Home Buying, Selling, and Property Investment Blog
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- Written by Sherilynn Milsom
Today we met with sellers to pick up the keys to the lovely duplex we purchased from them, and we received the best possible compliment...
They mentioned they had noticed on our website we offer real estate investment opportunities, and asked if they could meet with us soon to discuss the possibility of investing with us.
This couple has been a pleasure to work with and we are excited about the possibility to turn happy house sellers into satisfied investors.
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- Written by Sherilynn Milsom
This chart shows how other countries rank Canada on the international stage. The world views Canada as strong, free, and economically sound. These views are some of the many reasons Canadian Real Estate is such a good investment.
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- Written by Sherilynn Milsom
Q: How does one handle utilities in suited houses where utilities are not separately metered?
A: We keep them in our name and calculate a fair split based on number of occupants and estimated usage. For example, a stay-at-home parent with a toddler will likely use more utilities than 2 working adults.
We tell applicants we base the utilities charge on last year's average, and the charge is subject to adjustment based on increased usage or price increases. The utilities charge is never included in the rent amount on the lease, rather the lease mentions the "utilities addendum" where the amount and terms are discussed.
As for bookkeeping, in QuickBooks all of our properties have a "class" and all of our tenants are "customers." Every penny is assigned to a property and to a tenant within that property. We can easily track utilities 'account' balances for each tenant with a Transaction Report. To create the report, I used filters to choose which accounts to use and which tenants to include (current tenants only). Once the report is "Memorized," we can check it any time in about 3 seconds. Handy for lease renewals and periodic adjustments.
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- Written by Sherilynn Milsom
We are pleased to report we have helped another family to sell their house quickly.
This family takes possession of their new house in 3 short weeks, and was faced with the possibility of having 2 mortgage payments. They needed to sell quickly.
QDHomeQuest purchased the house for a fair price, with a closing date that suited the family. After signing the purchase contract, they were excited to not only be saving realtor fees and getting a fair price for their house, but also to avoid the stress and hassles associated with listing a house for sale.
Please watch for this fantastic property to appear soon on our "Homes For Sale" page.
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- Written by Sherilynn Milsom
I recently had the extreme displeasure of being part of a rather one-sided debate on an issue obviously dear to someone's heart. We'll call her Daisy.
Daisy is incredibly passionate about this issue and feels it affects not only her, but also the world at large, and is contributing to the problem of people starving in developing countries. It isn't, and never will, but I never had the chance to make that point. The issue is irrelevant - it could have been anything.
Daisy's arguments were all based on facts, evidence, and studies provided by the proponents of her cause. She had no neutral or unbiased resource. And she seemed to refuse the validity of any other facts or evidence, no matter how well supported or how unbiased they were. Furthermore, her logic (based on her false evidence) was faulty.
The 'debate' quickly became a preachy lecture - Daisy's attempt to educate the ignorant masses. Her passion morphed into fanaticism.
And I disengaged.
I made one last futile attempt to encourage Daisy to 'dial it down a notch' so people would consider her information. Her response was to call me hardheaded and imply that I was an idiot for my beliefs.
Not exactly the most effective way to convince me of her position.
In the end, rather than converting me, Daisy had me convinced she had been brainwashed and her cause must be a cleverly veiled corporate ploy to get me hooked on some strange product line (or something like that).
My point?
Being passionate about a cause is great. Informing people about it is good too. But jumping on a soapbox and cramming your position down someone's throat, not considering or even listening to the opinions of others, and insulting their intelligence for not jumping up on the soapbox with you, is not going to help your cause no matter how good the cause is.
Provide useful, unbiased information, and let people make up their own minds. Then respect their position and opinions.
Perhaps you will educate people to some degree. And - more importantly - perhaps you will learn something too.