25 – The Marshall Report – Episode 25

Today is Thursday July 7, 2016 and this is the 25th episode of the Marshall Report. Welcome to the podcast.

In this week’s podcast:

1. How I spent my summer vacation

2. Percentages vs. Flat fees

3. Movies in the Park

4. More real estate records broken

5. Cursive writing off the curriculum 

6. Skipping breakfast for lunch

7. Brexit and Canadian real estate

8. Licensing landlords

9. Just a few more needs and wants.

10. Moving to a place with good weather

Let’s get on with the show.

 

St Johns

Summer is here and I noticed the volume of traffic on my street decreased. Just like that. The switch was flipped. School is out. People are traveling. The weather is perfect. We have to love summer as it won’t last long.

I suppose my main hobby is travel. I love to travel. I love to go to places that I’ve never been to before and explore and hang around and learn about them and other things. We build lives for ourselves that are comfortable and predictable but travel busts that up. Suddenly we are out there on our own, exposed to whim and chance.

So I was in St Johns and the French islands of St Pierre and Miquelon last week. The weather was warm and sunny. The people were friendly. The seafood was fresh and the beer was cold and delicious.

It was a nice trip. We hiked. We ate and drank. We rented a car and avoided most of the potholes.

And getting away makes you appreciate coming home again.

 

Question of the week

Why do real estate agents get paid a percentage of sale price instead of a flat fee for service?

I wrote about that here.

 

Movies and Music in the Parks

Now that the fireworks are over and summer is officially here, one of the most popular family events in Waterloo Region is watching movies in the park. The movie line ups have just been announced. Here is a link.

Coming up in Waterloo Park: Kung Fu Panda 3, Jurassic World, Zootopia and the Peanuts Movie.

And in Kitchener’s Victoria Park: The Good Dinosaur and the Angry Birds movie.

The music starts at dusk and the movie comes on when the sun goes down.

Please bring a food bank donation.

 

More records broken in local real estate

The statistics are out for June and we had another record breaking month. We just got through the most active June on record with 13% more homes being sold this June compared to last year’s June. Compared to the 5 year average, June home sales are almost 30% higher than the average.

And now that we are half way through the year, we know too that more homes have sold so far this year than ever before. We are 18% higher than last year’s total for the first six months and almost 23% above the 5 year average.

There are still few listings on the market. The number of listing available is down by about 1/3. This means prices are rising. Single family home prices are up by more than 10% in June, condo apartments are up by 8% and townhouse are up by 14.5%.

 

Cursive writing

The writing is on the wall for cursive writing. It is no longer a mandatory part of Ontario’s education curriculum. Essentially it has been fazed out over the past few years but now it is gone. Gone like the art of blacksmithing. Gone like fountain pens and ink wells. Gone like getting a writing cramp.

According to research, cursive handwriting has become irrelevant and obsolete as more and more writing is done electronically.

I remember learning cursive writing as a grade three or four student and not being very good at it. But then again, I remember learning typing in grade nine and not being very good at that either. Practice makes perfect. I, like most people type hundreds of words everyday. When was the last time I wrote a letter? I can’t remember. Did I use cursive writing when I wrote that long ago writing? Likely not.

Goodbye cursive writing, into the dustbin of history you go. In a hundred years when they look back on the information revolution that we are living through, the end of cursive writing will be a footnote.

 

Breakfast

breakfastI was thinking a lot about breakfast last week. We were travelling and getting dressed and out for breakfast was a chore. We ended up having coffee and chocolate in the room and then often going straight to lunch.

The Newfoundland traditional breakfast by the way is a couple of sausages floating in a bowl of beans with a couple of fried scones on the side. I had an omelette instead. And coffee. Most days, a Cappuccino from Starbucks was a sufficient breakfast for me.

When did breakfast become such a thing? Why do we eat eggs and bacon and toast? Is it really the most important meal of the day?

In a lot of places, breakfast isn’t really that different from any other meal of the day. It is not cereal or toast. It is leftovers from the night before or cheese or simple pastries. The thing I love about travelling is that it breaks the routines of the day, including breakfast. I can skip breakfast, no problem. In fact, I’m a bit of a food camel. One big meal is sufficient for me. I don’t think breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Lunch is.

 

How will Brexit affect the Canadian real estate market?

As you may have heard, England last week pulled out of the European Union causing some turmoil to economic markets around the world. As we are living in a global economy, what does this mean to the Canadian economy and to our real estate?

1. Investments

I lost money back in 2008 when the last financial crisis hit. This one will not be as bad but investment portfolios around the world took a hit. I don’t like the stock market anymore. It is just too random and out of my control.

2. Real estate

Because of the economic turmoil, interest rates are expected to remain low. That means, of course that buying real estate will continue to be hot. Furthermore, real estate compared to stocks and bonds is normally considered to be a safe asset to own. Maybe even more money will flow into real estate and that is not such a good thing.

3. Canadian Businesses

The UK accounts for only 2.5% of all Canadian trade so the overall effect on Canadian companies will be minimal.

4. The Loonie

Global uncertainty is expected to weaken the Canadian dollar. The dollar will likely rise against the pound and probably the Euro too. The Twonie of course will do twice as well.

 

Licensing landlords

There was a story going around a little while ago about licensing Toronto landlords. The Toronto City Council committee voted unanimously to endorse it. The proposal would create a system for grading landlords of buildings of a certain size for conditions such as mold, bedbugs, working elevators, water cleanliness, and working air conditioning. If the idea is approved, landlords will be subject to licensing and, potentially, grades that they will be required to post in building lobbies—the same way restaurants do in some cities.

It is not a bad idea.

But here is a better one. Why not use the airbnb or the Uber model. Tenants, and I suppose government bodies can rate landlords and buildings and landlords in tern can rate their tenants and their experiences dealing with the bureaucracy. Let us create a completely transparent system which forces everyone to be on their best behaviour.

Let’s give everyone a license to tell it like it is.

 

Just one more, just a little better

We have a tendency in our overabundant society to want, to need, to ask for and sometimes to expect just a little more, just one more, just a little better.

I was shopping for a car recently and I found myself getting sucked into the big game. You need a back up camera. You want navigation assistance, how about bluetooth and turning sensors? It is all so complicated and unneeded.

How about going back to our core values. Remember what you need, not what you want. That is this week’s call to action.

 

Parting thought

I will leave you with this parting thought. Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. Life is moving to a place with fewer storms.

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