GTA Prosperity Slipping

08 Apr 2011 Leave a comment

by John Amardeil in In The Media Tags: , , , , ,

Image via the Toronto Star

The Toronto Star recently reported that the GTA’s prosperity is slipping, as “Toronto’s economic success remains hampered by low productivity and long commute times compared with cities around the world.” The GTA ranked 8 out of the 24 cities studied, slipping down from 4th place just last year.

Gridlock remains one of the GTA’s top concerns, as all of us commuters can easily attest. Toronto came last among all the cities: our average round-trip commute time is 80 minutes, “worse than Los Angeles (56 minutes), Tokyo (69 minutes) and London (74 minutes).” This time is an average taken from all commuters, both drivers and transit users. Toronto has more drivers than other cities, in part because our transit system doesn’t easily link up with places outside the downtown core.

So what does this mean if you live in the GTA, whether it’s in downtown Toronto, North York, Pickering, Burlington, Brampton or Mississauga? It means that while the appeal of moving out of Toronto proper is still strong because of housing prices and spacing issues, moving out of Toronto is only becoming less appealing if you work in the GTA.

Do you live close to your place of work? What’s your commute time like?

Beware! Resale buyers’ agreements

24 Nov 2010 1 Comment

by John Amardeil in Activities, You Need to Know Tags: , , , , , , ,


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

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