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 …

No Conveyance Of Offers

No Conveyance of Offers – Nothing Has Changed

Bruce BrownBuying And Selling

“No conveyance of offers prior to <time of day> on <specific date>.” …or… “Offers presented at <time of day> on <specific date>; however, the seller reserves the right to review and may accept pre-emptive offers.” If you followed or participated in the real estate market in Ottawa in 2020 you will have noticed one of these two phrases appearing in …

Real Estate Capitalization Rate

Why Are You Looking For A Great Cap Rate?

Bruce BrownInvesting

Misunderstanding cap rate, short for capitalization rate, is a favourite pastime of many realtors and novice investors. Too often I witness a lack of understanding of investment analysis within the real estate agent community. My concern is that novice investors may be making purchase decisions with inaccurate expectations for return on their investments. This article examines the relationship between real …

Hottest Ottawa Neighbourhoods

Hottest Ottawa Neighbourhoods – Hype vs. Data

Bruce BrownMarket Updates

A CTV News piece about the Hottest Ottawa Neighbourhoods and the Ottawa real estate market in July 2020 came to my attention this week. A local Realtor provided data and insights into prevailing conditions that continue to favour sellers. Here’s a link to the piece: CTV News Article & Video Reading through the article I could not help but cringe …

Does It Help To Submit Your Offer Last in a Bidding War?

Bruce BrownBuying And Selling

As people got used to wearing masks and keeping their distance, and with businesses and services slowly opening up, buyers and sellers stormed back into the real estate market in July. It was one hot July. I represented five sellers. Every one of them received multiple offers and sold way over asking price. Here are the amounts over asking: $40,000 …

Real Estate Investing ROI vs Appreciation

Real Estate Investing: ROI vs. Appreciation

Bruce BrownInvesting

This article is the first in a series examining and illustrating the impact of various factors on the returns generated by a real estate investment. If you remember one thing, let it be that the formula is more complicated than reported in the write-ups for virtually all investment property listings. For example, the “cap rate”, or the cash flow calculated …

Shared Equity Mortgage Canada

7 Reasons To Not Like Ottawa’s Shared Equity Mortgage

Bruce BrownBuying And Selling

Is Ottawa’s proposed Shared Equity Mortgage “plan” a good idea? Okay, so I only know what I saw on CBC News the other night. They reported that the Canadian Government has yet to work out the details of the “plan”. We can’t fully assess it until we have those details… but the concept seems misguided to me in many ways: …

Ottawa Condo Prices Old vs New

Ottawa Condo Prices – Older vs. Newer

Bruce BrownInvesting, Buying And Selling

Talking about Ottawa condo prices with one of my clients recently, I realised it’s been 6 years since I looked at the average selling price trend for older vs. newer condo apartments in Ottawa. Here’s the article from 2012: Are New or Re-Sale Condos a Better Investment? Fast forward to today; let’s take a look at the average selling price …

Bidding Wars Ottawa

Bidding Wars That Aren’t

Bruce BrownBuying And Selling

Have you read the CBC article from April 25th about Ottawa real estate’s “Perfect Storm” intensifying “Bidding Wars”? I’d like to go through this article and shed some light on a few of the pronouncements it makes. You can read the original article here: CBC Article: Bidding Wars Intensify It’s fun working in real estate because almost everybody finds it interesting …

Agent Has A Buyer For My Home

Selling – Dealing With The Agent Who Already Has a Buyer

Bruce BrownBuying And Selling

Law makers are waking up to some of the old school sales tactics that are unfortunately still common in the real estate business. CBC’s Marketplace ran their story (episode 44 – you can Google it if you haven’t seen it) about Realtors in Toronto working both sides of a transaction for the benefit of themselves (and buyer customers or clients) …