Urban or Suburban?

This?

Or This?

As I mentioned before, HGTV has taken over our house. I watch it constantly whether it be shows about real estate or decor and design. One show in particular that it playing out in our own home is Urban Suburban. This show takes a couple or a family and gives them housing options in the city, and the suburbs. It is a hard decision of course, because we need to take into account what our needs are now, as well as anticipate what they are going to be in the future.

J and I have lived just east of downtown for awhile now, and we love living where we are. We are close to everything and can get downtown in 10 minutes via transit which is right at our doorstep - it is pretty amazing. Every week we can check out the latest restaurant or check out the newest event going on - we love city living...just not city prices!

Our agency has an amazing blog called Move Smartly which keeps up with the Canadian real estate market, but focuses on Toronto. According to a recent post, the average cost for a detached home in Toronto is $705,509, compared with $521,345 in the suburbs. That is a difference of over $184,000! Sadly, our budget means we have to compromise if we choose to live in the city, possibly a semi or a townhome and even a place that may require some major renovations.

Looking at listings in the 905, our money can definitely go further, but there are drawbacks - having to drive everywhere, longer commute to work (for me, but less for J) - but we could end up with our dream home. We have decided to look at homes in the city (South Etobicoke - Mimico, Long Branch, and Alderwood) and in the western suburbs (South Mississauga). I am rooting for the city, but J wants the suburbs - the real question is what are we willing to compromise on? Stay tuned...

Announcing our realtor (Drumroll please......)

First off, sorry for being awol (to all 10 of you who read this), after the holidays things have been crazy at work for both J and I and they involved lots of overtime and 6 day work weeks, but I wanted to update with some important information - we signed with a realtor!

I have a lot of experience in the service industry, given that I have worked in the industry (on the education side) for 6 years, I have a good idea how important good service is. When we were shopping around initially, I was blown away by how pushy realtors are - they all want you to sign agreements immediately, even if we told them we weren't looking at selling for over a year. Not only that, but one realtor (who will remain nameless) actually said "I'm sorry, but I only give information to registered clients".

Really? You are supposed to show us your expertise and make us WANT to sign with you, not make it seem like you're doing us a favour by taking us on as clients.

Then, we met Andrew Dybenko from Realosophy. We initially met way back in August to ask some questions about the buying process. We are home owners, but bought in a new development and pre-construction, so the process was radically different. Andrew sat down with us and explained the whole process and also sent us e-mails of listings in our desired neighborhoods for the last 5 months all without signing a single piece of paper - that is amazing service.

We sat down with him again recently, and it confirmed in our minds that we would be signing with him. After all, buying property is the biggest and most important investment you can make, and we want to make sure someone is not only knowledgeable, but has our interests at heart. Although we have not officially gone through the buying or selling process yet, I have been really impressed so far. Now that this is taken care of, bring on the open houses!