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Self-Counsel Press - Geraldine Santiago

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83 pages

English

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Description

If you are thinking about selling your home, this is the book for you. Whether you plan to work with a real estate agent or do all the work yourself, Sell Your Home in Canada will show you how to get the best deal possible. It's an easy-to-understand and well-rounded look at selling your home, written specifically for the Canadian real estate market.
INTRODUCTION xi
PART 1: WHERE SHOULD I BEGIN? 1
1 WHAT TYPE OF MARKET IS IT? 3
Buyer’s Market 3
Seller’s Market 4
Balanced Market 4
When Is the Best Time to Sell? 4
2 WHO WILL BUY YOUR HOME? 5
3 KNOWING YOUR HOME IS THE KEY 7
Types of Homes 7
Title and Ownership 8
Co-ownership 8
Strata title 8
Co-operative 9
Timeshares 9
CONTENTS
Freehold 9
Leasehold 9
Positive and Negative Aspects of Your Property 10
Selling the Neighbourhood and the Community 11
Selling a Condo 11
Selling a Rental Property 12
Selling an Older Home 12
4 GATHERING DATA AND LEGAL DOCUMENTATION 15
Title Search 16
Survey Certificate 17
New Home Warranty Information 17
Property Condition Disclosure Statement (PCDS) 19
Oil Tank Removal 22
Zoning Information 23
City Assessment 23
Other Information for Strata Property 24
Other Documentation 25
Measuring Your Property 25
Pre-Sale Building Inspection 27
5 SELLING YOUR HOME: WHAT IS IT WORTH? 33
Why Are You Selling? 33
What Is Your Home Worth? 33
What is a comparative market analysis (CMA)? 34
Increasing or decreasing your price 39
Pricing land only 40
Renovation value 40
What If You Have a Mortgage? 41
Getting a new mortgage 41
Bridge loans 42
Portable mortgage 42
Vendor take-back mortgage 43
Assumable mortgage 43
iv Sell your home in Canada
Contents v
PART 2: SHOULD I SELL MY OWN HOME OR GET HELP? 51
6 SELLING ON YOUR OWN OR WITH A REAL ESTATE AGENT 53
What Are the Costs of Selling a Property? 53
Do You Have What It Takes to Sell Your Own Home? 54
What Are the Pitfalls of Selling without an Agent? 55
What Are the Benefits of Going with an Agent? 57
Should you get a full-service agent or do you want to be involved? 58
Choosing the right agent for you 59
What about a team of agents? 60
Types of listings 60
The listing agreement 61
Responsibilities of listing agents 62
Legal and professional requirements for agents 62
The Agent’s Commission 65
Full commission on a quick sale 66
How can you save on commission? 66
Bonuses and other incentives for agents 67
What Is the MLS System and What Can It Do for Sellers? 67
PART 3: HOW DO I GO FROM MARKETING TO 69
COMPLETING THE SALE?
7 MARKETING YOUR HOME 71
What Do You Do to Market a Property? 71
Print advertising and websites 72
Signage and tools of the trade 73
Marketing to friends, relatives, and neighbours 73
Advertising 74
8 SHOWING YOUR HOME 77
Protecting Yourself and Your Family 78
Showcasing Made Simple 78
Showing a Rental Property 80
Showing a Vacation Home 81
Open Houses and Agent Tours 81
9 THE OFFER 85
The Buyer 86
Separating qualified buyers from the lookers 86
Who can be legally bound by a contract? 87
When You Receive an Offer 87
Condition precedents 87
Time clauses 88
Financing 88
When You Receive Multiple Offers, Low-ball Offers, or Agent Offers 89
Competing offers, multiple offers, and back-up offers 90
Identical or nearly identical offers 90
Low-ball offers 91
Offers from salespeople to purchase for themselves 91
Negotiating a Sale 92
What to negotiate 93
Selling your furniture 93
When You Reach an Agreement 94
Deposits and down payments 94
What if the building does not pass inspection? 95
Showing after accepting an offer 96
When Condition Precedents Are Met 96
10 CLOSING, COMPLETION, AND POSSESSION 103
The Closing Procedure 103
What Happens at Completion? 104
Completion must be done on a weekday 105
Hiccups at completion 107
Possession 107
When do you hand over the keys? 107
What should you leave behind on possession day? 108
What should you not leave behind? 108
Doing a walk-through with the buyer or buyer’s agent 109
A special touch 109
vi Sell your home in Canada
Contents vii
CONCLUSION 111
APPENDIX 1 — REAL ESTATE ASSOCIATIONS AND BOARDS 113
APPENDIX 2 — RESOURCE LIST FOR OIL TANK SAFETY 117
APPENDIX 3 — PROVINCIAL MINISTRIES AND DEPARTMENTS 121
OF HOUSING
APPENDIX 4 — CANADIAN ASSOCIATIONS OF HOME AND 125
PROPERTY INSPECTORS
GLOSSARY 127
CHECKLISTS
1 Documents and Information 30
2 The Contract 97
3 Service Arrangements 110
SAMPLES
1 Title Search 18
2 Property Condition Disclosure Statement 20
3 Inspection Summary 28
4 Summary Appraisal Report 35
5 Comparative Market Analysis 44
6 Listing Agreement 63
7 Agreement of Purchase and Sale 99
8 Addendum 101
9 Seller’s Statement of Adjustments 106
TABLES
1 Types of Buyers and How to Target Them 6
2 Provincial Associations of Home and Property Inspectors 29

Sujets

LAW

Real estate

Informations

Publié par	Self-Counsel Press
Date de parution	15 avril 2012
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781770407824
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0025€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

SELL YOUR HOME IN CANADA
Geraldine Santiago
Self-Counsel Press
(a division of)
International Self-Counsel Press Ltd.
USA Canada

Copyright © 2012

International Self-Counsel Press
All rights reserved.
Introduction

If you are thinking of selling your home, there are many things you need to do before a “For Sale” sign goes up. Whether you are planning to sell your home on your own or with an agent, it will take a lot of co-ordination, organization, and work. Part 1 of this book covers the first things you need to do:

• Determine what kind of market you will be selling in: Is it a buyer’s or seller’s market or is it balanced? (See Chapter 1.)

• Decide who your target market is: Is your house suitable for first-time buyers, empty nesters, investors, or other types of buyers? (See Chapter 2.)

• Know your product: Find out details about your home that buyers will want to know. (See Chapter 3.)

• Gather the paperwork you’ll need for selling your home: This includes legal material such as a title search, financial material such as tax records and mortgage information, and by-laws and financial reports for a strata title property. (See Chapter 4.)

• Determine a fair market price for your property: You can do this yourself or have a real estate agent or appraiser help. (See Chapter 5.)
Part 2 helps you with the decision of whether you should sell your home yourself, or if you should engage a partial-service or full-service realty company. Part 2 discusses the following factors that will help you with your decision:

• Costs of selling your property

• Requirements for marketing your property

• Personality and ability needed to sell the property yourself

• Pitfalls of selling without a real estate agent

• Services offered by a real estate agent
Part 3 includes information on marketing and completion, covering the following important topics:

• Advertising

• Showing your property

• Understanding what to do when an offer is made

• Completing the sale
Selling your home can be an empowering experience, but it is important to understand how to do it properly to gain the best value for your home. Gaining knowledge about selling your home can help you make the right decisions and reduce the stress that may come with selling your home. Visit real estate websites, read books about selling a home, and attend seminars; get as much information as you can about the processes and costs of selling your home before you get into the real estate market.
This book is intended to help home sellers become familiar with the many processes involved in selling a home. I hope this book will give you confidence in your own choices and decisions and make your selling experience a pleasant one!
Part 1
WHERE SHOULD I BEGIN?
1
What Type of Market Is It?

Before you put your home up for sale, it is important to look at the larger market conditions, such as local and national housing prices, mortgage rate movements, and new home construction. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) helps people selling their homes understand how the housing market is evolving. The CMHC’s regional offices and Market Analysis Centre are great sources for finding out about the current housing market. The CMHC regularly publishes local market analysis reports and provides information on recent trends in housing market conditions across the country.
Your regional CMHC market analyst can tell you if it’s a buyer’s, seller’s, or balanced housing market. Contact information for market analysts is available on the CMHC website at www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca.

Buyer’s Market
In a buyer’s market, the number of homes available for sale exceeds the demand, so prices will either stabilize or drop. With fewer buyers and more homes, buyers have greater negotiating leverage, so sellers should price their homes competitively if they want to sell.

Seller’s Market
In a seller’s market, relatively few homes are on the market, so the number of buyers exceeds the number of sellers and the seller dictates the price. In this situation of low inventory, sellers often get their price (sometimes more than the asking price) because of a bidding war, in which there are many competing offers.

Balanced Market
In a balanced market, there is an equal number of buyers and sellers. If you are a seller in this market, you will probably not experience a bidding war because there are enough properties listed on the market.

When Is the Best Time to Sell?
The busiest times in the real estate industry are usually the spring and summer. This is when many companies relocate their employees, and as a result there are more properties to choose from. Because of this availability, many buyers tend to do their home shopping at this time, so there is the most competition among buyers. A recent poll showed that Canadians feel that April, May, and June are the best times to sell a home and December and January are the best times to buy a home.

A recent poll showed that Canadians feel that April, May, and June are the best times to sell a home.
If you are selling your home in order to move up to a new house, another major influence on deciding when to sell is the mortgage interest rate. What rates are available now? Will they fall or will they rise in the near future? If they rise, how much will they go up? It can be hard to answer these questions, but CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre can help by providing you with both an analysis of the current mortgage market and an outlook for future mortgage rates.
2
Who Will Buy Your Home?

It is important, when selling any product, to determine who your target market is so that you can attract the right buyer. For example, if your home is ideal for first-time home-buyers, you would market it differently than you would if you were trying to attract empty nesters. If you were selling to first-time buyers, you would use key words and phrases such as “room to grow,” “great den for your family,” or “ample backyard space.” Table 1 lists the types of buyers, what they might be looking for, and how to let them know about your property.
Knowing the demographic you are trying to attract will also help when you are deciding where to advertise your home. If a newspaper magazine is targeted to first-time home-buyers, for example, and you’ve got a great starter home, you may want to include an advertisement in that magazine. If you are selling an investment property, you would think about advertising in an investment-related trade magazine, using phrases such as “great for first-time investor” and “positive cash flow.” For the empty nester market, “downsizing” or “less maintenance” may be appealing descriptions, and you might place an ad in seniors’ magazines.

Table 1 — Types of Buyers and How to Target Them
3
Knowing Your Home Is the Key

Knowing your product is the key to selling. Knowing information about your home will help you determine your target market, will allow you to answer buyers’ questions, and will let you decide how to sell your home, including whether you use a real estate agent or sell it on your own. Some of the most important things you need to know are the type of home you are selling, the type of ownership you have and how that affects what you can sell, and the features of your home and neighbourhood.

Types of Homes
The type of home you have — whether detached, semi-detached (often called a duplex or townhouse), apartment, condominium, or manufactured home/mobile home — will determine the type of market you are selling to. For example, a single-family detached home will be ideal for a young couple, a young family, or a first-time home-buyer. Young couples or singles, as well as professionals and investors, will be attracted to a condominium or apartment.
A condominium is a type of housing ownership, more formally known as strata title ownership, rather than a particular type of housing. (There is more detail on strata title later in this chapter.)

Title and Ownership
When you are preparing to sell a property, you need to understand the different types of home ownership and how they appear on the land title. The most common types of residential home ownership are: co-ownership (including joint tenancy and tenancy in common), strata title, co-operative, timeshares (including fee ownership interest and right-to-use ownership), freehold, and leasehold.

Understanding the different types of home ownership is important.

Co-ownership
Co-ownership occurs if property is owned by more than one person. This type of ownership is generally either by joint tenancy or by tenancy in common. A notary or lawyer should be able to explain the differences between the two types of ownership and how the co-ownership in your situation affects your ability to sell the property. A notary or lawyer can also tell you how you should be registered on the title.

Joint tenancy
When you purchase with a spouse or partner, you commonly have joint tenancy . When one partner dies, the other becomes the sole owner. The ownership automatically transfers to the survivor without having to go through probate. This feature is known as the right of survivorship. A joint tenant cannot leave the property interest in a will to a third party. If you and your spouse divorce, or you and