BC Sunshine Coast real estate by Menno at Royal lePage Real estate on the BC Sunshine Coast

When is the Sunshine Coast real estate market going to change? Well, how about … right now, tomorrow and for ever more. Specifically: real estate markets always change, they always have and they (most likely) always will.

The real estate market, there is not just one such thing. It consists of many different developments that are often hard to capture and categorise.

There are many separate things that can change in real estate markets. Prices can go up, prices go down. Certain kinds of properties are more in demand than others. Certain areas are hotter than others. The numbers of listings changes, the period listings sit on the market. Ongoing changes just keep on happening. That’s the way the “free” market works.

Not only the market changes, there are also frequent new (real estate) laws and their interpretations. Real estate agency issues come up and even our jargon is a developing science. If you can keep up with it all, you’re doing a great job. This blog article is intended to provide some simple pointers to help you along the way; an attempt to keep things simple.

This is because it takes a bit of courage to admit that you have no idea what the market is doing. True enough however: although we can review past events, we can only guess about the future.

At the same time, real estate is "rock solid". What's good and desirable today will likely still be good and desirable in twenty years - and longer.

BUT MANY THINGS STAY THE SAME

Although many things stay the same in real estate, there are also continuous changes. We have to stay on top of those changes and share our knowledge with you. As a start, I would like to offer you my full-time work of handy reference works right here. I’m referring to the information database on my two real estate websites www.menno.caand www.mennorealty.ca. These sites just keep on growing. If you want to know something about real estate, it can probably be found on either website. A nice thing about these information pages is that they are heavily hyperlinked to other sources of information, either on this website or elsewhere.

You could buy or sell real estate without knowing anything about it. You’d have to entirely rely on the professionalism of your agent to get the job done right on your behalf. Most agents won’t take advantage of such a situation. Still, I believe it’s an outstanding idea to get a feel for what’s going on in the market. Below are some specific links to topics that may come up while you are selling and/or buying real estate.

In this day and age, we have an absurd amount of information available to us – at all times. We aren’t necessarily smarter or wiser because of this flood of information. After all, sorting and processing the information is another thing.

MORTGAGE BASICS AND MORE

If you believe that talking about mortgages is just plain boring, then please read some more about this topic - it turns out there's quite a bit to it.

Mortgage information: Since very few people purchase real property with “cash”, mortgage financing is an important part of almost every real estate transaction. This topic is heavily represented.

My websites deal with topics from how to go about getting a mortgage loan http://mennorealty.myubertor.com/Mortgage.ubr to a pretty up-to-date page on what the current best mortgage rates are: http://mennorealty.myubertor.com/BestMortgageRates.ubr.

Property information: Also heavily represented is the property section, referring directly to what we call “active listings”. Links are provided to view all active listings on our efficient MLS system, special feature pages are also listed for our own listings. A flash slide show is available for most properties.

High-resolution photos are available for virtually all properties. I endeavour to give a true and full view of the property-for-sale. There is no point in bringing you out to view a property you wouldn’t have been interested in if the representation had been more truthful. Therefore, everything out in the open, right from the start! View the combined MLS listings here: http://mlsr.realtylink.org/mlsr_get/areaselect.cfm?cid=1206757

Is there more to real estate than talking about houses and borrowing money? Oh yes, we have many topics: law, ethics, tourism, insurance, renovations, gardening and more.

SPECIALTY PAGES OF VARIOUS KINDS

Highlighted property information. Whether you’re looking for maps, high resolution photos, detailed property descriptions or tax information, it’s all there on the property information pages. View the feature page listings here: http://mennorealty.myubertor.com/ActiveListings.php.

Brochures on various topics: When you’re selling real estate, it’s important to know about the various aspects of real estate marketing. For this purpose, I have produced fancy brochures. These are available in print and can be picked up at our office (Gibsons) or mailed or delivered to your home. Through the wonders of the Internet, you can now also view them right here, right now: http://mennorealty.myubertor.com/Brochures.ubr.

Special interest – High Resolution Super Wide Angle photography: look for the brochure about Real Estate photography. Parallel to that runs the brochure about Internet Marketing of Real Estate. This is exactly where great photography and Internet Marketing come together.

Real estate, it's not a black and white topic, it's not at all boring and one can keep on studying the subject for ever more. Let's make it fun while we're doing that!

REAL ESTATE, A DRY TOPIC MADE LIGHTER

To many people, the topic of real estate is painfully dry. It doesn’t have to be. There are always interesting topics to be found in the colourful blog section of the website. Leave a comment and join the discussion – let’s make Real Estate even more fun!

My blog pages on both websites are by far the most popular. They attract a lot of attention from around the world (check comments). All blog pages and articles are syndicated, meaning that they show up on other websites as well. They are also popular search engine items, found in the context of many related items.

The blog pages are here: http://www.mennorealty.ca/Blog.php and here: http://www.menno.ca/?cat=3

Topics vary from the serious to the weird. Mortgages are a recurring theme, of course. Listings and marketing topics are popular too. There’s advice for new residents, tips on home-owner related items, and a good dosage of legal talk.

It's interesting enough to look at what happened in the past but why should we? Because whatever will happen is founded on what happened before & history does repeat itself.

LOOKING BACK TO LOOK FORWARD

Are history and statistics two boring topics? Not if you indulge in recurring themes on this website like “Sunshine Coast 10 Years Ago”, giving a snapshot of real estate life in our market area, exactly ten years ago each month. Another monthly staple in the market update: giving insight in what happened “out there” during the past 30 days. Always something going on, never boring.

It’s possible to leave a comment on various blog postings at www.menno.ca (not on www.mennrealty.ca). These website also has a keyword search engine within. Find it on the right of the page and type in anything real-estate related. Something WILL come up.

I hope you're got "the bug" to look at more real estate blog articles, just for the fun of it. Below are some further links that may really interest you.

MORE suggested, varied real estate blog pages can be found right here:

Open house benefits, why and when? http://www.mennorealty.ca/Blog.php/open-house-quiz

Discrepancy asking price and selling price: http://www.mennorealty.ca/Blog.php/list-price-difference

You could always ask your real estate agent: http://www.menno.ca/?p=19684

Sunshine Coast fixed rate mortgages: http://www.menno.ca/?p=19534

Mortgage rates at their best: http://www.mennorealty.ca/Blog.php/record-low-1

Tips on how to prepare for the next showings: http://www.menno.ca/?p=19663

Try to predict market developments? http://www.menno.ca/?p=19620

Mortgage money might soon be harder to get: http://www.menno.ca/?p=19546

A Sunshine Coast real estate market sale path: http://www.mennorealty.ca/Blog.php/the-logistics