Menno van Driel

The neighbourhood changes and suddenly a lot of new wealth comes pouring in ...

Imagine living in a certain neighbourhood and one day, coming home, you find a real estate “for sale” si ...

One top Canadian banker (TD Bank, Ed Clark) is apparantly saying that the government should cut the maximum allowable mortgage amortization from 35 years to 25 years.

Nice house. Would you like to pay that off in 25 or 35 years?

Clark reported last week that low interest rates and excess liquidity have created asset bubbles in various parts of the world. The report adds, however, that we (i ...

A few days ago, I ran the blog article “Warning: mortgage rates are going up” and it got me quite a few responses, mostly of the positive (encouraging) kind. Today, we’ll look at the analogy with property values.

Reflect on that: property values go up - most of the time.

Obviously, property values ARE going to go up. A statement like that is about as true as it can be. Remember the articl ...

 If you think today’s opener is “self-serving”, you are of course right. As a real estate sales person, one tends to benefit from people buying homes. But let’s quickly look at the parameters – because they are pretty good at the moment.

This now might be just the right time to buy a nice home in your price range.

This blog article is aimed at those who are tired of renting and have always ...

Much has been said already about what lens is best used for taking good real estate photos. Even on these blog pages, some reference has been made to wide-angle lenses, for instance in this article: http://www.menno.ca/?p=2803.

A good wide-angle photo can capture the essence of a property in one shot.

 In this blog article, I would like to look at the functionality of a wide-angle lens in r ...

The above statement “mortgage rates are going up” is obviously exactly as true as the one that says the opposite: “mortgage rates are going down”.

Mortgage rates are going up AND mortgage rates are going down. But which comes first, up or down?

For sure, both are going to happen, it’s all just a matter of knowing which comes first: up or down. Also nice to know would be “by how much”. Sadly ...

 Although there is no “free real estate” on the Sunshine Coast, it might be amusing to witness that there are still several spots in the world where you can pick up real estate FOR FREE. No charge, zip, nada. Now, where do you have to go and what does one have to do to make this dream come true?

Good example of free real estate: a redundant industrial complex.

Curtis, Nebraska

There’s no St ...

This blog article deals with mortgage refinancing, a complicated issue in many situations. First, I go over the possibilities of refinancing upon maturity. In the second half, we look into mid-term switches.

Over the years, you'll build up more and more equity in your property when you pay off your mortgage.

Refinancing one’s mortgage usually occurs at its maturity. This is the point when t ...

Some say that we may as well close the real estate office during the month of December because there is “nothing going on”. People’s minds are not into buying or selling real estate – instead one wants to frolic in the recurring seasonal themes.

The winter months may be a great time for real estate - opportunitities awaiting!

There is, of course, a wee bit of truth to that statement. There ...

Free moving boxes of all sizes (from very small to wardrobe) are now available. Absolutely no charge. Please phone ahead to make sure I’m at the office to make arrangements: 604 865 1117. Most of them are either brand-new or hardly used – always clean and intact.

Free moving boxes on the Sunshine Coast

When done with the boxes, you may:

- keep them for later, for storage or give away to fri ...