10 Dec 2010 Leave a comment
in Activities, Fan Mail Tags: advertising, brookfield homes, Builder, builder of the year, empire communities, marketing
John A. celebrates Brookfield Homes’ “Builder of the Year 2010” award in his new sweatshirt in front of the Brookfield Christmas tree in Markham. Somehow the photo got into the hands of another of our clients, Empire Communities. Maybe it’s an Empire sweatshirt, actually! We love our clients and wear their tattoos with pride.
03 Dec 2010 1 Comment
in Activities Tags: building, energy star, energy-efficient, enerquality, environment, green, greenhouse, healthy, home, lifestyle, ontario
Last week, I attended and did a presentation at the EnerQuality “Hit the Road to the Code” conference. In 2012, there will be many changes to the Ontario Building Code. Builders are naturally invested in learning about all the latest info regarding code-leading programs such as ENERGY STAR® for New Homes, GreenHouse Certified Construction, and R-2000. People involved in the green building industry tend to focus on a green home’s features and the construction details. Instead, I spoke about promoting the lifestyle benefits of living in a “green” (environmentally-friendly, energy-efficient) new home. Lifestyle benefits are what’s really of interest to our customers, the new home buyers. They want to know how a green home benefits them, not just the earth. And there are real benefits that we should be talking about and marketing: huge savings on energy and water bills; a healthier and more comfortable living environment, with cleaner air, less toxins, etc.; and the feel-good sensation of doing good for the world doesn’t hurt either, I guess.
25 Nov 2010 Leave a comment
in Activities Tags: car racing, hobbies, porsche
People who know me know that one of my biggest passions, besides marketing homes, is car racing. This video, shot by a friend of mine, is from a race weekend at Mosport I went to this summer with the Porsche Club. Check out my car, the only red one, #40. I had two first places and a second place finish in my class. Now for the long winter until next season…
24 Nov 2010 1 Comment
in Activities, You Need to Know Tags: commission, federal competition bureau, GTA, homeowner, MLS, real estate, Toronto, TREB
Now that the federal Competition Bureau has successfully opened up the MLS system to homesellers without having to pay huge commission rates to agents, the TREB (Toronto Real Estate Board) has come up with another scheme to protect their exorbitant commissions.
Under the guise of offering better service, brokers are trying to convince prospective buyers to sign exclusive contracts with them. These contracts basically ensure that any home the prospective buyer offers to buy will be subject to broker commissions.
For example, if a prospective buyer finds a home offered through one of the emerging low fixed-fee or low commission brokers, who now have unfettered access to listings on MLS, that prospective buyer may sign a buyer agreement. If the agreement is signed, he won’t be able to buy that home unless the vendor agrees to pay more commission than he originally planned. Since many vendors are unwilling to pay more than what they initially planned, a lot of folks can’t buy homes.
So I urge you, before you consider signing contracts with brokers, to be aware of what you’re really getting yourself into. It may look good on paper, but we must ALWAYS read the fine print.
Be careful,
John Amardeil
05 Nov 2010 Leave a comment
in Activities Tags: brampton, brookfield homes, caledon east, eden oak, family, georgetown, home, pathways, Toronto
After the surge of people searching for new homes in the spring and summer, the new home market usually slows down in the fall and winter. Yet here it is November and we’re still getting vast interest in our upcoming projects! This month, instead of things slowing down in terms of homebuyer interest and activity, we’re about to launch two major projects and getting huge interest. We’re doing registration campaigns and getting lots of names.
The GTA new home market is strong, and people are not only able, but eager to buy new homes. We’ll be selling lots of homes in late November and December – great news for homebuyers and builders alike.
The two main projects we’re now about to launch and getting registrants for are Pathways in Caledon East, a new family-friendly community by Brookfield Homes, and Weaver’s Mill in Georgetown, a young and fashionable townhome community by Eden Oak. We’re very excited to get these communities to the market.
JohnAmardeil.com 