How Much Does it Cost to Hire a Yellowknife REALTOR? The cost of hiring a REALTOR® to sell your home depends on a variety of factors including how your home is priced, the state of the market, and the time of year.  Some homes are easier to sell than others.  If yours is such a home, you should be able to negotiate a good rate […]
For Renters Buying vs. Renting in Yellowknife There are roughly 1,200 new people moving to Yellowknife each year. When moving to a new city, people often think hard about whether it makes sense to buy or rent. Renting offers greater flexibility and less to worry about in terms of maintenance and other costs, such as property taxes. That said, in our tight […]
Protect Your Investment Mechanical Tips for Modular Home Owners A client of mine who is a licensed oil burner mechanic just gave me a couple fantastic tips about frequently occuring mechanical issues with modular homes in Yellowknife. 1. Check Your Thermostat Battery A lot of folks don’t know that their digital thermostats are battery operated.  Sometimes, the battery will still have enough power to […]
Tools for Online House Hunting, Yellowknife In this age of the all-powerful internet, home buyers are in a position to learn a great deal about a home before walking through the door with their favourite REALTOR®.  In Yellowknife, house hunters are fortunate to have an extra tool that is still quite rare in Canada – City Explorer (probably referred to elsewhere […]
Read This If You Live in a House in Downtown Yellowknife Yesterday I discovered an interesting quirk in the City of Yellowknife’s property assessment system.  If you own a house downtown and you use it purely for residential purposes, your land will be assessed at $95,000.  But if you choose to operate a business out of your home, your assessment jumps up to $210,000.  If you […]
Education and Advocacy Is Your New City of Yellowknife Property Assessment Fair? (Reposted with permission from myself – Adrian) Figuring out if your 2013 property assessment (used to calculate 2014 taxes) is fair is a time-sensitive issue because, as you’ll notice at the bottom right of your assessment notice, there is a deadline for appeals. So how should a property owner go about figuring this out if […]
For Renters Yellowknife Vacancy Rate Unchanged at 3.6% The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation recently released its fall 2013 rental market statistics and Yellowknife’s vacancy rate in apartments and townhomes came in unchanged since the spring at 3.6%.  It did rise substantially over the year, however, from 3.2% in October of 2012. It is interesting to note that the rental universe (total number […]
Education and Advocacy CMCH Condominium Buyer’s Guide Are you thinking of moving to Yellowknife and investing in a condo?  If so, you’re not alone.  Yellowknife rental rates are the second highest in Canada, yet our condo prices remain very competitive with other markets.  These two factors make condo ownership an attractive option.  But there are different rules and regulations that condo corporations […]
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Education and Advocacy Homeowner Biases – Protect Your Investment by Being Self-Aware A recent article by Cristopher Myrick in the magazine Canadian Real Estate Wealth (and re-published in the Globe and Mail) has homeowners around Canada thinking about the mistakes we sometimes make when estimating the value of our homes.  The article, entitled “Selling Your Home?  Steer Clear of Biases Like the ‘Ikea Effect” is a valuable […]
CMHC 2013 Northern Housing Outlook CMHC’s new Northern Housing Outlook report was released today.  Lots of great information in here for Yellowknife home buyers, sellers, builders and even renters.  You’ll note that the report predicts rising rental vacancy.  This is great news for renters. Go to this link for the report: http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/odpub/esub/65446/65446_2013_A01.pdf  
Life in the "Knife" Volunteers Needed Today to Help Clean Up Downtown Yellowknife It’s that time of year.  The snow has melted, leaving behind an unwanted bounty of Bounty wrappers, among other things.  As in years past, the Yellowknife Trash Pick-Up Artists will be getting together on Wednesdays at 5pm at Javaroma to take on this perennial pest.  Today is our first session of 2012. The Pick-Up Artists […]
Protect Your Investment Recover 10% of Your CMHC Fees Through Energy-Saving Renovations As I pointed out in my last post, home prices in Yellowknife are now slightly below the national average – a fact that will likely surprise many folks who are currently house hunting.  But any way you slice it, there is nothing average about our home-heating costs.  For those who are seeking to reduce their […]
For Renters Are Vacancy Rates on the Rise in Yellowknife? As most Yellowknife renters know, the apartment vacancy rate in our city tends to be very low.  In the spring of 2011 it dipped as low as 0.7%.  It real terms this meant that of the 2,119 rental apartments and town houses in Yellowknife, only 14 were vacant at the time of the spring 2011 […]