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.

www.seatoncreekside.com

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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..."

Click Here to view the entire article on thestar.com

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!

"The Best Thing Since...

...Sliced bread." #$%!?!?!

That's what Mattamy is calling the new town of Seaton (or maybe themselves?) in what is part of the fresh, new ad campaign for 2008. I found this full page ad in the current New Homes free magazine on the last page of the Mattamy pull-out.

I don't know what has got into their water (maybe its the 2 J.D. Power & Associates awards, etc.) at the Mattamy HQ but claiming to be the best thing to happen to new home building is like HONDA saying their cars are redifining automobiles...they're not. Or maybe they just hired Kanye West to head the marketing department. Anyways, I feel the ad is on the arrogant side and there is always much more to be desired in mass new-home building before anyone claims to have changed the game.

So the ad goes on to explain that,

"50 years ago,
Kids knew exactly,
what to do
when told to "Go Fly
a Kite."

Seaton Coming Soon.
A Brand New Town.

The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread.*

*Based on our shiny trophies


So thats my editorial on the new ad...I really just picking on little things but it just took me by surprise this morning.

Look What I Found!

Found this on the Sustainable Pickering: Seaton site, unnamed, unlabeled and just sitting there, probably never viewed by anyone unless you clicked every link on that site (this is what I do on night shifts). So another one of these colour-coded maps. This one is a bit more useful than the last one I posted.

Guess which colour belongs to Mattamy Homes?

Blue you say? Nah that belongs to Lebovic Homes.

Well ...

Click on the image above to find out where Creekside really is...and how close to the creek we're gonna be!

Ok...now that you've seen where the Seaton Creekside site will be the entire map is located HERE and shows the developments all the way to the 407 colour-coded to who owns the land (including more Mattamy and Lebovic sites north of Taunton). It surely looks like Lebovic will be the larger new home builder in the area with more sites but what do I know I'm just counting coloured blocks.

Leave your comments and tell me what you think of the sites!

Planning Seaton One Slow Step at a Time

So the news has been slow lately so I dug up some boring stuff to read.

I'm sure it's a tough task to plan a new town and the City of Pickering holds meetings every so often attended by the Seaton advisory committee.

The last meeting was held on February 20th, 2008 and the minutes of the meeting reveal some of the plans up for discussion.

Highlights (or low-lights) include:

• Discussion of whether to plan Seaton with a population of 70,000 or a more realistic 54,000 with intensification occurring over time
• Metrus and Lebovic Developments submitted their subdivision plans, no mention of Mattamy although they have reps present
• Interest from retailers to expand to Seaton
• Seaton has the opportunity to be innovative and be a community with integrated shopping
• UOIT/Durham College may build a site in Seaton
• 2 High Schools planned by the School Board -- questioned if it would be enough, they are awaiting the final population goal
• Alternative sources of energy (i.e. hot water heaters/district hot water heating) would be a draw and is being studied
• The Mayor suggested that planned big box retailers at Brock Rd. and Taunton Rd. were not preferred over prestige employment
• a GO station has been planned for the area but no precise location has been announced
• they would like to attract enterprises involved in research, development, production, sales and service of new, modern, efficient, "alternative energy" technologies and related services to the area. Strongly suggested was a "Green" theme
• shopping services that would blend into the area's cultural heritage vs. big box retail
• Green, Green and more Green!

If you want to read all 6 glorious pages contained in the minutes of the February 20th meeting visit

Sustainable Pickering: Seaton (Requires Abode Acrobat Reader)

mattamyhomes.com Reveals Some Minor Changes for Seaton

Few minor updates I noticed on Mattamy's Homepage:

COMING SOON THIS SPRING. Seaton Creekside, where homes and nature live together. Soon, the sun won't be the only thing to rise in the east. Seaton Creekside is a special new Mattamy neighbourhood adjacent to natural greenspace and a winding creek. Seaton, on the eastern edge of the city will feature Urban Townhomes and Urban Singles as well as 34', 36' and 43' detached WideLot homes. Biking/walking paths and park spaces will further enhance the natural feel of Seaton and provide gathering places for friends and neighbours. Seaton Creekside offers easy access to major shopping and recreation facilities and is close to major highways such as 401 and 407.

Gone is the suggestion that the site sales would open this Spring, confirming what I posted last week.

Also they corrected the link on the main page that Listed New Condos in Pickering to say New Homes in Pickering

Summer 2008

That's the new tentative opening for the Seaton Creekside site as per a Mattamy representative. The projected timeframe has been moved from a Spring opening to a Summer opening.

If that is the case then it'll be easier to camp out in 20 degree weather than this Arctic weather we're having now.

www.seatoncreekside.com

I have this URL forwarding to this blogger site. Easier to remember. Bookmark it. In the future, if/when we have a forum it will directly linked to this URL.

Opening Date Delay?

Got an email reply yesterday from Mattamy and the latest sounds like a Summer 2008 opening vs. Spring. I've emailed for them to confirm the delay. We'll see what they say.

Fitting in...15 Residential Areas

These are the residential sites that have been planned out for the area. This image is courtesy of the City of Pickering's Central Pickering Development Plan. Thanks again to shawn122 for the link.

They weren't kidding about the sustained green space that will highlight Seaton. If you click on the map above or this link, you can hover over greenspace on the map and see that pretty much what isn't residential will be greenspace. Quite impressive.

A Community of Epic Proportions?

Dropped by the Summerside sales office just to see what the sales office has to offer (asides from $500,000 semis :s) and asked a sales person about Seaton. He doesn't have much information to offer but he did say that compared to Summerside (500 units), Seaton will be much much much bigger. 10x to be exact. He has heard around the number of 5000 units, with model homes and the whole 9 yards. Sounds like Seaton may be the second coming of Hawthorne Village in Milton -- Large, multi-phase development.

Hopefully we can get enough of those 5000 buyers into a forum like Hawthornevillager.com and support each other through the many decisions that will come with new home buying. It seems to me that their forum is a great resource for tips, questions, group buys, advice, etc. I would like to eventually start a forum like theirs for our community once the Seaton site opens (with the help of shawn122)