TrueCondos.com – The Best Source for Toronto Condos

My Response to Haiti

Like most Canadians, I have been watching the news and updates surrounding the earthquake in Haiti with a sense of shock and sadness. The images and scenes are horrific and overwhelming. And like most Canadians, I feel like it is my responsibility to do something to help.

The immediate needs are obvious: people need food, shelter and water desperately. I have faith in the International Community to provide for these basic needs in the weeks to come. But when the dust settles and all the bodies are buried, Haiti will need to literally rebuild itself. This will take years and probably hundreds of  millions of dollars.

This is why I have decided that for the next 30 days, for every client of mine who buys or sells a property, I will donate $1 for every $1000 spent to a charity of their choice to help the relief efforts in Haiti. For example, a purchase/sale of a $300,000 condo will mean a $300 donation. The charity must be directly involved on the ground with the relief work that is happening in Haiti. And to be clear, the donation will be made in the name of the buyer/seller – so there is no financial benefit for me personally.

I realize this will be more of a gesture of good will than any major significant contribution to the cause, but I feel like I have to do something more than just give personally, and I see an opportunity here for my business (helping people buy and sell real estate) to do some good.

And just a thought to all the Toronto Realtors out there who are reading this blog: if you want to join with me and do the same with your clients, I think that would be great. With a little momentum, we could start to make a significant difference. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Update 1: 24 Hours after posting this I am happy to announce that 3 other Realtors have joined in the cause. Katy Galica of Re/Max Condos Plus, Kenny Shim of Re/Max Condos Plus, and Mark Savel of Re/Max Realtron.

Update 2: I’ve joined the Toronto Works For Haiti team. Toronto Works for Haiti is a collective of Toronto area small business owners who are offering services in exchange for donations to the relief efforts in Haiti. It’s all about raising money and awareness for Haiti so I am all for pooling resources and joining this group.

I would like to highlight one organization’s efforts in Haiti: Habitat for Humanity.

Habitat’s early response to the earthquake is threefold:

• Cleanup
  To clear the way for home repair and construction, Habitat will assist in the cleanup by mobilizing people to remove debris and salvage materials that can be recycled in new shelter.
• Shelter kits
  Shelter kits include building materials and tools and are designed to help families and neighborhoods make immediate repairs to damaged homes. The kits typically include items such as wall panels, roofing sheets, hurricane straps and a hammer and nails. Habitat also has a cadre of certified masons and carpenters to assist families with immediate repairs.
• Transitional shelter
  Small transitional shelters can be built quickly and provide permanent base structures that can be expanded over time. The shelters will meet humanitarian standards of adequate living space and provision of water and sanitation. The structures will also be designed with hurricane- and earthquake-resistant features

Other organizations who were very active in Haiti before the earthquake and will be there for years to come include:

• World Vision
• Red Cross
• Oxfam
• Doctors without Borders (MSF)

Consider giving to one or more of these organizations if you have not already.

Continue reading...

January Market Update from Re/Max Condos Plus

I am part of one of the best condo brokerages downtown – Re/Max Condos Plus. Our broker of record is Jamie Johnston. Jamie has been in this business a long time and he’s a very sharp cat. Follow him on Twitter and check out our company blog which Jamie writes. Jamie just put out his latest market forecast and as usual he has some pretty strong opinions. Keep reading after the jump for the full report and let me know what you think in the comments section or send me an email.

(more…)

Continue reading...

‘Put Us On Your Radar’ Contest Winner

Congratulations to Ali Karbassi for winning the TrueCondos.com “Put Us On Your Radar” contest.  Ali is a real estate investor and currently works in business development & interactive marketing. Ali generously asked his prize of the $50 Best Buy gift card to be donated to Cancer.ca instead.

If you have not ‘put us on your radar’ yet, please do. This is a brand new web service that is now in Beta and allows my clients, customers, followers, and fans interact with me in a whole new way. Radar now supports Facebook messaging too! If you have already signed up but not yet set-up your account options for receiving ‘pulses’, please login to your account and set up your delivery options.

Stay tuned for more contests in the future and thank you to the hundreds who are subscribing, following, commenting, emailing, and working with TrueCondos.com! If you have ideas for how this service can be improved, please let me know.

Continue reading...

Put TrueCondos.com on Your Radar + Contest!

I am very pleased to announce an exciting new feature on TrueCondos.com. Big Time Radar is a brand new technology that is still in Beta and TrueCondos.com is one of the very first websites on the planet to be using this new service.

The concept behind Big Time Radar is really quite simple: it is a way for you (condo watcher, customer, client, reader, investor,  follower, stalker etc.) to get only the information you want, the way that you want to receive it. It is a 100% user-driven, opt-in communication experience. In short, it is the opposite of SPAM!

Here’s how it works:

1. Create your Radar account
2. Choose the information you want to receive from us in Pulses. You can change these at any time!
3. Choose the discreet delivery methods through which you receive your Pulses. You can change these at any time also. Currently available delivery methods: Email, Twitter, SMS Text Messages, MSN Messenger, and coming soon – Facebook.
4. Sit back and let the information you want come directly to you

You are in control-if you ever want to stop receiving Pulses, just sign into your account and remove yourself from any groups you have signed up for.

The downtown condo market moves fast and so does TrueCondos.com. Sign up and receive great insider information before everyone else:

• Information about special VIP Sales Events
• Insider gossip and news about upcoming projects
• Special offers and promotions available only to TrueCondos.com!
• Investor tips and advice
• Resale condos – Deals, Steals, Best & Worst Buildings
• and much more!

I am excited to get this service up and running and test it out with a group of users. As a special incentive to get my readers and followers to sign up, I will be giving away a $50 Best Buy gift card to one of the first 25 people who sign up for this service (random draw).

So sign up today and put TrueCondos.com on your radar!

Continue reading...

5% Deposit Available at Liberty Market Lofts, Victory Condos, & M5V

This week I’m excited to announce an excellent investment/purchasing opportunity available exclusively for my clients at Liberty Market Lofts, Victory Condos, and M5V.

For a limited time, my clients have the ability to purchase select suites at these three highly successful downtown developments with only 5% total deposit. Normally the deposit structure would be 15% + 5% at occupancy.

The suites that qualify at Victory and Liberty Market Lofts are all the remaining 2 bedroom units. At M5V, the suites that qualify are all remaining units priced over $600K.

This offer is not available to the general public, and this offer is not available to general agents and brokers. This is a one-time perk that my clients can enjoy with these developments because I am a member of the “Platinum Agent” club for Lifetime Developments, BLVD Developments and TAS DesignBuild.

Please contact me asap if you are interested in purchasing a unit at one of these projects. This is a very limited and exclusive offer-don’t delay!

Continue reading...

100 Subscribers Reached!

Thank you to everyone who subscribed to TrueCondos.com and entered the contest to reach 100 subscribers. We actually reached our goal just a couple days after the contest was announced, and now we are all the way up to 109 subscribers as of today!

The winner of the prize of the Ruth’s Chris gift card valued at $88 is Ayaz Lalani of Brampton, Ontario. Ayaz is a seasoned condo investor and has been a subscriber to TrueCondos.com for several months. Congrats to Ayaz.

Thank you to everyone who subscribes, reads, or even just trolls this blog. Stay tuned to TrueCondos.com for more contests in the future. If you have an idea for how I can make TrueCondos.com an even better website for condo buyers, sellers, and investors in Toronto, send me an email any time!

To subscribe to TrueCondos.com, simply enter your email in the ‘Subscribe’ box in the right sidebar of this page, or subscribe to the RSS feed using your favourite feed reader.

Continue reading...

Subscribe to TrueCondos.com and WIN!

Edit: I made a change to the contest rules since first posting this because of an excellent suggestion from a long-time subscriber.

Announcing the first ever contest on TrueCondos.com!

I’ve been overwhelmed by the response this website/blog has generated over the past 2+ years I’ve been running it. I’ve met so many great people through this site, and many of them have told me that TrueCondos.com is possibly the best site on the net for Downtown Toronto Condos.

I’ve had the option for my readers to subscribe to this blog by email for a while now (see sidebar to the right ->), and my subscriber list is approaching a milestone – 100 RSS subscribers (currently we are at 91). That’s pretty awesome and I’m happy that so many people care enough about what I have to say to actually voluntarily subscribe to this blog.

I wanted to do something special and fun to celebrate #100, so as soon as the 100th person has subscribed to the TrueCondos.com RSS feed, I will do a random draw of the 100 subscribers, and the winner will receive a gift card to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse valued at $88 CDN.

To enter, all you need to do is enter your email into the subscribe box in the right sidebar, then verify your email address after you receive a verification email. That’s it! No catch, nothing to sign, nothing to commit to, just subscribe and thank you for continuing to support this website. If you are already a subscriber you have already been entered automatically!

I will announce the winner whenever we reach 100. Might take a week, might take a month. Who knows.

Couple rules: Subscribers must be NEW subscribers (no doubling up on the email addresses), and subscribers can’t be my immediate family and friends (sorry mom). And what the heck, just to cover my butt I’ll say I reserve the right to change the contest rules at any time

Continue reading...

Tweet! Tweet! Follow Me on Twitter

Twitter has quickly become the latest and greatest trend in social networking and blogging. If you already know what Twitter is, and you are a regular reader of this blog, chances are you are already following my ‘tweets’ at Twitter.com/AndrewLaFleur. If you don’t know what Twitter is, here is a popular video that attempts to explain the basic principle behind it.

So why should you follow me on Twitter?

• Get to know me better. If you are considering working with me in the near future, it’s a great way to see what makes me tick and what I’m up to.
• Get inside the Toronto Condo Market. Twitter is the place where I put many thoughts and observations and photos related to the Toronto condo market. Some of these turn into full out blog posts, and some will just remain as ‘tweets’.
• Be the first to know. Often I hear about breaking news or developments related to the Toronto Condo market. The first place it goes? My Twitter feed!

You don’t have to be a Twitter member to follow me, you can just go to Twitter.com/AndrewLaFleur. But to get the most out of your Twitter experience, I recommend starting your own account and when you do, drop me a line to say hi!

Continue reading...