Hampstead Eco-Center
6925 Côte-des-Neiges, Montreal, 514-872-3517 www.hampstead.qc.ca/1/hampsteadgoesgreen/Eco-Centre

Éco-centre Eadie
1868 Cabot, 514-872-8359

Écocentre LaSalle
7272, rue Saint-Patrick, www.ville.montreal.qc.ca/ecocentres, 514-872-0384

www.Recyc-Frigo.com, free old fridge pick up to be recycled and Hydro-Quebec will send you a $30 cheque, 1-888-525-0930

REMOVING OF DEBRIS

Eco Ramasse
ecoramasse.com, 514-994-3267

1-800 Got Junk
http://www.1800gotjunk.com, 1-800-468-5865

SECOND HAND STORES

Villages des Valeurs www.villagedesvaleurs.com
399, boul des Sources Dollard-Des-Ormeaux, 514-684-1326
4906, rue Jean-Talon O Montréal, 514-739-1962

Salvation ArmyThrift Store
11815, boul de Pierrefonds Pierrefonds, 514-683-6414
5762, rue Sherbrooke O Montréal, 514-488-8714
1620 Rue Notre-Dame O, Montréal, 514-935-7425

A Coeur Ouvert
397, rue Cherrier L’île-Bizard, 514-626-8150

Boutique D’Occasion Pour NOVA
2750, boul Saint-Charles Kirkland, 514-697-6692
43, rue Sainte-Anne Sainte-Anne-De-Bellevue, 514-457-1642

Fond D’Entraide En Santé Bénévoles De Ste-Anne
43, rue Sainte-Anne Sainte-Anne-De-Bellevue, 514-457-1948

Atlantis Hospitality Groupe
3737, boul de la cote-Vertu Saint-Laurent, 514-339-2444

Fripe-Prix Renaissance
801 Boul Décarie Saint-Laurent, 514-747-2635
7205, Saint-Jacques St. West, Montréal, 514-484-0145
6700, Côte-des-Neiges Rd., Local 205, Montréal, 514-733-6330
4261, Wellington St.Montréal, 514-766-5059
6650, Côte-de-Liesse, St-Laurent, 514-276-3626

Habitat for humanity
Habitat ReStores are building material liquidation centres whose profits go towards Habitat for Humanity’s mission, i.e. the construction of decent, affordable homes for low-income families. The ReStore carries new merchandise donated by distributors, retailers, manufacturers, and construction companies to support Habitat for Humanity’s mission.
4399, Notre-dame.Montreal, http://www.habitatmontreal.qc.ca/magasin/index_en.htm, (514) 907-8991

Hi I’m Jennifer Walker, the author and Real Estate Broker.

For more info call me (514) 402-8444 or EMAIL ME!

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MONTREAL REAL ESTATE INVESTORS GROUP
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About 70% of all deals will run into a snag.

These all could be deal breakers if not handled properly. The solution to these “situations” is dedication, research and a lot of plea bargaining and negotiating. These “situations” could be anything from declined financing, irregularities on the certificate of location, timelines not being met, fighting among buyers and sellers, municipal assessments not done properly, building inspections gone bad and many more.

For example: My client bought an apartment building that came with a house as part of the title. He renovated the house, legally divided the two properties and now wanted to list the house to sell. Between the two properties was a shared driveway to their garages. Because this is now a new division, the city hadn’t assessed the house for the taxes. Now we have an accepted promise to purchase in which one of the conditions is to accept the taxes.

After many phone calls to the city, we were told that the driveway is called a “indivise horizontal”, like a duplex gone co-coop (indivise vertical), similar to a condo building that is shared which comes with rules and regulations and owner percentages. We asked the city how this should be done. They didn’t have the answers even though this was a policy that they put into place. They had to call a specialised city notary who had to research it. The land surveyor and the city were consulted and it took over two weeks to get the right directions for the seller’s notary to prepare the supporting documents. Once that was done, a city appraiser would have to assess the property to calculate the new tax bill. However, there was a 3 month backlog.

What saved the deal was that the city appraiser gave us some clues on how to find comparables and do an average to find out an approximate cost of the taxes. I was online looking at all the buildings and land that I could find in the allotted area and came up with an approximate average of tax prices that I could present to the buyer. Luckily the buyer accepted. Our deadline to sign was in 3 days. We made our signing deadline and everyone was happy.

Without the persistence of my vendor, the helpfulness of his notary and my research this deal may have been lost. Another great reason to be surrounded with dedicated professionals.

Hi I’m Jennifer Walker, the author and Real Estate Broker. For more info call me (514) 402-8444 or EMAIL ME!

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MONTREAL REAL ESTATE INVESTORS GROUP
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I’ve listed a house and I receive an offer from a real estate Broker. I can see the full offer, however legally cannot disclose the details to anyone. Then I get a phone call from a buyer who has visited during an open house and would like to put in an offer. I explain to them that it’s best if they find their own Real Estate Broker to write it up for them, however

they are quite insistent that I do it. I need their offer by that night when I present the first offer. I explain to them that I will have a hard time representing them to the fullest of my capabilities. The reason is that naturally I am an aggressive negotiator and like to council my clients 110% of what they are getting into. Knowing what the other offer is, creates a situation for me to really watch what I say and how I council. The buyer then will not get the best of me.

I am not alone. I have talked to many Real Estate Brokers who feel the same way. If I co-list, we will each represent the buyer and seller so they have someone negotiating on their behalf at full force.

In a multiple offer situation I often get asked by one of the agents who lost the deal if the buyers had their own representation or if I represented them. I would gain by double ending the deal. You can see how that could be awkward and some eyebrows raised if I represented the winner and all the others were represented by Brokers.

Here are some tips for the BUYER:

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I added this article because I love real estate and educating people on the matter. If you would you like me to work for you, call me 514-402-8444 or EMAIL ME!

The first guest was representing CMHC. He talked about Real Estate sales statistics, what type of market we are in and forecasted what will be happening in 2011.

The second presentation was from Dave Richardson, VP of Global Financial Services. He talked about the Canadian market, our current situation and gave his predictions for 2011.

WHERE TO FIND OWNERS

REPOSSESSION
I’ve seen well over 100 of them and these are my thoughts:

There is not a lot on market. As of today, March 8, 2011 for the whole island of Montreal:
REVENUE: 18 repos out of 2056
HOMES: 7 repos out of 2573
CONDOS: 15 repos out of 5915 (.00254%)

HOT AREA – FINDING THE TRENDS

Watch the areas: Growth and decline (vacancy for both businesses and apartments), construction, new businesses, new development, new transportation. (Watch out for new condo development!!!, only because one building is going up, doesn’t mean that the promoters did any marketing research)

Look for the next frontier: Is there a town that is on the outskirts and still at low prices? Keep your eyes on that, people won’t mind driving that extra 5-10 minutes to save $30K-$50K on housing prices.

Look for areas surrounded by big growth: For example, a couple of years ago you could buy a 3 bedroom bungalow in CSL West for under $300K, in a matter of 6 months, most of that area went up about $60K. Why? Because it was the only place left to find those prices in a nice residential area that was still close to town.

KNOW IF THE MARKET IS NEW, HOT OR PAST
Examples:

Lachine Canal:
#1. new dev area,
#2. Lachine market 18th ave hot,
#3. still growing

NDG New Hospital:
#1. new project, (will bring in lots of weekly renters),
#2. not hot yet

Monkland Village:
#1. new duplexes turning to condos, trendy biz move to street,
#2. hot prices more than doubled from 2001-2004. 2001: low $71K- high$473K, 2004: low$170K- high$656K (2010 to present low $260K- high$925K
#3. still growing

The first part of the contract is called a Promise to Purchase (PP). It includes the summary description of the property, the buyer and seller’s information, the object, declarations, dates of delivery, and signing and extra paperwork needed to complete the sale.

The second part of the contract is called Annex A. It is the financial part of the contract. It includes occupation date, method of payment, new mortgage information, possible balance of sale and or assuming another’s mortgage.

The last part of the contract is called Annex B. It is a one pager that is filled with conditions that we may chose from. It includes the sale of the buyer’s immovable, privilege of continuing to offer the immovable for sale with a first refusal clause, acceptance conditional upon cancellation of another accepted promise, building inspection and review of co-ownership documents. All depending on the type of offer and your situation of course which ones we will chose.

The contract will have signatures and a response deadline for the seller.

It is also mandatory for the agent to fill out an Individual Identification Information Record. It is required by the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. This is personal information including ID. There is also a General form that is an extra one pager if we run out of room in the contract and also an Amendment form to correct any part of the offer once it has been accepted. For example, a possible renegotiation of price and terms after a building inspection.

Once the offer is presented, the seller(s) can accept the offer as is, reject it or counter it.
If the seller rejects the offer, the deal is dead and if he counters it, he will make changes to the original offer as he sees fit. Usually things like price, timelines, etc… The counter can ping pong back and forth until someone accepts the deal. Once the deal is accepted, the timeline countdown for the conditions start. That is something we include in the offer. For example, we want 7 days for the building inspection. Along with each condition is a term of failure. Meaning what will happen if a particular term or condition is not respected.

For example, like the contract becoming null and void.

Most offers will have 3 conditions. They are the building inspection, the mortgage and documents necessary. These documents are a title and certificate of location. In a case for a condo you would want to request others like financials, by-laws, budget etc.

Once all the conditions have been met, the property is considered SOLD and is taken off of the market. The signing of the mortgage, title and receiving the keys will happen at the notary’s office afterward, when you take official ownership.

This is a brief overview. There are many complications that may occur so please make sure you are working with a qualified real estate agent.

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I added this article because I love real estate and educating people on the matter. If you would you like me to work for you, call me 514-402-8444 or EMAIL ME!

When selling a house or buying, there are two very important documents needed. One being a clear title and the other being an up-to-date certificate of location. Without either of them, the sale won’t pass at the notary. Now, I’ve had situations where an agent would say, well it’s been ordered and since it won’t be ready in time for the sale, we’ll give it to you afterwards. I still haven’t found a notary that will pass a sale without one. Even with title insurance (that’s a whole other blog). So you need one.

The importance of the certification is this: It shows you exactly what you are buying, everything right and wrong about the property and where it all stands. Meaning you’ll find out about servitudes of view, right of ways for neighbours, utility company access, property lines, fences, bushes, where the house is situated and if anything is non-conforming. Non conforming could mean that the pool isn’t the right distance from the property line, or maybe the cabana is an inch on the neighbours property or the fence isn’t exactly on the property line.

This story is about a fence was off. So you may think no big deal? Think again.

For a lot of notaries, agents and buyers, we see a lot of fences that are not on the property line. In fact, it’s pretty normal. Is it an irregularity? And how off is considered an irregularity

? In the promise to purchase in clause 6.5 titled “Defect or Irregularity” it states: “Should the parties be notified before the signing of the act of sale, of any defect or irregularity whatsoever affecting the titles, or in the case of non-conformity with the guarantee of the SELLER contained herein, the SELLER shall, within 21 days following receipt of a written notice to that effect, notify the BUYER in writing, that he has remedied that defect or irregularity at his expense or that he is unable to remedy it.”

To summarize, if the buyer is not satisfied with the non-conformity of the certificate of location he/she may quit the deal by following the rules. So this is the story of my deal:

When the buyer’s received the certificate of location is was noticed that the fence was off a bit, within the property for sale. It was visually off on the layout and wasn’t stated in the text as to how much. They called the land surveyor and he said it was “about” 44cm. The buyers then called me and said that they wanted the fence moved to the property line because when they resale the property (they were flippers), that it may cause a problem. .

In the end, after hours spent on the telephone and email to notaries, surveyors, contractors and dealing with the buyers, we finally noticed a stake (in the tall grass) that was put there by a land surveyor (when the neighbour put in his pool) and realized the fence was only off by 1.5 inches. The land surveyor gave the wrong information over the phone. Luckily for us both parties came to an agreement and the fen

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I added this article because I love real estate and educating people on the matter. If you would you like me to work for you, call me 514-402-8444 or EMAIL ME!