45 – The Marshall Report – episode 45

Today is Thursday November 24th 2016 and this is the 45th episode of the Marshall Report. Welcome to the podcast.

In this week’s episode:
1. Driving into Toronto
2. Question of the week: How do you negotiate after a home inspection?
3. Turtle delayed school now going forward at a rapid pace
4. Anecdotal evidence from our local real estate market
5. Live video and other links on Facebook
6. Here’s what I should have said
7. Discouraging Chinese investors
8. Cable TV
9. Asking for the statistics
10. The Majority Rule
Let’s get on with the show.
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Driving into Toronto
I went into Toronto last week. I thought I should visit my brokerage, pick up my mail, meet with a condo developer. Sailed in, an hour and twenty minutes from UpTown Waterloo to Downtown Toronto. Sometimes that just happens. It’s great. Makes you wish it was always like that. Makes you wonder why it isn’t.
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Question of the week: How do you negotiate after a home inspection?
Today’s question is a typical one. As a home buyer, you’ve successfully (conditionally) purchased a house, had the home inspection and the inspection has turned up some issues. Clients want to know what issues can be addressed and how to address them.
It is rare for a home inspector to give a home a complete pass. They will always have recommendations for repair, updates from the building code and general advice on what can be done and how and when to do it. I wrote about that here.

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They never did find that turtle
The long delayed construction of Kitchener’s newest school finally got underway last week. Chicopee Hills Public School is now being built at Lacker and Fairway Road after three delays for zoning and a final delay because someone thought they saw a rare turtle in the area. The K-8 school is slated to open September next year. It will have room for 650 students.
The exhaustive three month search did not turn up any sign of the turtle. He’s either really good at hiding or maybe he was never really there.
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Looking at the local market
Last week on the podcast, I was talking about getting blown out of the water on a deal – a house listed in the $380s selling in the $450s. My client put in an offer in the $410s. This week we had another competitive offer situation but this time a win. It was a house that needed work, which in theory limits the competition but in this case maybe not so much. There were five other offers. And frankly, both I and my clients were surprised to win. Our offer certainly didn’t blow everyone out of the water.
So this got me thinking about winning again. It got me thinking about the market and if it has really calmed down yet. Here is what is going on now:
Houses in certain neighbourhoods will always find competition to buy. Those neighbourhoods are Eastbridge/Colonial Acres and Laurelwood, Clair Hills Columbia Forest. Beechwood too and the East Ward likely. All neighbourhoods are competitive. It is just the degree of competitiveness that varies.
Houses in certain price categories will always find competition to buy. Essentially anything under $400,000.
With houses that don’t meet at least one of theses stipulations, maybe just maybe you won’t have to compete.
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More on facebook
Last week on the podcast I was mentioning how it was National Unfriend Day for Facebook. I cleaned things up a bit. Think of it like gardening. Getting rid of the weeds so the flowers and vegetables can grow.
One of the good things about facebook became apparent at least to me a couple of weeks ago during the American elections. During the night of the elections, my facebook feed became full of live videos and talking heads about the election. It turned out to be a great resource for news websites, live feeds and all the rest. The next morning my feed was mostly filled with echo chamber thoughts I could agree with about Trump and the aftermath of the election. I found it all very agreeable and somewhat comforting that we were all thinking the same things. Maybe facebook isn’t so bad after all.
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Here is a captured thought.
Most of the arguments I have, I have in my head. Even when I have a real argument I continue it in my head. “Here’s what I should have said”, I think.
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Discouraging Chinese investors
According to the China Daily, 800,000 Chinese citizens plan to buy a house overseas within the next three years. The preferred countries are USA, UK, Canada, Australia and Singapore. The major goal of these Chinese investors is to distribute up to 1/3 of their wealth overseas. The major factors influencing the choice of target countries include education, investment environment, immigration policy, taxation, medical condition, visa requirements and how hard it is to adapt to the target country.
In a related story, Vancouver will start next year taxing all empty properties $10,000/year or $10,000/day for falsely declaring that a home is occupied or is a principal residence. The tax is aimed at loosening up the very tight rental market which is currently 0.6%.
It is estimated that more than 10,000 homes are empty in Vancouver.
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Cutting the cable
Most of the people I know who still have cable TV have it for one reason. Sports. The other reason as a distant second is to get the local news. Momentum or habit might keep some people from cutting the cord as well. Demographics also plays a part. When I was a kid cable TV was king. If you didn’t have cable TV that would be like the equivalent of someone now without a smart phone or internet access.
But kids today don’t care much for TV.
Revenues are falling in the broadcasting world, but not by a lot. For traditional broadcast TV, revenues fell by about 3 1/2% percent last year.
Over the past five years, cable subscriptions have dropped from 69% to 60% of the population. That is a drop, but not a cliff.
But what is interesting is that the cost of cable has increased at more than double the rate of inflation over the past twenty years. Back in 1995, cable cost an average of just over $22/month. Now it’s up to an average of $69/month. That is a 209% increase. Maybe this is one of the reasons revenue hasn’t cliff-dived.
Hulu recently struck a deal with Fox and Disney to offer 35 live TV networks. There is already other TV streaming sites. Maybe someday soon, we can find a better way to get the TV shows and channels and only the TV shows and channels we like and want.
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Call to action
Real estate boards and associations keep all kinds of sales statistics for neighbourhoods. Ask your Realtor to share this information with you.
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I’ll leave you with this parting thought
In round numbers 51% makes up the majority. Which means that 49% makes up the minority. We are conditioned to try to please everyone or at least the majority of people but maybe a high minority is enough. Maybe even a niche group is enough. Is it better to make some of the people happy all of he time or all of the people happy some of the time?
I don’t know, but clearly you can’t do both.
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