Just finished reading for the second or maybe third time a book called "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", by Stephen Covey. In the book he talks about the circle of concern vs. the circle of control and how most people focus on the wrong one. Successful people tend to focus on the circle of control and ignore most of the circle of concern.

In Chapter 4 of my new book "Along for the Ride", we move into buying your first investment property. By this time you have purchased your principal residence, you're contributing to both your RRSP and your TFSA and you're now looking at diversifying your assets further and creating another source of passive income. In this chapter I walk you thru the steps and qualifications you're going to need in order to purchase an investment property. I also talk about how to properly find and screen good tenants and how to reinvest the cash flows.

Time for an update on the current state of the Vancouver condo market now that Summer has arrived.  Also wanted to set the record straight and give you my unbiased opinion on several real estate topics that have been in the news recently.

When you have a strong Sellers Market like we currently have in Vancouver Condos, you're going to see multiple offers on most units. You're also going to see listing Realtors like myself use holdbacks on offers to create a multiple offer situation. Buyers will often have to write a subject free offer when their in competition with other buyers for the same unit. In this video I will explain ways that you can minimize your uncertainty and risk over having to write subject free. And how a listing and marketing specialist like myself handles the sales process.

One of the only statistics that tells the real story about what a market is doing is the active sales to listings ratio.  Anything below 12% is considered a Buyers Market.  From 12-20% it’s a Balanced Market and over 20% it’s a Sellers Market. Right now in Vancouver we are at just over 70% so an extremely strong sellers market.   

I have clients ask me on a regular basis if it makes sense these days to try and pay off their mortgage early. I guess for some people it might make sense. It’s certainly better than spending any excess money you have every month. However, with today's historically low, rock bottom interest rates it really makes very little sense to try and pay more than your regular monthly, or what I recommend bi-weekly mortgage payment. Keep in mind by switching to a simple bi-weekly payment schedule you will already be reducing the standard amortization from 25 years down to about 23 years. Trying to accelerate it more by making extra payments makes very little sense when you have a 2.3% mortgage rate. You would be much better off investing that ...

I have done blogs before on land assemblies now we have unit assemblies on condos. Last year the BC Strata Act was amended to make it much easier to sell an entire Strata in the province of BC. In the past, if the owners of a Strata wanted to sell the entire complex to a developer it required a 100% vote. Now it only takes an 80% vote in favour of selling. What I’m starting to see is small investors and developers starting to buy and accumulate multiple units in older Strata’s with the goal of eventually having enough units and influence to move forward with a vote to sell.

Time for another blog on the importance of choosing a quality location when buying a Vancouver condo. With the ultra hot Sellers' Market we have seen over the past 4 years, and the lack of grade A & B locations left to develop in the city - many new developments are being built on what are known as remnant lots (C & D locations). These lots are generally in poor locations on busy streets or shoe horned beside busy bridges and off ramps and with poor accessibility. My advice would be to avoid these poor location units. Often for the same money or possibly 5 to 10% more you can buy a unit in a superior location and neighbourhood that will appreciate at a much better rate over time.

In Chapter 3 of my new book “Along for the Ride” I talk about the first step towards financial freedom. That first step would be to buy your principal residence and it’s so important to take advantage of the principal residence exemption. Other topics in Chapter 3 include leverage and how it works, the power of record low interest rates in paying down your principal at an accelerated rate, getting pre-approved for a mortgage the offer, subject clauses, getting a home inspection, and negotiating and closing the deal.

It’s no real surprise that many of the major media outlets are now reporting that the Vancouver real estate market is back on the rise and that low inventory and high demand are the drivers of this miraculous comeback from last Summer. If you’ve been watching my blog for the past 6 months, I have been telling people that we are not in a correction and that sales volume means nothing unless looked at with active listings. The only reason sales have dropped by 25% to 35% is because we have nothing to sell! Inventory levels are at historic lows but buyers are still out in full force. In this blog I will show you the difference between a real correction like the ones we had in 2008 and 2012 and what the market has been doing since last ...