Edmonton Real Estate Blog

How about this! Another new Home For Sale in Edmonton!

Here’s a great opportunity for you to own a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 935 sq ft. condo for only $235,000 off the bath!

In these tough times in Edmonton, this kind of quality-home would be hard to come by.

Professionally marketed by Team Leading Edge, you can be sure that this Edmonton home will provide the best bang for your buck!

View complete details here: Larkspur Edmonton Home

Note: Remember, you can access all our available Homes For Sale in Edmonton through our Edmonton MLS Listings page.

This morning I received an interesting article from Doug Bodtcher of Investors Group Financial Services Inc. Entitled “Achieve investment goals with less volatility”, articles like these is best shared to everyone.

While the city of Edmonton is enjoying a strong economic growth, it doesn’t mean you have to take higher risks to gain more profit. An excerpt from the article “The trade-off between risk and return is one of the most important decisions that an investor has to make.”

He further adds “A low volatility strategy is designed to produce less risk than the broad market. It allows investors to participate in positive market conditions and potentially shelters their investment from excessive market volatility.”

Subscribe to our blog and download complete article here.

The more investment knowledge you have, the better chances you’ll get in earning more money.

For real estate investments, do check out our Edmonton MLS listings. Updated daily for your convenience.

It’s been almost a mythical belief that the best time to sell an Edmonton home is during spring and summer season. That is most certainly not true. Although, selling in spring and summer poses “some” advantages, listing your home today would be one of best strategies you could do.

It is possible to sell your home quickly and for a better price this off-season due to a shortage in inventory. Remember, most Edmontonians are busy preparing for the holidays so there are few competitions out in the market!

During the spring and summer time, there’s an influx of newly built homes so that gives buyers more options, which in turn could force you (or the other sellers) to reduce the selling price.

Again, to emphasize, the off-season will provide you with less competition. Yes, we needed to underscore that part. Most people hibernate by this time of the year, some would just choose to watch the Edmonton Oilers game (like Serge and Dan) rather than sell their homes so all the odds are within your favor!

Lastly, off-season buyers would love it when they know and see for themselves that your most cherished house have been performing terribly well against damaging weather conditions; heavy rains, freezing temperatures.

Pick-up your phone and call Team Leading Edge now at 780-634-8151 so we could start selling your home.

In case you missed it, theglobeandmail.com published an interesting report last 11 November written by Michael Babad entitled “Why we shouldn’t fear a crash in Canada’s three hottest housing markets”.

Here’s the breakdown of it.

In the housing and demographics side, senior economist Robert Kavcic found in his research that while the residential construction starts are at record levels, still grew 4% year over year.

Toronto is experiencing a 4 1/2 –year low in constructions starts due to the cooling down of population growth.

Mr. Kavcic further said that there is no meltdown in the horizon since the constructions happening in Toronto were mostly started in 2012 and 2013, which means there is no real overbuilding.

As what we have discussed in our previous posts, housing starts have declined in October reaching a low of 183,600, surpassing projections by economists.

“The focus in Canada is on Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto, where prices are running hot. Most recently, the Bank of Canada has said other markets are showing signs of a soft landing.” the report said.

Gluskin Sheff + Associates chief economist David Rosenberg suggests that the downside surprise in data is a welcoming point for policy makers, where homebuilding is staying consistent with the Canadian household formation trend.

This trend is well above the requirement to match the growth in population as noted by Brian DePratto, Toronto-Dominion Bank economist.

He further adds that “A gradual rise in interest rates, along with the moderate level of overbuilding will help moderate housing activity.”

All this point to a rosy real estate industry in Edmonton. The music still continue to play and so is the need to dance to it. Buy now. Check out the latest available homes for sale in Edmonton and nearby areas on our high-speed Edmonton MLS.

Read complete report here.

You read it right, everything is looking good for the housing market in the city of Edmonton. Just last October 30, The Wallstreet Journal Canada released an article entitled “Canada’s Housing Market Defies Doomsayers” written by Nirmal Menon, emphasizing that “Canada’s housing market keeps on going, defying long-standing predictions of a slowdown.”

Like what we have written on our Halloween article “Edmonton Housing Market, Surviving Zombiepocalypse”, The Wallstreet Journal Canada reports that forecasts for starts and prices have been raised again by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

A point to ponder in the report is the reason why Canada’s housing marketing did not experience a bust similar to its southern neighbor, the U.S. Unlike its neighbor, Canada put in place practices that are more conservative.

“The government has tightened mortgage insurance rules four times between 2008 and 2012 to cool the market and rein in household debt that Canadians have built up by using cheap borrowing costs to buy homes.” the report said.

BMO Capital Markets chief economist Douglas Porter have played down the gloom and doom scenarios as some observers have been worried that a housing bubble might burst, this is on the back of the International Monetary Fund’s recent inclusion of Canada as one of the countries with over-valued home prices.

Mr. Porter is positive that under most scenarios, like if the global economy stumbles or Bank of Canada makes big rate hikes, the Canadian housing market would keep plowing ahead.

This solidifies our earlier announcements at Team Leading Edge that it is the right time to buy a real estate property in Edmonton. Check all the latest homes for sale in our Edmonton MLS.

Read complete report here.

Do you know how great investors are distinguished against average people?

They are the ones who grab an opportunity fast whenever it presents itself.
Okay, wait, let me rephrase that. They’re the ones who POUNCE to every bit of opportunity that life presents!
That’s much better.

To elaborate further, great investors are the kind of people who make their own luck. They don’t wish for luck. One of the best books I’ve ever read is “The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason”. There were four quotes mentioned in that book relating to luck that I would like to share with you. First, “Good luck waits to come to that man who accepts opportunity”, second, “To attract good luck to oneself, it is necessary to take advantage of opportunities” third, “Good luck can be enticed by accepting opportunity” and lastly, “Men of action are favored by the Goddess of Good Luck”.

Although the book was written ages ago, the quotes still apply to this day and as I see it, it will persist for as long as there are human existence that strive to achieve a greater sense of being. I’m striving to achieve a good life and if you do as well, then its best that you too take the quotes to heart as it may guide you in your own journey.

A great opportunity is in front of you right now. Take the Canora Experience. This 4 bedroom half duplex bungalow is currently in the market. Given the economic rise of Alberta this year, this kind of real estate property would come ever so rare.

At $274, 900, this 969 sq ft piece of opportunity can and should be your next home or investment. Analyze the data, crunch the numbers, do your due diligence, I assure you all of it would point to same conclusion. To put it simple terms; this will bring the best bang for your buck.

Check out the photos below and see for yourself how this opportunity could change your life.

View the complete details of the property here.

Opportunity awaits! Act now before its too late.

Selling a home is no easy task that is why there are Realtors such as our team, but don’t think of it as a deterrent. The point that you are reading this article suggest that you would like to do something on your end to make the selling process as fast and efficient as possible, which is great! Below are 5 incredibly easy ways for you to help your Realtor market your home and create more value for your priced possession. Follow it and you’re going to be smiling your way to the bank.

Ceramic Wall Tiles

1. CHOOSE NATURAL: Materials such as granite, ceramic tiles and even hardwood create more value than synthetic materials such as acrylics. When renovating kitchen floors, chose wood over linoleum as it will look classier to home buyers than the latter.
   Laminated products offer additional value for wall-to-wall renos. Keep the carpets well maintained as it is one of the very first things home buyers see. You wouldn’t want potential buyers to think they’ll spend tons of money just to replace the carpet, wouldn’t you?
2. KEEP THE PAINT FRESH: Keeping a fresh coat of paint in the master bedroom, kitchen and other parts of the house will go a long way. It is the most cost effective way to add that buzz to your home.Stay clean and neutral with taupe, brown and off-white colors. Neutral shades is key as bright colors would tend to do more harm in the selling process than good. Lastly, stay off dark colors as it tends to create an effect which makes a room smaller than it really is.
3. BE ENERGY EFFICIENT: Nothing beats having low electrical bills. You experience it yourself every time the bill comes. An energy efficient house is a very marketable piece of real estate especially now that almost everybody is budget conscious. There are low cost solar panels and rain catchment systems now out in the market that you could take advantage off. You may even ask your local utility company to show how to truly maximize home energy efficiency. Majority of the energy providers do it for free.
4. STORAGE GALORE: The more storage you have in your home, the better. Home buyers nowadays prefer a generous amount of attic and closet space. Having space is very important, especially if the potential buyer/s have a lot of equipment’s, i.e. snow blower, bicycles, lawn mower. In this kind of scenario, an over sized garage would really come in handy. His and hers walk-in closet in the master suite would be synonymous to additional dollars in your pocket.

   

5. LAST BUT NOT LEAST, MAINTENANCE: Hold off the lavish home upgrades and focus on the basics first. Fixing the small things such as leaks, leaky windows, insulating the attic, inspecting the septic system and weeding the flower beds go very long way towards creating value. These small repairs could cost you a hundred dollars but it may create additional zeros to your selling price.

After a hardcore Monday work, time for you to catch some breath and recoup before blazing again through the rest of the week. If you have already subscribed to our blog (great for you!), you might have already noticed that we here at Team Leading Edge always mix up our articles and this time we wanted to feature something funny. I figured nothing is funnier than seeing a home that have failed in some engineering or architectural way-or basically a photo that sums up loss of common sense. I don’t want to be mean but being in the real estate industry myself, I have seen a fair share of failed home designs and it always cracks me up. Too bad I wasn’t able to take photos of the failed home designs that I saw when I was doing site visits!

Now lucky for you I have done the leg work and filtered the worst, funny and crazy home designs around. Check out the list below to see Failed Home Designs.

Remember to view our list of amazing homes for sale in Edmonton through our MLS real estate listing after. You would not be disappointed.

1. WRONG ERECTION. I don’t know if the owners are one of those “fertility” believers but, really, this is just wrong.But, Austin Powers like it.
   

   Time to get your mojo

2. SUICIDE DOOR. They took it literally. Judging from this photo, I can safely assume that if the 3^rd floor is for rent, they would have extremely low tenancy rate due to this fatal flaws in the floor design.  
3. LEANING COUSIN OF PISA. Get it? No? Shame on you.
4. DRA-WHERE? A big facepalm right here. Complete waste of storage space.
5. BACKDOOR. In some weird way, this isn’t really that much of a failure. Looking at the positive side, if you ever really really needed to use the toilet when you arrive home, you wouldn’t need to go inside the house, you can dash straight at the backdoor!
6. [             ]. I will just leave this one for you to think of a caption.
7. WRONG SIDE. Seriously. You had one job!
8. ECO-FRIENDLY GARAGE. They didn’t want to cut down the tree for environmental purposes. Should’ve moved the garage though. See amazing garage designs here. 

   

9. MAKE ROOM FOR THE FRIDGE. Yup! Squeeze it right there. Perfect!
   

   I know how Patrick feels

10. SOME MEN WOULD RELATE.
11. OKAY, THESE TWO DESERVE THE LAST SPOT.
    Plumber was just making sure that if there would be a leak, he already had it covered.Bro, just no.
    
    Here’s hoping you won’t do the same mistakes seen here or your work may just end up in our future list! That’s about it, don’t forget to subscribe.

    See beautiful homes with great working designs for sale in Edmonton here.

I love cars, Lexus LFA type of cars to be exact. The only game on my iPhone is Asphalt 8, a kickass car racing game. Cars today aren’t just simple mechanical tools used to travel from point A to point B, no, they have evolved to become an extension of one’s self. The brand, color and interior all provides subtle clues into who or what the owner is. As for me, I’m always in awe with the aesthetics of it, the status-symbol and the toys-for-the-big-boys bragging rights that it brings to the table.

This is love.

With that in mind, I wanted to know what the best garage designs look like and what I found brought tears into my eye-yes, I stared so long on the computer screen that my eyes got watery-probably you would too. Be warned, some of the images might be disturbing, as one user pointed out “some of these cars spend the night in a better room than I do!”. Couldn’t agree more [Insert sobbing emoticon here].

Okay, enough with the introduction and let’s get down to business. Below is a gallery I made of what I believe is the most epic, amazing, outrageously expensive and very creative garage designs. Also, don’t forget to check out our list of amazing Edmonton houses for sale (with garages, of course) in our supreme Edmonton MLS real estate listing. Enjoy!

Here’s the mother lode of amazing garages I hand picked from luxury4play.com:

Elegant garage from Houzz.com:

Condo living to the max! This sky garage is the future:

I don’t know about you but it may take sometime for me to afford one of these garage designs but hey, if there’s a will (or wheel for that matter) there’s a way, right?! Share with us your own garage design in the comment section below.

Sneak Preview of new listing coming up next week in Rutherford.

• 3 bdr. 2 storey home with hardwood floors.

• Just under 2,000 sq.ft. above grade.

• Upgrades include central air conditioning.

Asking Price: $519,900Call us today before it goes on MLS

780-634-8151