Saturday, May 31, 2008

Updates and Everything Else

Thanks to Tina for filling us in that land clearing at the "Creekside" site is underway as well as the delivery of a few trailers to the site have happened. This is probably going to be the Sales Centre site that we'll be getting familiar with in the next few weeks. At least something is happening, the Mattamy website has had nothing new to offer in the past 2-3 months for the Seaton crowd.

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I've started fiddling with some free Forum servers. I'm hoping to have something up in the next few weeks as I work out the format. I want to keep it simple with room to expand as our needs do as a community. We will be needing a good forum to share info and ideas as more is revealed about Creekside. Stay tuned for the link to the forums on the main page.


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I went to check out another development by the Monarch Group known as Evergreen. They boast the most green and environmentally friendly community to date. This is what they are selling in Toronto's "popular" Midland Avenue and St. Clair Avenue area (btw...there's nothing exciting in the area save for a Price Chopper, McDonald's, and a Cemetary...but its a 2 minute drive to the Kingston Rd./Bluff's strip...i'll give them that). Nonetheless, they offered details of all of the environmental standards in the building of their community and in each individual home. I'm hoping many of these standards pop up in the Seaton Homes as we all try to decrease our carbon footprints, minimize our waste, energy use and affirm our social responsibility to the environment.


They're looking for $487,000 and up for 30' detached homes topping out at $509,000 for about 23-2400 sqft. Townhomes starting at the $350s in various sizes of about 2000 sqft. Purchase of a unit includes: hardwood engineered oak on the mainfloor and stairs, central air, 5 appliances, energy monitor and $5000 in upgrades for 30' single buyers. Not too shabby for a bonus package but considering these singles are half-a-mil I'd expect those upgrades to be included.

Opening day they had about 20 singles and 20 towns available for sale, with more phases to follow. Opening was at 11am May 24th, I popped in at 11am and was #65. Oh and I didn't buy anything! lol...I'll see what Mattamy has for me first.

Reinventing Suburbia aka 905 Going Euro


An article with discussion on the state of the 905 "revitalization" plans found in the May 31st edition of the Toronto Star.
"...In North Pickering, local officials are salivating at the impending
development of the Seaton Lands, future home to 70,000, already billed as
Canada's first planned, environmentally sustainable community..."


Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Blowout Sale at Mattamyhomes.com!!


Hurry! Act Now! Mattamy is slashing prices left and right!!

I've been trying to follow the trends in the real estate market and come up with my own ideas of what has been happening:


  • the recession is taking its toll on the re-sale homes market dropping every month since the start of the year.

  • new homes prices aren't expected to suffer as much due to drops in borrowing rates

So with those two points we see Mattamy is offering discounted prices in various communities including Newmarket, Cambridge, etc. Does this show that the new homes market is probably on the same course as the re-sale market? I'd say yes...the past few years you wouldn't find Mattamy discounting many homes save for a few closeout lots...so now we have the #1 discounting lots around $10k and probably a bunch of bonus dollars for upgrades with sign-on.


Does that put us in a good place come grand opening? Will we be seeing incentives from the get-go considering they have to get this whole project off its feet?


Are we buying at the right/wrong time only to lose money on our investment?


Stay Tuned!


*note: I have no experience in the whole real estate business/market, etc. so none of what I say can be taken as gospel but feel free to add a comment if you have some insight into the market and where its going!!



p.s. I'm out of the country till the 22nd so if there are any updates that I may be missing out on please post up a comment!! Keep me in the loop!