About Grey County, ON

With spring fast approaching, we're getting more enquiries again from people who are looking for vacant land on which to build their new home now or at some point down the road. After 19 years in this business, I've seen both winners and the losers in the building game. There are those who built something that subsequently had a higher resale value within a few years and, there are those who have far more into their dream home than they'll get out for a very long time. The difference between winning or losing at the building game is made up of a number of different factors:

· location

· the property

· the design

· the quality of construction

· the quality of the finishes

You'll notice, I didn't say, the price. The cost is derived from all of these other factors and an expensive but well designed and built home in the right location with suitable finishes will produce a better return than a moderately priced and poorly build home in a terrible location.

Here are some questions would-be-home-builders should ask themselves and in later posts, we'll talk about site preparation costs and then, construction costs.

In my experience, many people think they can buy a lot and then build their dream home at a reduced price or, that they can put up a pre-fabricated home within an unrealistically low budget. "My uncle is an electrician and my brother is a carpenter so we have contacts in the family." How many times I've heard that! Before you make a decision to build, let's consider a few things:

· Did you know that the most expensive part of building a house is in the materials and not in the labour?

· Did you know that, according to a study done by Mattamy Homes (Canada's largest home builder), there are 91 steps involved after the site work is completed? It starts with staking out the site and ends with paving the driveway. Do you have 91 friends, relatives or skill sets that will allow you to actually save money?

· Tradespeople are really, really busy. Wait, good tradespeople are really, really busy up here and some are already booked out for the year. If you want a good excavator, plumber, electrician, carpenter and such, you need to be patient and, you need to be prepared that you'll pay for the quality. You also best have very good project management skills and be able to co-ordinate the trades. If one doesn't show up and the others therefore get held up, can you jump in and drive the backhoe or, will you pay the extra fees in having the trades come back another day?

If you are still satisfied and comfortable at this point, then it's time to consider the costs of the land and site preparation. Watch for a post on this next week.

Would you like to have instant access to MLS® listings of properties for sale in the Collingwood - Blue Mountain areas?

Chances are that many of the people reading this will answer yes. Statistics show that most people who visit a real estate blog or website for the first time are mainly interested in one thing: information on area listings. If you are one of those people, then I have some good news for you.

You can easily surf around MLS® listings on your own by visiting Canada's MLS® listing web portal at www.mls.ca or by visiting my website portal to area listings. It's useful but really, the information is a bit limited and it can be somewhat tedious to wade through everything just to see what is new.

There is a better option. You can now have your very own private website where you can view, save and manage details of property listings that that match your chosen criteria. I just love this and think you will too. It's a new feature of our MLS® software and all you need to do is register with a few details so I can set it up for you. After that, you manage the site yourself. You'll get up to the minute and instant access to listing details including the property address, photos, price, size, taxes and more for each listing that generally matches the criteria you choose. You can unsubscribe from the program at any time.

It's free, it's easy and there are no catches. I promise. Give it a try!

Back in mid-December, I posted a "Virtual Design Contest" which is now closed. I'm delighted to report that five fabulous entries were received and they came from as close as Collingwood (my locale) and from as far away as San Diego, California and Cabarete in the Dominican Republic.

None of these five brave souls are home designers but each one has proven they have an eye for curb appeal. They have generously taken the time to contemplate and then apply their creativity to the picture, all of which takes time and a good dose of courage. So, to each of you, thank-you and please know that in my books, each one of you is a winner!

So now it is up to you to decide which entry you think deserves to win.

This contest was also posted on my home blog and as I am not a wizard at these things, I can't link that voting poll to this site so, please go to my home blog at www.blog.collingwood-bluemountain.com to vote and see instant results.

Thanks to everyone who participated and this and a special mention to our Active Rainers who participated: Emily Johnston from San Diego, California and, Kathy Clulow (well, okay, her hubby Barrie if we get technical) from Uxbridge, Ontario.

UPDATE: And the winner is...

Thank-you to all who played with me on this. It was great fun.

When it's time to buy or sell real estate in the Collingwood, Blue Mountain or Georgian Triangle area, contact Marg; an experienced and competent Broker who's ready when you are!

I just couldn't resist taking a snap of this well-dressed "girl" guarding a car parked next to mine. I didn't see any ski's on the roof racks but, there was this tiny litle board...