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Arnold Shuchat PREC Real Estate Blog

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The Appraisal Institute of Canada offers the following tips on undertaking smart home renovations.  I'll have more detail on this in coming blogposts, but here are a few of their recommendations.  Appraisers and Realtors' work complements each other and helps provide some price stability and confidence in the real estate market. Here is what the AIC says on its website:

TIPS TO CHOOSING “SMART” HOME RENOVATIONS
Many Canadians are interested in knowing the “smartest” household renovations to make to receive a good return on their investment. Although there are many variables that affect the value of a home, the Appraisal Institute of Canada (AIC) offers these general tips to Canadian consumers.
1. Choose improvements with long life expectancy. Roofing, energy-efficient heating and cooling systems, and windows can provide homeowners worry-free home improvements for as long as 10 to 15 years. But remember…regular maintenance is as important as the initial...
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This is not the first time I have seen this, but I have to share this laugh; has to be one of the funniest listing remarks.  I was looking at this week's biggest price declines as I thought there was some data corruption on the No 1 price decline in my previous post.  Well, check out the remarks below.  Do you think the typo has anything to do with it?

" Fully furnished hotel suite at Hilton Airport Hotel in the heart of effluent Richmond with its enormous multi-national enterprises...."

Nuff said!  This is a repeating mistake.  I've let the Realtor know already.
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This is from one of my files.  I had to share it.  It is the craziest thing I have ever seen done as a do it yourself renovation.  In order to have a nice flush electric garage door installation, this chump completely cut through the main joist beam of his whole upstairs to insert the electric unit!  This is just one illustration as to why someone needs to do a home inspection prior to purchasing. 



Crazy

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There are usually one of two good reasons why people decide to sell their real estate: the first is an upcoming change in their family’s living arrangement , such as a downsizing, change of schools etc…;the second is about the investment merits of continuing to hold a property in light of changing market direction and the impact that has on a family’s future balance sheet. As a consequence of the rapid acceleration in real estate prices over the last decade a large amount of wealth has accumulated and many people are just now starting to think about protecting the value of these assets. 

The most frequent question I am asked is “How is the real estate market these days?”  This is a difficult question to answer on a moment’s notice as every type of product and location has a different answer.  Some neighborhoods have suffered a market correction more than others which have been buffered by the desirability of their location. For those concerned...

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A BAD INSPECTION REPORT

This is why I send every listing Realtor a copy of a negative inspection report on a property, where my buyer elects not to remove subject conditions. It puts the listing Realtor on notice and requires him to ensure disclosure of issues or defects or suffer the consequences of a potential damage claim from the next buyer who acutally completes.

When a buyer refuses, for a legitimate reason, to remove a subject clause because of a bad inspection report, what is the listing licensee to do with that knowledge?

This was the issue in a recent case where the court found the listing licensee liable for $47,000 in damages for failing to fully tell subsequent buyers about problems revealed in an earlier inspection report.
 
In Gundersen v. Savoy, the property was a modified single-wide manufactured home on land near Cranbrook1. The sellers had built an addition to the home.
 
In June 2004, the sellers listed the property. In their Property Disclosure Statement...
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There is a hard way, and there is an easy way to find property in the school catchment area that you want.
The hard way, is to check every single listing that comes out every single day and to check the catchment for that listing each time to make sure that the property is in the area you want.

There are a host of simpler ways.  But the easiest is to call me to arrange for a custom property search.  This can be done by framing an area geographically using special software.  The criteria can be by street, by walking distance from the school, by yard or view exposure relative to the compass.  Once we have that configured, other criteria can be added automatically  so that for the most part, you only get listings that meet your needs or search criteria.  These listings will be sent automatically as soon as they are up on the Real Estate Board's MLS system.  The way most people try to do this on their own, the listings only show up about 48 hours later and the...

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