Markham/Stouffville STATS Nov.22-28/10

Back again with some Stats from Toronto Real Estate Board for the Markham Unionville area (N11) and Stouffville (N12) for the week of November 22nd to 28th, 2010

NEW Listings in N11 for the week: 21
SOLD listings reported same time frame: 14
Days on Market: Average 15

NEW Listings in N12 for the week: 4
SOLD listings reported same time frame: 3
Days on Market: Average 26

Now a word of caution: statistics are wonderful things, but before you bet your $$ on the outcome, keep in mind that previously unreported stats do keep coming in, so they can change:
N11 has 5 more SALES reported this week (that belong in, but were not reported from previous week) That changes the total sales in N11 from Nov 15th-21st to 31 instead of 26.
N12 has 4 more SALES reported this week (that belong in, but were not reported from previous week) That changes the total sales in N12 from Nov. 15th-21st to 9 instead of 5

Market Stats

Here’s a little bit of information on the Stats from TREB for N11 (Markham/Unionville). When the newspapers report sales, activities, trends, etc. from the Toronto Real Estate Board, they take into consideration all districts across the Board. These Stats I am showing you are for Markham/Unionville (N11) and Whitchurch/Stouffville (N12)

OK, so in N11 from November 15th to November 21st, the number of new listings which came on the market in those 7 days is 23.
The number of sales reported in the same time frame is 26
The Days on the Market for these 26 homes that sold, are all over the map. They range from 168 days down to 3.

Now, in N12 from the same time period, the number of new listings which came on the market in those 7 days were 7
The number of sales reported in the same time frame is 5
The average days on the market is 19

As you can see the balance between new listings and sales is pretty well balanced with N11 having slightly more sales. I will keep track of this trend because if it continues, then that means prices will be rising.

“1 cent” listing – oh boy!!

So, we have another Real Estate agent who wants to offer people an alternative…a 1 cent listing. How kind.

My thoughts are based on an article I read in the Toronto Star, Saturday, July 31, 2010 Business Section.

1. This gentleman, Dawson Pereira , says “I didn’t realize that I was breaking any rules. I was just offering people an alternative”. Really. Well if he has opened this discount brokerage service, then I am assuming he must be a Broker, and if he is placing his listings on the Toronto Real Estate Board, then he must be a member of the Board. The Board (like any membership Board) has rules and regulations they require their members to adhere to. And he doesn’t know the rules. Hummm – just who you would like to represent your interests.

2. He is supposed to be running a business and if he charges 1 cent to list your property, how is he supposed to make a living? Well, actually he charges you $600. (up front) to list your home and if it sells within 10 days, he refunds the difference minus a penny. Now would it be a stretch to assume he suggests a listing price that is probably over market value just to increase his odds that it will not sell within 10 days? Even keeping $600 – oh make that $599.99 – how would he make a living? I guess he’s relying upon numbers and a very gullible, uneducated public.

3. He was, apparently, placing the homeowners personal contact information in the public section of the listing as opposed to the “broker’s only” section which would be available only to the Real Estate Salespeople. But, then I forgot…..he didn’t realize he was breaking the rules….. So of course, when the TREB officials notified him he was in contravention of the rules, he responds by declaring “They basically want everyone to contact an agent first so they can make their commission, but that doesn’t save the consumer anything”. Hello Mr. Pereira….an agent must be contacted because this listing is on the TREB MLS system. You know…the system run by agents – for agents – to conduct business in an ethical, accurate and secure environment. If a member of the public contacts the homeowner about his listing, how does the homeowner know who he is dealing with. If the homeowner wants to play by casual and loose rules (or no rules at all) then he has a multitude of options available to him, but the TREB MLS system (and the CREA national website) is not one of them. The homeowners contact information is available to the buyer’s agent and at least then, the homeowner is assured that he is dealing with a professional representative of the buyer. Yes, he will pay a commission, (negotiated) but if he is mislead, deceived or cheated he has legal recourse against that agent who is insured with E&O insurance. That’s why there are rules. You don’t work by the rules, there are consequences.
If a homeowner wants to handle all transactions personally with no real estate agents involved, there are a multitude of sites he can sign up with.

4. Personally, I think CREA should shut down the public site. It belongs to CREA – not to the public – and it is becoming quite apparent that the public thinks they have a right to it. It was made available to benefit the public, to inform them and help them look for available property and to expose their property to the greater public that was not always touched by print marketing. Maybe we should just let real estate salespeople do the searching for property – that’s our job anyway.

A Building to Honour Frank Gehry

After a wonderful early morning walk on this fabulous sunny day, my intention was to have a bit of breakfast and glance through the paper. This is a relatively new activity which I hope will become a hard and fast habit. My daughter (bless her) read me the riot act the other day about creating a habit of exercise and doing it the same time every day – no excuses. So, O.K. here we go. Now, glancing at the front page of the National Post I notice the headlines “Which Building Honours Frank Gehry’s Legacy More?” I should interject here that I am not familiar with Frank Gehry nor his style and creative designs. The paper mentioned he is best known for his fluid, ultra-modern designs. Apparently a Toronto condominium developer wants to demolish Mr. Gahry’s childhood home (which is a plain and uninspired red brick structure situated on a corner in the neighbourhood of Queen St. W. and Beverley St.)
Reading on, I find Frank Gehry designed the new Art Gallery of Ontario as well as famous items designed for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and a Museum in Bilbao, Spain. So much for my knowledge of architectural matters.
But the point here – if there is one – is does a new modern glass and metal structure honour him. Well, in a word – “yes” I believe it does. When the writer of this article “Joseph Brean” described the building to be demolished as an “architecturally undistinguished 1858 rowhouse” he hit the nail on the head. Why anyone would want to preserve it is beyond me. There is no creative skill involved in that one.
Sometimes, these “heritage inspired” people really make me laugh. Apparently there was a search on for the actual old bathtub that in the 1940′s contained live carp that Mr. Gahry’s grandmother would bring home from Kensington market. Mr. Gahary found the “shimmering scales of these eventual gefilte fish to be an early inspiration for his famously fluid and rippling designs”. Apparently they wanted the original bathtub to coat it in titanium and put it out for display. Toronto Councilor Adam Vaughan said the bathtub was the goal and described it as the holy grail. Well, the bathtub is long gone in past interior upgrading and Mr. Vaughan declared that “Somebody lost an amazing opportunity for public art”. Please. Mr. Gahry, who is now 81 years old, did not return a request for comment yesterday. I must say, I can hardly blame him. What’s to say. The current structure is a crummy old building – knock it down and build something useful and “fluid and rippling”. That’s a great way to honour Mr. Gahry. Let the wrecking ball begin!

Hello world!

We all need to begin somewhere.  Sometime in my past web site life, I did have a fairly substantial blog.  But, times change and website hosts change and now I find myself without my blog history.  So, it appears, I need to begin again.  O.K. and I will, once I deal with my writer’s block!