Langley BC Real Estate | Condominums And Town Homes

Purchasing a home is probably the biggest investment you will ever make. When buying a house, you will have to rely on a range of professionals to guide you through the process.

Realtor
The Realtor plays the most important role in helping you find a home. Your realtor will help you find the ideal home, write an Offer of Purchase and negotiate on your behalf to help you get the best possible deal. A real estate representative will find properties in your price range and would arrange the purchase transaction in return for a portion of the sale price as a commission.  

Mortgage Broker
If you haven’t already gone through the mortgage pre-qualification process, you will need to find a good lender to assist you during the purchasing process. A Mortgage Broker is an expert who introduces buyers to a full range of mortgage products, interest rate options, and strategies to pay off a mortgage more quickly. They do not work for specific lending institutions.

Lender
Lenders are financial institutions, such as banks, trust companies, credit unions, pension funds, insurance companies or finance companies that lend money to home buyers. 

Appraiser
An appraiser is a property expert who determines a property’s market value. This is based on the property’s physical and functional characteristics. And an analysis of recent comparable sales. The market value enables the lender to determine the loan to value ratio of the mortgage.

Lawyer / Notary
The lawyer or notary will review the Agreement of Purchase and Sale, ensure that all closing documents have been completed correctly, as well as file documents with the provincial land title office.  Your lawyer or notary will also ensure your property is clear of all existing mortgages, judgments and builder’s liens.

Home Inspector
The Property or home inspector examines the home you intend to buy to evaluate its roof and structural stability, electrical work, plumbing, appliances, fireplaces and furnace.  A home inspection allows a buyer to address any issues with the seller prior to closing, as well as anticipate any repairs that may be required.

Mortgage Insurer
The Mortgage insurer protects lenders from a borrower defaulting on a mortgage at any time during the amortization period.  Home buyers with down payments of less than 25% must purchase mortgage insurance from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) or GE Mortgage Insurance Canada.

If you are putting your home up for sale, consider having your own home inspection. This should be part of your “pre-sale home improvement” process.

One of the most common conditions of the contract is, “offer contingent upon satisfactory building inspection.” Most buyers have a professional home inspection done before purchase.

The last thing that you want is to have your deal fall through because of an unknown problem uncovered by the buyer’s building inspector. This is especially true if it is a minor problem and could easily have been repaired ahead of time — if only you had known about it. Many a transaction has fallen apart because of building inspection surprises.

When preparing your house for sale, you do lots of things to make it more appealing to potential buyers. Spend that little extra and have a home inspection. By having a pre listing home inspection, you will go into the whole process knowing exactly what a buyers inspector will be looking for, and know what needs to be addressed. Find out the hidden problems with your home and correct them in advance. Take care of potential deal breakers beforehand.

By making repairs and disclosing to the prospective buyer the property’s condition up front, before negotiations begin, you can create a more relaxed atmosphere by instilling confidence regarding the home’s condition. This, in turn, may help your house sell faster and closer to listing price.

VANCOUVER, B.C. – June 3, 2008 – The Greater Vancouver housing market continued its re-balance between sales and listings last month. The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that residential property sales in Greater Vancouver declined 30.7 per cent in May 2008 to 3,002 from the 4,331 sales recorded in May 2007.

New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties increased 20.2 per cent to 7,390 in May 2008 compared to May 2007, when 6,149 new units were listed.

“With more property listings and a decline in the number of sales, prices are not increasing as rapidly, now down to single digits overall, which is good news from an affordability standpoint,” said REBGV president, Dave Watt. “The housing market is at a balanced state, sellers have more competition and buyers have more selection to choose from.”

Sales of detached properties in May 2008 declined 33.4 per cent to 1,203 from the 1,805 sales recorded during the same period in 2007. The benchmark price, as calculated by the MLSLink Housing Price Index®, for detached properties rose 8.4 per cent from May 2007 to $771,250.

Sales of apartment properties declined 30.5 per cent last month to 1,244, compared to 1,789 sales in May 2007. The benchmark price of an apartment property increased 8.7 per cent from May 2007 to $389,668.

Attached property sales in May 2008 decreased 24.7 per cent to 555, compared with the 737 sales in May 2007. The benchmark price of an attached unit increased 9 per cent between May 2007 and 2008 to $478,931.

Bright spots in Greater Vancouver in May 2008 compared to May 2007:

ATTACHED:
Coquitlam………………………………up 45.2 per cent (45 units sold from 31)

APARTMENTS:
New Westminster………………….up 13.6 per cent (100 units sold from 88)

For Immediate Release: June 3, 2008

(Surrey, BC) – Property buyers continued to see an increase in selection while sellers faced more competition as listings grew and sales decreased on Fraser Valley’s Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) in May.

The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board posted 1,599 sales in May, a decrease of 26 per cent compared to the 2,152 sales processed on the MLS® during May 2007. At the same time, the Board received 3,941 new listings, taking the number of active listings to 11,133, an increase of 33 per cent compared to the 8,381 listings available during May 2007.

“We’re experiencing a return to more normal market conditions,” explains Kelvin Neufeld, president of the Board. “In a balanced market, we can generally advise our clients to take a little longer, look at a wider variety of properties and negotiate harder when it comes to price.”

However, Neufeld cautions, “It also depends on where you’re looking and for what type of home because we’re still experiencing market conditions that favour the seller in some parts of the Fraser Valley, which is why local advice from your REALTOR® is so valuable in an adjusting market.”

For example, in Abbotsford, the average price increase for a single family detached home remained in the double digits in May, increasing 11.3 per cent compared to the same month last year. In Mission, the average townhome took only 12 days to sell in May 2008, compared to 38 days for the average townhome in Fraser Valley, and average price increases for condos in both Surrey and Abbotsford remained solid at nine per cent.

Overall, average apartment prices in the Valley increased by 5.2 per cent compared to last year. They averaged $229,727 in May 2008, compared to $218,371 last May. Similarly, the average price of a single family detached home in the Fraser Valley increased by 5.4 per cent, going from $521,444 in May 2007 to $549,612 last month. Townhomes went for an average $341,149 in May, an increase of 2.9 per cent compared to the same month last year when they averaged $331,476.