Today is Thursday September 15th and this the Marshall Report – Episode 35. Welcome to the podcast.
In this week’s podcast:
1. Autumn real estate rally
2. Living next to a nude beach or a garbage dump
3. The new Costco
4. Hotter than a billy goat with a blow torch
5. How to pick the fastest line at the supermarket
6. Midtown and the North Ward
7. Buying into a transitional neighbourhood
8. Red Truck Day in Jackson Hole
9. When in doubt, ask a question
10. Win or lose, it’s your choice
Let’s get on with the show.
Autumn real estate rally
If it is going to happen for you this year, it will likely happen between now and Remembrance Day. I’m talking of course about buying or selling property. This is the autumn rally, roughly ten weeks of real estate activity. There are ebbs and flows and now is traditionally a flow.
The autumn is almost as good a time as the spring to buy and sell homes. Instead of summer, buyers want to move in before the holidays. Houses and neighbourhoods look pretty good here in southwestern Ontario when the days and nights are cooler and the leaves turn from green to red, orange and yellow.
There is always activity of course in the real estate market, if only we could get some inventory a lot of sellers will be happy.
I’m trying to help. I have a new freehold townhouse listing on Bronco Crescent in Eastbridge.
Question of the week: What does the seller have to tell the buyer?
The concept of ‘buyer beware’ does not really apply to real estate. For all home sellers, when in doubt the prudent thing to do would be to disclose the material fact to the buyers and thus avoid the possibility of going to court later. I wrote about that here.
Costco
Looks like Waterloo Region’s second Costco is finally going to open. It’s been a long time coming. We had to get some traffic issues out of the way first. It is slated to open in October.
The new Costco will be on Erb just west of Ira Needles across from the landfill. Because of the high volume of traffic on weekends to both Costco and the dump, a new roundabout had to be put in.
The developer is paying for the roundabout at the cost of about $1.4million.
In related news, related to garbage not Costco, this Saturday from 7am to 1:30pm the Region of Waterloo is giving away the new bigger blue bin and 10,000 green bins in the parking lots of our three biggest shopping malls – Conestoga, Fairview Park and Cambridge Centre.
Bring id and a food bank donation.
Hotter than a billy goat with a blow torch
It was the hottest summer on record in more ways than one.
Home sales in August were up nearly 27% over a year ago and nearly 38% higher than the five-year average.
Year-to-date sales are over 23% than the five year average.
The number of listings is still low, low low…There are almost 47% fewer listings on the market compared to the same period last year and than means prices are continuing to show strong appreciation. Now, the average price of a single detached home is $487,000. It seems like just yesterday that it was just $400,000.
In short, everything is up across the board except the inventory of new listings which is down.
How to pick the fastest line at the Costco
There was a great story in the New York Times last week. It was titled “how to pick the fastest line at the supermarket”. The first tip got me hooked on the story. The first tip was ‘get behind the shopper who has a full cart.’ Now that is counterintuitive. I’m certain, most people are like me. We scan the shopping carts and baskets of the shoppers in the line before we choose a line. And we would never get behind the full cart people. But the math disagrees. Every person requires a fixed amount of time to say hello, pay, say goodbye, get their bags and leave. That takes about 41 seconds. Each item being rung up takes about 3 seconds. That means getting in a line that has numerous people with few items is a less better choice that getting in line behind the full cart person. There’s the math.
There were some other tips in the article
Go left. Most people are right handed and tend to veer right. Go left for a clearer path
Go to the female cashier. Without being sexist, they tend to be more proficient at their job. Maybe the stock box is just filling in on cash.
Avoid the chatty cashier. “Yes I found everything I was looking for”. “It is a beautiful day”.
Scrutinize the shopping cart items. Canned good will likely ring through faster than rutabagas. Perhaps the cart is full but all the items are large or there is a lot of the same thing.
Scrutinize the customers. Older people might take longer as they might be more chatty and/or they might need more time to pay. This is a bit of a stereotype, I know.
Choose the line that leads to several cashiers. This is like hedging you bets and have proven to lower average wait times. There is a reason that banks, post offices and other business adopted this method. It also relieves the stress of choosing a line.
Midtown and the North Ward
I was texting with an investor yesterday. It started with a question about the Midtown Lofts. But then he had some follow on questions and after the third one I said, ‘you don’t live here, do you?’
He said, ’No, he lives in Bahamas but wanted to invest.’
So I told him a little about the some of the neighbourhoods in the North Ward. From the large stone and brick homes of the Mary Allen neighbourhood to the single story bungalows in the Breithaupt neighbourhood, from the new condos in UpTown Waterloo to the almost 100 year two storey homes on the edge of downtown Kitchener, Uptown/North Ward is a diamond in the rough, an undiscovered gem and an area that will appreciate well as Kitchener Waterloo quickly evolves into a city. I wrote about that here.
Buying into a transitional neighbourhood.
Although buying a home should not be thought of as an investment, it is well documented that similar homes in different parts of town will appreciate at different rates. All things being equal, you should buy a home in a transitional neighbourhood. It could mean tens of thousands of dollars to you when you later sell.
We are always looking for clues to good and bad real estate and recently there have been stories about the advantages of buying near a Starbucks, a shopping mall, a tourist landmark and a whole foods store. On the other side, you probably don’t want to buy near a pawn shop, tattoo parlour, nightclub, strip club, a mall with more than one dollar store…you get the idea.
Red Truck Day in Jackson Hole
Today seems to be red truck day in Jackson Hole. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, there is a link to the youtube live stream in the notes. It is just another silly internet phenomenon.
What it is is a webcam that is pointing into the Jackson Hole Town Square and at any given time there are over 1000 people online watching the action. The action is mostly vehicles and pedestrian traffic through the intersection.
Watchers are commenting along the side of the live video. Red trucks are especially exciting.
That is it.
Call to action
Many of the decisions we make in life are based on assumption. And these assumptions are usually based on past learnings and history. It makes sense to me at least not to order the seafood special at a Mongolian barbecue restaurant. Mongolia is landlocked and nowhere near an ocean after all.
But when you are buying or selling a home, material facts are important and if you don’t know it is not good to assume. It is best to ask.
The process of buying and selling homes starts with gaining information and the best way to do do that is to ask a lot of questions.
Winning thoughts
And I will leave you with this parting thought on winning thoughts. With so much competition out there for good real estate, sometimes you win but more often you lose. You are not born a winner. Nor are you born a loser. You are born a chooser.
Choose to win.
