CBC Morning North Radio Interview this morning with Markus Schwabe

I had a quick interview yesterday with CBC Morning North Host Markus Schwabe about my new Real Estate Blog if you had the chance to tune in this morning.
We discussed how the strike has affected the Sudbury Market and what type of market we are currently in; overall it went really well and I was happy to do it and get some exposure for the blog.
It is funny how things came together for the interview; a client of mine was in Sudbury working for CBC and doing a lot of research on the benefits of being a First Time Home Buyer in terms of all the incentives that the government introduced last year; and at the same time she was shopping for a place and we connected and I helped her through the buying process. So 2 days after I start my Real Estate blog she called our office and said that she wanted to have me on the radio.
I look forward to having some new readers this morning and hope you continue to follow me as I attempt to help communicate where we are currently and where we are headed in the Sudbury Real Estate Market.

Thanks for reading;

David Kurt
Sales Representative
Coldwell Banker Charles Marsh Realty

Where we were; Where we are; and Where we're going

This is the Where We Were part of this three piece post where I will attempt to take a look at how we faired in our local Sudbury Real Estate market in 2009 (comparing it over the previous year's figures).
To start out let's take a look at some figures that were provided by the Sudbury Real Estate Board thanks to the MLS/Filogix System (click on image to see larger.)



What do these numbers tell us?

First we see that year over year comparing 2008 to 2009 the total number of sales has dropped close to 20%; while in that same time the total number of listings dropped roughly 12%. When we compare the total number of sales relative to the number of listings for the same time period we see a rather constant figure that hovers just over the 50% mark which all in all isn't terrible. This is considering 2008 was a crazy year for real estate in the Greater City of Sudbury where in the early months we saw a shortage of listings with multiple offers on almost every listing to a rapid change that brought about a buyers market with a huge over-surplus in the number of listings available.

Another key fact to note is that our sales in the month of Dec for 2009 are much stronger compared to the average sale for 2009; in almost all area's in The Greater City of Sudbury. This seems to indicate that prices for the average homes are on the rise.
We see a climb in terms of the average value sale specifically in the locations of; New Sudbury, South End and Valley East. These three locations specifically have a large enough pool of data to be able to draw this basic conclusion (New Sudbury having 19 sales in the month, South End registering 14 and Valley East coming in at 31 sales for December.) It is tough to gauge how accurate some of the other locations are to determine if there were an increase or a decrease because of the few sales available in the month of December that we are looking at. (For example the one sale in Broader South End may have been a fixer-upper property compared to a lot of $500,000+ houses that are for sale on the waterfront.)

As with any statistics people can interpret these a number of ways; some seeing the glass half full and others seeing it half empty. Overall these numbers seem to be a positive for Sudbury as we enter the New Year and a New Decade.

Please feel free to comment with any input that you may have based on some of the statistics of our market; I look forward to hearing what you all have to say.

Thanks for reading,

David Kurt
Sales Representative
Coldwell Banker Charles Marsh Real Estate

Premier Blog Post

I have contemplated creating a Sudbury Real Estate blog for many reasons in the past few months and today seemed like a perfect day as any to make the leap into the digitial age as an internet blogger.

As a younger agent in Sudbury I feel that it is partially my duty to embrace and implement new tools and resources (I guess a lot of people would not consider blogging a new tool) that allow me to share thoughts and market information with local Sudburian's.

Being an agent in Northern Ontario it is surprising to find how little information there is about our local market place compared to larger centres to the south (Ottawa, G.T.A, Tri-City, etc...). Google-ing for information in these areas will provide a buyer/seller with a host of useful information. You can find statistics, predictions, market indicators, and economists insights focused on any niche market you may be trying to educate yourself about. Good luck finding anything similar to that once you drive past 69North of Barrie (which is getting closer and closer with the expansion of the 4 lane. On a brief side note it is slightly comical that we are getting excited about one of the major highways that links us to the south and beyond JUST NOW becoming 4-laned).

If you're trying to investigate the local market place and are looking for those statistics and professional insight in and around the Sudbury Area you'll be lucky to find a CMHC New Housing report and a few Sudbury Star articles referencing Dr. Robinson's interesting views on where Northern Ontario is heading.

I hope you follow me on this journey as I try to do whatever it is I can, to help you educate yourself, as to the home buying and selling process. Hopefully we can create a little bit of a buzz for anyone looking for market information and professional opinions regarding our Real Estate Market in Sudbury.

Thanks for reading;

David Kurt
Team Kurt Sales Representative
Coldwell Banker Charles Marsh Real Estate