Real Estate Information

No Downpayment?
Do You Qualify for 100% Financing?

Putting money aside for a home downpayment can be challenging at the best of times. With new government lending rules making it more challenging to qualify for a mortgage and banks tightening up their lending practices there is still a way to purchase a home with no downpayment. 
One lender is still offering a 5% cash back mortgage that allows you to purchase your home with no downpayment. (the 5% cash back from the lender becomes your downpayment) This allows many buyers to get into the busy housing market years in advance of saving cash for a home. I recently met with a client who purchased a home with 100% financing 5 years ago: the home they purchased has gone up almost $75,000 in value since they purchased it with no downpayment. 

Here are the  details:

-    5 year fixed mortgage
-    Available for condo’s, townhomes’s, semi-detached or detached homes
-    Employment verification required
-    Minimum beacon score
-    Requires 1.5% savings for closing costs.

Caught your interest? For more info, enter your info here and I will help to get the process started.

Lindsay Smith

^{Considering selling a home in Oshawa, Whitby or Clarington?}

I had a great chat with a builder last week. I sit on the Committee of Adjustments for the City of Oshawa and after our meeting we got to chatting about new home sales in Oshawa. I was sharing with him that I was heading to Scottsdale AZ. the next day and we talked about the market in Arizona. It caused me to think of how much influence the media has in our opinions of the Real Estate market.

He told me he has friends who know the Phoenix area extremely well and that new homes were flat and no one was building. I had dinner with one of the leading Architects in Phoenix who commented that there is no land to build on and that the builders are buying anything they can get their hands on. His thoughts would have been correct 2 years ago, these days, they are in what looks like a boom market and the prices have jumped 20 – 30% since the market dropped.

Returning to Canada and listening to CBC radio I hear that real estate is in a slump and that the numbers of sales are declining. Again, the old media saying is accurate, “if it bleeds, it reads.”

Here are the real facts for Oshawa, Whitby and Clarington:

Sales from Monday April 8th – April 17th:

Whitby: 62 Sales of homes with 23 or 37% selling for full asking price or over asking.
Oshawa: 66 Sales of homes with 26 or 40% selling for full asking price or over asking.
Clarington: 39 Sales of homes with 15 or 40% selling for full asking price or over asking.

For the month of April, in all 3 communities if you were a seller and sold you accepted on average only 1.5% less than you asked and sold in an average of 14 days! To obtain the highest price in this crazy market, the agents with the skills and experience are the ones who get the best prices for their clients. I have seen several markets like the one we were in – experience is critical. 

One of my favorite quotes, “when a person with money meets a person with experience, usually, the person with the money ends up with the experience and the person with the experience ends up with the money.”

If you are considering selling, I would love to leave you with the money and the buyer with…..

I am a quick call or email away.

Lindsay