As 2009 comes to an end it’s a good idea to review the CMHC Rental Market Report to see what’s happened for the tail end of the year. Here are the highlights.

Vacancy Rate:

• In Ocober 2009 the vacancy rate for the Saint John Area rose to 3.6% from 3.1% last year.
• In Saint John City Proper, three of the four zones had a year over year increase. The uptown core remained the same at 3.3%, West Saint John up to 2.7, North Saint John up to 3.3% and East Saint John with the highest rate up to 6.3%. The outlying areas was up to 1.9%
• Although the vacancy rate rose this year, it’s the second lowest since 2000.
• National vacancy rate increased in October 2009 (Saint John 3.6, Edmonton 4.5, Toronto 3.1, Vancouver 2.1, Calgary 5.3)

Average Rent:

• The average rent was up by 4.2%, with the average rent at $613/month
• The average rent for the popular 2 bedroom apartments was up at 4.5% at $644/month

For full details download the pdf below, or visit www.cmhc.ca and subscribe.

Download (PDF, 2.14MB)

Water issues are a fact of home ownership. There are two types of water issues we can talk about, problems with drinking water and water coming into the home. Today I’m only going to touch on water coming into the home.

For anyone buying a home, water and moisture problems are often one of the biggest (scariest) issues. Nobody wants to buy a home that has water problems or past water problems that haven’t been resolved. When buying a home it’s important to request a Property Condition Statement. A PCS is a two page questionnaire that’s often filled out by home owners when selling their home. In the PCS there is a question regarding water and moisture problems. It’s a requirement for the Vendor’s to disclose any known issues addressed on this form. The owner can only disclose what they know.

If you get back a PCS and there is an indication that there was a water or moisture problem in the home, you’ll want to find out some more information about the problem. Just because there was a problem at one time, doesn’t mean that there still is. Many real estate companies have a Schedule “A” that they’ll have the Vendor fill out, but here is a list of what you want to find out.

• Is there still a water/moisture problem?
• When is the last time the problem occurred?
• What is the frequency of the problem?
• If it was resolved, who completed the work and what did they do?

These four questions will help you to find out if there there will be problems down the road. Take steps to verify that work has been done and done properly. If the water or moisture problem hasn’t been resolved, have a reputable contractor prepare an estimate to correct the problem. Once you’re armed with an estimate, ask your agent to help you negotiate to either have the problem fixed, or to be compensated for it (and fix it your self).

If you’re selling a home with a water or moisture problem, the best thing to do is to get it fixed…fast! The longer water and moisture gets into your home the more complications you may encounter. When words like mold and mildew pop up, it could significantly hurt the sale of your home. Hire a professional to give you direction on what needs to be done, as well as a quote. If you’re not in a position to have the work completed, be sure to disclose the problem, present the solution as recommended by your professional and factor that cost into your list price.

I hope that this has been helpful, stay tuned for more information for home owners and investors alike.

Luther Harrity, REALTOR®

Royal LePage Atlantic

This evening I stumbled upon a news article that’s been a hot topic in Canadian Real Estate on Twitter.

It seems that Century 21 Canada is suing Rogers Communication for stealing content from Century 21 for it’s own website. In the the tech world they call this scraping.

Rogers Communications allegedly scraped information off of the Century 21 Canada website for use on their own property marketing website Zoocasa.

For full details visit: http://paidcontent.org/article/419-century-21-canada-sues-rogers-communications-real-estate-site-over-data/

Harrity Real Estate Services has a Facebook page. We’ll be adding some links and other information for you. We’d love for you to become a fan, and if you’re a client please leave your review!

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Real estate is a wonderful and fascinating business. It’s also a very local business, as it’s affected mostly by what’s going on in that particular city or even just a part of the city. One thing is for sure though, even though real estate is very localized – there is certainly some widespread problems affecting real estate throughout the world.

Here in Saint John we’re lucky, our economy is doing very well and still growing. Unfortunately for other markets in Canada, the US and around the world it’s a different story. Here is a link to an interesting article you might like. I hope you’ll enjoy.

What can $150k buy in real estate around the world: This blog post on matadorlife.com features listings from around the world that are around $150,000 USD or less. It might surprise you what’s out there! Take a look, and let me know what you think!