I’m originally from the United Kingdom where real estate sales commissions have always been lower than those that we find here in Canada.

Why?

REALTORS® have historically provided higher levels of service in our Edmonton market than estate agents back in the UK and in Europe generally. However, most home buyers purchase directly through the seller’s agent. Whilst our market favors buyer agents, meaning there are 2 agents to pay, commissions will likely remain higher.

On a global level, commissions are trending down. According to one study I found by Natalya Delcoure & Norm G. Miller there are only 2 markets where commission have gone up, i.e. Hong Kong and Japan where buyer brokerage has been introduced.

Here some examples of typical…

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Market Overview

After spending almost a year showing our client Gayle Monsma around the downtown condo market, we recently had the pleasure of assisting Gayle with the purchase of a wonderful unit in Seventh Street Lofts. Situated at 10309 107 Street NW Edmonton, Seventh Street Lofts has an interesting history.

The development was handled by Dub Architects and is comprised of 3 phases. Phase 1 and 3 are based on renovated earlier structures. The second and middle phase is new construction.

Phase 1 consists of a converted John Deere warehouse first constructed in 1929. This phase offers 40 units in total of which 20 are double bedroom units. Phase 2 provides 36 units and this part of the project provides direct access to the street in some…

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In the metro Edmonton area lots of folks just love Halloween. Perhaps it’s a family tradition? You put up those inflatable spiders, ghouls or Frankenstein like monsters on your front lawn. You festoon your windows with witch shaped stickers and some of your tricks make a loud noise.

It’s fun, isn’t it?

What if we told you that these most of these things could hurt your chances of selling your home, particularly this year when inventory levels are high and sales values are down. See our September market report for details.

Our advice?

1. Avoid obstructing the view of the home, making it scary or associating it with death, (picture  those tombstones that some folks install). These things just give the wrong impression.

2. Avoid placing…

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Before you sell your home, you should learn about the distinct kinds of home buyers available to you. Together, these different buyer groups form the ‘whole’ market.

Try to think of the home sale market like a ‘layer cake’. Each layer has particular characteristics and the quality of the buyers you meet and your outcome may be affected by which layer you sell into.

We like to think of these layers as:
- Retail layer,
- Wholesale layer and
- Sub Wholesale layer

Here is a quick overview of each layer:

Retail Layer

This is the top layer of the market, where most homes and condos are sold.

In this layer, you will be exposed to the highest quality ‘retail’ buyers.

Retail buyers are expecting to see well-prepared homes, they expect to enjoy…

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