Stephen Hodge's (hodgeslodges) Blog

Where I operate from, the County of Northumberland ON, we get a lot of agents from outside the area listing homes, particularly premium or carriage trade properties. The felling amongst many sellers for these properties is that you need to have a "big city" agent in order to attract the attention...

If you are considering selling a family home this spring, don't leave it too late to list it. Families looking to buy homes will want to move, often in the months of June, July or August - when their children aren't in school. In order to be sure your house has time to sell and close for your bes...

Websites have changed dramatically over teh last few years - a point that was driven home when I began to discuss the cost of sites with an associate who was still using the same site he'd set up in the late 90's. Not only was the site ineffective by this point, and lacking many of the newer usef...

Every day I sit down and examine what I've done not just for my clients, but also for me. It might seem silly, but afterall isn't my job to do things for my clients? Well, yes and no of course - that is to say it's a part of my job, but in real estate your job is your business, and it isn't enoug...

It's kind of ironic in some ways. When prices are being driven up in a hot real estate market, it's all an agent can do to keep buyers realistic about what they are bidding on. Not that we have all that much incentive to do so, but it is fascinating to watch people happily over-pay for a house ju...

There's a lot of talk lately about non-traditional, customized, private, long-amortization and what-have-you mortgages and what that might mean for the Canadian Real Esate market and Economy given what is presently occuring in the United States. So, is there anything to worry about? Do these new ...

I was recently asked by one of Toronto's top real estate professionals, a person using the same web-site service and template that I use, if I was getting much business from the site. She was having her doubts about its effectiveness. I resonded that yes, I am in fact getting some business opport...

Attention all home sellers going it on their own! First off, congratulations, selling real estate is really pretty exciting stuff. There's always opportunity lying just around the corner. But, when the real estate is your own, then there's more than opportunity you are looking for - you need resu...

It still surprises me a bit that buyers of real estate often think they HAVE to call the listing agent if they are interested in a property for sale. Really, this couldn't be more wrong - well, at least here in Ontario - as any liscenesed real estate broker of sales rep can sell you ANY listed pr...

If you are a first time buyer, you may be getting advice to dip into your RRSPs in order to help you with a down-payment. But those are your retirement savings! And besides, you have to pay them back anyway - how does doing this make any sense!?!Well, it does, but it takes some mental gymnastics ...