Fat off the Land: a Blog About Calgary Real Estate, Parenting, and Food

Most Calgary Foreclosure listings ask that you leave your offer open for 48-72 hours in order to give enough time for them to respond. This can be a bit nerve racking for buyers holding their good faith cheque in hand, and packing boxes getting ready to move.

So why does it take so long for the bank to consider our offer and respond? There’s a few reasons, and none of them are because there’s just a bunch of monkeys sitting behind typewriters at the branch. (Trust me, I asked).

Unlike a private sale, there is more than one person to consult with for every offer. Sometimes the offers are going to the bank itself, and other times they are going into a law office that makes decisions for the bank and handles all of their sales. Then other times,…

Last night Clint and I did a Calgary new home buyers seminar. It was actually super-fun. Clint made a new presentation using a tool that is like Powerpoint, but way better. I don’t usually get nervous in front of people, but I found myself sweating last night. I don’t know why. There were probably about 15 people there, and I had to just keep telling myself, “What is the worst that can happen?” Do you ever find that when you get anxious, going straight to what the worst case scenario is, usually calms you down? Because 9 times out of 10 it’s not as bad as what you think.

So the worst case scenario that I could imagine would be if I got up there, started talking, and then just passed out and hit the deck. That would probably be the worst, and…

Lately I’ve been dealing a lot with first time home buyers looking for Calgary Real Estate. Often times, it’s a “learn as you go” situation for them, which can leave people feeling anxious. I always do my best to walk slowly with first-timers, but wouldn’t it be great if those who have never bought or sold real estate in Calgary could just come to a free seminar where they could learn all about buying a home for the first time? Why yes, yes it would. Which is why Kathy Fleshman, with RBC, has teamed up with Clint and me to host a seminar which will answer all of your questions on the ups, downs, ins, and outs of buying a home in Calgary.

Whether you’re looking for a condo, townhouse, single family home, or luxury property, come on down and…

I love doing hair. I love, love, love it. So my daughter has had to carry the unfortunate burden of my little hobby. People see Faith’s hair and they ask, “How do you get her to sit still for that?” For a long time, she didn’t mind me yanking and pulling her hair into a gorgeous style fit for the red carpet; she just sat still with no further intervention. But just recently, when the tangles have gotten to be too much, she starts crying and begging me to just leave it in knots. In order to be able to continue with my hobby, and include her in what has become some very special bonding time, I’ve had to come up with two solutions to keep her not only still, but happy, as we do her hair.

So for all the ladies who have asked, here is how I keep…

Sometimes foreclosures are smoking hot deals and sometimes…well…they’re not. Before you buy a foreclosure in Calgary, you should consider some of the hidden costs associated with a foreclosure. Because all you get with most foreclosures in Calgary is title to the property, you miss out on a lot of chattels. ( See my blog on foreclosure chattels here. ) Even if you’re getting one heck of a steal, there are certainly some extra costs to be aware of.

RPR (Real Property Report) $500-$800+?

This report is transferred as a part of any regular sale, unless it is intentionally scratched out of the regular AREA (Alberta Real Estate Association) Offer to Purchase. The cost for the document itself is usually $500-$800, however, you need a stamp of…

Those who know me, know that I am very, very political. I just love politics. It used to be just American politics (because they’re just like a never-ending soap opera) but in the last two years I’ve starting to glom on to Canadian politics as well.

I love politics because I believe in an ideology---a way of life---and I like to see which officials will best represent the views that I hold myself. When it comes to who I’m going to vote for, I don’t look for promises, plans, or guarantees. No politician can guarantee the political climate, the funds in the treasury, or the type of representatives they’ll deal with in the legislature or parliament. They can promise all they want, but seeing ideas become laws or policies is a whole different…

Back in January I started a series on McKenzie Towne. Then I went and had a baby. Then that baby decided to have a little 2 week stay at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. Then I got home, and I was tired. Then once I recovered, I didn’t really feel like blogging about McKenzie Towne; I felt like blogging about other stuff. Then tonight, my darling newborn is refusing to eat and prefers instead to fuss and fitfully sleep. This is not allowing me a lot of sleep so I’ve decided to make use of the quiet in the house and sit here in front of my ancient laptop to finish my series on McKenzie Towne!

So *knuckle crack* let’s talk about one of my fave places to represent people buying and selling Calgary real estate: McKenzie Towne! In the last blog, I…

Clint and I take a lot of pride in our website! We’ve worked very hard to make sure our site is very simple to use to find the Calgary Real Estate that you’re looking for! We noticed a long time ago that buyers were looking first to the internet when thinking about buying a home, and next to an agent. We’ve designed our website with capabilities to search for very specific things which you cannot search for on the MLS.ca.

In addition, you can build your own specific search on our site, save it, and then come back to it and access the property matches you’ve found from anywhere, using the control panel on the right hand side of the screen. As you sort through listings, you can click “bookmark” and save favourites in your control panel which…

So, today I told Faith to clean her room. It had gotten to a point where I couldn’t even walk through the mess anymore. I set a timer and told her she had 20 minutes to finish it. Just before the timer rang, she walks downstairs, proud as punch, and happily announces that her room is clean. When I walk upstairs to check, I note that the floor is completely clear, the bed is made, and everything is off her dresser…and that is because she spent her 20 minutes gathering it all up and tossing it into the hallway. So as I type there is a mound of toys, laundry and bottles in my upstairs hallway.

 I sit down with her on her bed, and I say, “Faith, did you do your very best to clean your room?”

“Yup!” she says while rocking from heel to toe,…

This is always one of the difficult topics to encounter when writing an offer on a Calgary Foreclosure. Before we talk about how the majority of Calgary Bank Foreclosures deal with chattels, let’s define “chattels” so we’re all on the same page. Dictionary.com defines a chattel as: “any article of tangible property other than land, buildings, and other things annexed to land.”  In terms which are more accessible to the public, chattels are things like the fridge, stove, dishwasher etc.  Anything not attached to the property.

Most (not all) bank foreclosures in Calgary do not guarantee any chattels, which means that when you get to the point where you write in the chattels on the AREA (Alberta Real Estate Association) contract, you have to…