Photo Credit: Tri-City News
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE!
So goes the famous Beatles song and so goes an amazing group of local young people – the Love My City team. Dave Jonsson was the passionate spokesperson for the team’s delegation at this week’s Port Moody Council Meeting looking to have July 6-13 declared Love My City Week 2019. Last year was their first venture for a week of love when they cleaned parks, picked up garbage and performed random acts of kindness in the TriCities. Dave’s vision is that Love My City Week spreads like wildfire to other cities way beyond our own.
There are many negative observations about Millenials – these young people debunk the beliefs that we older people have. Let’s support them in their exemplary, exciting mission, lend a hand & spread the word. After all – we can’t have too much love in our cities.
Just when we thought that real estate could not receive more press and media attention than in the last couple of years, it is now the centre of attention in a number of different reports including money laundering, amount of lost equity owing to government interference, the effect of a real estate slow down on the economy at large and on… Any realtor will tell you that the horse was already out of the barn when the government stepped in. The market was slowing based on the usual factors – escalating prices which became as untenable for the foreign investor as the local homeowner and increasing inventory following an extraordinarily long time of very low housing stock. Foreign buyers were already focusing on lower priced cities such as Montreal and most local buyers were priced out of the market.
Markets have always experienced cycles – this was just the start of another. Few of us realtors (and we don’t know any) have experience with money laundering as we are dealing with local folk moving up the real estate ladder, downsizing, or moving here to live.
The result of home prices declining have no effect if you are living in your home longterm. However, if you bought within the last 3 years with 5% – 25% down and need to move, most or all of your equity is gone. This will prevent an immediate new purchase – back to the drawing board. With every market change there are those who are in the wrong place at the wrong time and those who find opportunities, like current upsizers. Never a better time in recent history for those looking to move up.
The government has it in their purview to determine who is buying homes and crack down on the money laundering – let’s not study it to death, rather immediately put in place the mechanism to deal with at least a part of it. It lies beyond the scope of your local real estate office. We would like less hype, more action and a return to business as usual.
Our team is so fortunate in our clients who return to us for their real estate needs and recommend us to their family, friends and colleagues – thank you. We continue to be a family business looking after every generation of buyer and seller – far from the criminal world of the daily News! If you want to check in with us about how the market affects your real estate goals please get in touch – always here to inform, advise and listen to your thoughts and plans.
Continuing to keep you covered whatever the climate, we remain the Generations Real Estate Partners – Michelle, Scott, Sheila, Ray & Shane.