Abbotsford Real Estate

Govt. of Canada changed some mortgage rules today to make it a little harder to get a new mortgage or refinance an existing mortgage. There are 3 changes in rules aimed at home buyers, investors and borrowers who may be planning to refinance. Home buyers will need to meet qualifying criteria for a five-year fixed rate mortgage even if they opt ...

Canadian Govt is considering plans to make it harder for Canadian to buy a home. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says that conservatives in Ottawa may tighten mortgage eligibility rules to avert a possible housing bubble. The government and Bank of Canada are worried that when interest rates rise upto 10% homeowners may not be able to keep up with ...

Last April it became mandatory for anyone offering house inspection services in BC to be licensed and this week a home inspector was ordered by a BC supreme court judge to pay nearly $200,000 in compensation to his client. The BC supreme court's decision will have long term implications for newly organized home inspection industry. The B.C. ...

Buyers moving in from Greater Vancouver and first-time buyers from all over the Lower Mainland taking advantage of competitive interest rates and lower prices in the Fraser Valley were the driving force behind strong home sales in October. Although Fraser Valley’s MLS® received 7 per cent more new listings in October than it did in ...

After a very hot July home sales in Fraser Valley set another record in August recording the second best August for home sales. Buyers powered by historically low interest rates and driven by the desire to move up the value chain drove the home sales to record levels. In Abbotsford single family home sales were 86% higher than August of last ...

Owners of leaky condominiums in British Columbia built poorly during the building boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s would no longer be eligible for government funded interest free loans to repair their buildings. The B.C. government has put an end to a leaky condo loan program, saying a levy on new residential projects that funded it has ...

The BC government announced on July 23, 2009 that effective July 1, 2010, BC will adopt the HST, combining BC's seven per cent PST with the five per cent federal GST for a single "harmonized sales tax" of 12 per cent. Starting next July, we'll be paying a combined 12 per cent on most purchases. The biggest problem with the ...

Fraser Valley real Estate Board will be changing lockbox suppliers to the REALTOR®-owned company Sentrilock. This change is scheduled to occur when the Board’s contract with the current supplier, GE Supra, expires this October. The Greater Vancouver and Chilliwack real estate boards will also make the change to SentriLock. So be ...

Abbotsford neighbourhoods scored #8 on the list of hottest neighborhoods in lower mainland in a recent study. This study conducted for real estate firm Century 21 Canada was focused on finding the 21 hottest neighborhoods in Canada for realizing real estate price increases in the past year. Abbotsford neighborhoods that showed real estate price ...

The Bank of Canada kept its key lending rate at a historic low. The decision to leave borrowing rates unchanged came as no surprise because the central bank said in April it would leave the overnight rate at 0.25 per cent until the middle of next year, unless there is a sudden surge in inflation. The central bank reaffirmed its pledge to hold ...