Seven new Australian friends are chattering away as they and this lone Canadian share our last El Salvadorian dinner. I've already spent 5 days with these 7. Plus 2 more Aussies, 2 Kiwis, a Scot, a German, 2 other Canadians, and a Salvadorian guide. I'm not surprised...

So, we’re not so happy here in BC! So says a study released this week by Point2 Real Estate which created a happiness index for the hundred largest Census Subdivisions in Canada. Only one BC city made the top 10; only 2 made the top 20 on the list. The happiest...

“The moment you stop learning is the moment you start dying.” That quotation, by Travis Towne, echoes a similar one by Albert Einstein. Perhaps it’s my curious mind, but I’ve always felt similarly (though I don’t tend to coin famous sayings.) Learning counters the...

Stunned silence! That’s what I sometimes get when I inform a rent-2-own applicant of the maximum property value they can qualify for. They look at their neighbours in million-dollar homes and wonder why they only qualify for a $400,000 property. Usually, the answer is...

A government-assisted rent 2 own option? Frequently, government involvement in one’s economic activities is less than an exciting prospect. That’s certainly true when it comes to meddling in home ownership. Witness the First-time homebuyer’s matching grant the feds...

While the rent-2-own strategy is designed primarily to assist renters, especially those getting into the market for the first time, you may be surprised to hear that it can be a life-saver for some homeowners. Now why would someone who already owns a home be...

What is CAROP? You’ve seen it attached to the bottom of my posts: a logo with a house in a blue diamond, with the acronym CAROP underneath. And then there’s a link. But that link is almost never clicked. So, I thought I’d provide a bit more information about this...

A winter getaway to Joshua Tree National Park occasioned a side trip to the Salton Sea. OK, to clarify, my friend and I did fly in and out of Las Vegas, and did spend an afternoon in Palm Springs. But the focus was Joshua Tree: hiking, seeing the amazing rock...

You get to choose your own home Looking back through the history of this blog, I realized that I’ve now been doing it for more than 10 years. If I’d looked sooner, I might have posted a reflective anniversary piece. But I missed that opportunity. I came across one of...

Many would-be home-buyers are waiting until housing prices bottom out before getting into the market, whether as outright buyers or rent 2 own clients. If that’s what you’re waiting for, you may already be too late. First, let’s look at the big picture. During the...