Why your friends think real estate is a bad investment.

Why your friends think real estate is a bad investment.

Bruce BrownInvesting

1. They Don’t Understand Leverage Some of your friends aren’t investment-minded. They may be risk-averse or they espouse an experience-focused lifestyle and spend all their money “enjoying life”. But you also have friends who are focused on building wealth who insist that real estate is not a good investment. Some of these folks take risks that promise huge returns, like …

Ottawa House Prices By Neighbourhood 2022

Bruce BrownMarket Updates

Ever wonder whether neighbourhood A is more or less expensive than neighbourhood B? Or how about which areas are trending downward or upward? This ranking of Ottawa & Eastern Ontario communities is a great place to start, and I think it’s the only place you’ll find a simple leaderboard-style ranking with multi-year price ranking trends at a glance. In the …

How The Bank of Canada Inflated House Prices

How The Bank of Canada Inflated House Prices

Bruce BrownMarket Updates

Examining the Bank of Canada’s Interest Rate Policy on Real Estate We all know that lower interest rates can contribute to increased demand in the housing market. In this article I’ll look at how the Bank of Canada inflated house prices during the pandemic, from March 2020 through March 2022. When governments announced shutdown measures to start dealing with the …

Banning Blind Bidding

Should Blind Bidding Be Banned?

Bruce BrownBuying And Selling

Should blind bidding be banned? The Liberal Party of Canada seems to think so. Justin Trudeau created quite a stir when he announced the party’s plan to ban “blind bidding” in real estate transactions at a campaign stop recently. When I heard the news, I thought it likely an exaggeration or other form of “fake news” because real estate transaction …

Ottawa Real Estate Market Starts To Turn

Ottawa Real Estate Market Starts to Turn

Bruce BrownMarket Updates

Ottawa Real Estate Market Starts to Turn The Ottawa real estate market always cycles and while COVID disrupted the seasonal cycle quite dramatically, the fundamental forces driving the intense seller’s market are now officially on a three-month trend in the opposite direction. In this article we will look at the key statistics illustrating the beginning of the next phase in …

High Income Property Prices Mean Negative Cash Flow – Buy REITs Instead?

Bruce BrownInvesting

With escalating property prices across Canada (and the USA!), rental income often won’t generate positive cash flow these days. Some “gurus” suggest buying REITs as an alternative to purchasing income properties directly. Are REITs a valid option in the real estate investing game? I explore that question in this video.

Why Is Nobody Selling Their House?

Bruce BrownBuying And Selling

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a housing inventory crisis across Canada and the United States (I haven’t looked beyond – maybe it’s another pandemic?!) In this video I look at the possible reasons not enough people are selling, and whether there are any signs of hope for house hunters. Video Outline (1:00) Stats: Number of Q1 Sales vs New …

House Price Theories & Conspiracies

Bruce BrownBuying And Selling

House prices in Ottawa in early 2021 are going crazy! Last video we talked about the main reason. Let’s look at some other theories (and conspiracies!) about house prices. I mention a couple of media articles in this video. Here are links to those articles: Global News on Foreign Buyers The RBC Study that Global News References CTV July 2020 …