Where was this a year ago?

I was beginning to think that there was a dry spell in good home-related reading, but I happened upon a special feature that the Toronto Star has been running: Your First Home. We already have one of those, but the articles have some good suggestions on finding a realtor, mortgages, neighbourhoods, etc.

I must admit that the only resource that Chris and I had when we started house-shopping was a copy of Buying & Selling an Home for Canadians for Dummies, and we basically picked our realtor at random off of a website. We did interview him before deciding to work together, but I am relieved that we were a good judge of character because it takes a certain sort of person not to mind looking at over sixty houses over five months and without being tempted to drop your clients :)

Comments

[ani]

Thank you so much for this post. It will come in handy someday for me. I hope.

[Carolyn J.]

I also picked a relator at random for my apartment purchase and he was great. We also used him for our house and he was a freakin' psycho...guess he won't be getting our business again. Realtors who go into business for themselves can get a little stressed, I guess. Next time I'm going back to an agency.

The best thing I did was tell my realtor to e-mail me MLS listings he thought were good, and I cruised the listings myself every day. If he caught a listing that I also liked it was a good candidate.

[little things]

I will have to take a look at these articles! My fiance and I are planning to start house-hunting together once we get married and these articles will probably provide great advice! Thanks!