple heating and ventilation systems or other home systems that are included in the inspection.

As Part of my York Region real estate service I have several home inspectors that I recommend to my clients based on how thorough they are. They do not work for me, so they are responsible to my clients to provide the information that they need even if it means the client does not want to close on that home because of it. I would rather we all know that a home is in poor condition and move on to finding a home that is good than to have an unhappy client in the future when the problems become more obvious.

Genworth Housing Outlook - Summer 2007

Genworth Financial has published there summer 2007 "Housing Outlook" that provides insightful analysis of the Canadian real estate markets (nationally, provincially, and for major cities) as well as provides their predictions for the next few years.

The "Housing Outlook", according to Genworth Financial, look strong for the next few years with stead growth in home values as well as sales volumes (with a slight exception of new home sales in 2007). They sight economic factors like the strength of the Canadian Dollar and the growing GDP, personal incomes, and a variety of other national and regional factors in support of these views.

The price increases that they are predicting are higher than I was expecting, so if you are currently renting it would be a good idea to find out if you can afford a home and buy now before you are priced out of the market. a 0% down mortgage may have an insurance premium but it is, most often, worth it if you plan to live in the home for a few years, especially if the prices increase as Genworth predicts.

I am posting a copy of the Toronto Housing Outlook on my Toronto real estate "Market Watch" page for anyone to request. You do need to provide a valid email address as that is how it will be sent to you. Your privacy is assured and I will not send you endless spam or sell, give or otherwise disseminate your information to anyone except where required by the laws covering Ontario.

Currently renting? Do you want to know if you can afford a home? Call me at 416-278-2335 and we will find out with the help of one of my great mortgage professional. No obligations and credit issues may not be as big an issue as you thought, if you have credit issues.

Toronto Real Estate Market Update - preliminary

Real estate markets in the Toronto area has far surpassed expectations in the first half of the year with just over 50,000 sales posted in the months of January to June. Going into July the activity seems to have decreased some what. This is to be expected slightly as many people flee the city for vacations to cottages or other more exotic locals, in order to escape the everyday life of a 9 to 5er's (or what ever hours one calls a work day).

This tends to have the biggest effect on the higher priced homes as the people most able to afford them are also the people who are most able to afford a cottage where they would rather be, rather than shuffling from house to house looking for the one that is significantly better than their current home, at a reasonable price.

The unadjusted sales numbers for July, (1st to 9:30am July 30th) is 8643 homes that were sold firm. This number is likely to be higher than the official numbers, posted by the Toronto Real Estate Board in the end of the first week of August, as they may contain some duplicate listings or land listings that were improperly categorized on the MLS® system. (sorry I do not have the access to perform those types of filters). This represents an increase of 22% over July 2006's 7082 homes sold through the Toronto MLS® system.

The Toronto real estate sales volume for homes in June was 10,451 which means that July's sales are 17.3% less than in June. This may seem like a lot, but in 2006 the decrease was 18.9% and at the time we were calling it a very strong sales month.

It looks like we could be expecting close to, if not over 90,000 sales by the end of the year with steady price increases of as much as 5% over the previous year.

I will update you when the official numbers are posted.

New Toronto Real Estate Tax delayed

Thanks to the efforts of the Toronto Real Estate Board and the general public, that lobbied the municipal government, the City of Toronto land transfer tax has been postponed until after the provincial election in October. There was a narrow win of 23 votes to 22 in favour of postponing a decission on this proposed tax.

Now we will all have to lobby the Ontario government to try and convince them that Toronto needs some financial help to keep it afloat, in order to avoid the real estate tax being passed shortly after the election is held.

Real estate in Toronto has remained a very hot market, however an increase in land transfer taxes would have a heavy effect on home values in the City of Toronto. That said anyone living just outside of the Toronto city boundaries might see a marked increase in their home's values.