About Hamilton, ON

Laziness prompted me to read a bit about cleaning up fall leaves (and my neighbour who seems to spend all his free time crouching in the hedges) and this is what I came up with;

You can

1-rake and bag- The bags cost too much, the collections service has limited day pick up, and the lawn just looks –umm--- bereft , unnatural.

2-blow into your neighbor’s yard when they're not home. I would certainly never ever do this, but if your neighbor has a lot of time on their hands maybe you’re doing them a favor by supplying hours of recreation.

For this method, you do need to know their schedule and when they’re not home, and monitor meteorological/wind conditions so if they suspect anything, you can blame it on the wind.

3-mulch- use the mulcher on your lawn mower or just mow over leaves repeatedly. Best done when leaves are dry. The little particles will bring a lot of nutrients to your lawn and garden. Make sure the layer is sparse/modest.

Leave on lawn, the worms will take care of the rest. Too much will kill lawn, so make sure it’s not thicker than one inch. With leftover leaves make a pile in one spot, mow over several times and sprinkle around hedges and trees. Don’t use to bury roots.

4-compost The Greeks, Romans, Arabs composted.

From Hamlet comes the line "spread the compost on the weeds, to make them ranker!"

Cheap, environmentally conscious .Requires some thought, building a receptacle and turning over and stuff and is just too much for me.

5.make your own mulching machine. I’ve actually tried this and it works. Use your weed whacker, with a good blade. Load up garbage can with leaves, immerse weed eater, then you have to cover with something, like a garbage bag attached to weed whacker like a skirt and whack away.

From what I read, the mulch will do miracles for your soil and your flowers won’t grow eleven feet in one week like they do with chemical sprayers and it’s perfect for your veggie garden.

There was a time when the most stressful clauses in an offer for a Seller were the ones associated with the Buyer obtaining financing or the Buyer selling their home, but over the last decade, this has changed.

Obtaining a Home Inspection has become the industry norm, and it's been standard for the Buyer to make an offer conditional for a period of time to obtain his/her own inspection report.

"Clause 13" in the Ontario Real Estate Association Standard Agreement of Purchase and Sale addresses requesting a home inspection:

"INSPECTION: Buyer acknowledges having the opportunity to inspect the property and understands that upon acceptance of this Offer there shall be a binding agreement of purchase and sale between the Buyer and Seller. The Buyer acknowledges having the opportunity to include a requirement for a property inspection report in this Agreement and agrees that except as may be specifically provided for in the Agreement, the Buyer will not be obtaining a property inspection or property inspection report regarding the property."

Once the Buyer reviews the report with the Home Inspector, he/she assesses the deficiencies and or repair items for the subject property and then makes an informed decision whether or not they want to continue with the purchase. There is no doubt that these reports have been extremely valuable in helping Buyers make informed decisions along with protecting the Seller from litigation after the transaction closes, often from issues that they didn't even know existed!

Benefits of Having Your Home Pre-Inspected Before Listing

• Facilitate a faster sale for more money.
• Eliminate last minute fall throughs or 11th hour re-negotiations.
• Be aware of existing issues, giving you the chance to address them now with competitive pricing.
• Protect yourself from over-inflated buyer procured estimates.
• Get advise on the final report if there are items you wish to repair.
• Reduce your liability with full disclosure
• Provides purchasers the comfort of an unbiased 3rd party opinion.
• You can assist the inspector during the inspection, unlike the purchaser's inspection.
• The Home Inspector will be able to provide the Buyer with a review or actual secondary inspection to review repairs and deficiencies.

Benefits to Buying a Pre-Inspected Home

• Saves a lot of time- upon reviewing a current Home Inspection report, you'll be able to see what the deficiencies are in advance of putting in an offer!

• Allows you to focus on the deficiencies in a rational fashion and gives you time to get quotes and professional advise during your conditional period.

• Allows you the ability to make a much more informed decision.

It doesn't matter if you're a Buyer or a Seller, the need for disclosure and discovery is paramount! The most successful and stress free property sales involve a Seller who knows exactly what he/she is selling and a Buyer who know's exactly what they are buying!

The Home Inspection Industry is far from perfect and there was a time when everyone and their brother were hanging up "Home Inspection" signs, but that has gradually changed. Real Estate Professionals and Consumers alike are looking for Inspectors who are both insured and knowledgable. The demand is on for Home Inspectors that tell it as it is and don't feel pressure to candy coat anything. A good Home Inspector will not over exaggerate minor deficiencies or to be biased against certain area's of a City or type of house. At the end of the day, it's the Home Inspection Report that a Buyer may be very well depending on when making the decision of buying a home.

Corktown is one of my favourite Hamilton neighbourhoods.
The demographics are 60% under 50, so it's a youthful area, not sure if "hip" is a hip term any more, but yeah, hipsters like the Corktown.


House prices are still reasonable; the area is kind of framed by a few condo projects, so it is not over condominium-ized and you can still find a nice home for +- two hundred thousand.

The supply is generally slim, as people like to stick around, they like to walk to their jobs, the GO station if commuting to Toronto on the corner of James and Hunter, to bars and restaurants, shopping and downtown.

The area offers a lot of entertainment, from Augusta Street bars; The Pheasant Plucker,
Augusta House, Gallagher's, Winking Judge etc., to live music venues on John and King Street to restaurants for every taste and palate, from German, Italian, Thai, Chinese, whatever you like, the Corktown has got it.

Corktown is a neighbourhood southeast of downtown Hamilton, bounded by James, Main, Wellington and the base of the Niagara Escarpment.

Many of Hamilton's early Irish settlers lived here and worked on the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway that passes through the neighbourhood.

The letters "TH&BRY"can still be seen on the railroad overpasses and the fomer terminal now serves as the Hamilton GO Centre.

The neighbourhood also features the St. Joseph's Hospital campus, a commercial area
on John St. and a pub district on Augusta St.

Enjoy the pics, they were taken by a Hamilton admirer and posted online, I thought they were beautiful and spent an entire Sunday looking at Hamilton from a new perspective.

Some information and all photos used from skyscraper.com posted by “Flar”

A couple of weeks ago I attended one of those "Feel Good" Conferences. It was a whirl wind weekend, chock full of speakers and workshops, but one particular speaker stood out to myself and my 3 "Realtor" colleagues. In what seemed to be a sea of people, probably numbering close to 500, the whole workshop seemed to be customized and focused on the 4 of us, sitting like peas in a pod, 30 rows back. At one point, it seemed like there was a spot light shining down on us.

The topic was "Busy-ness". It's an epidemic. Everyone is busy and everyone is busier than the next person. When your friend or colleague says they're busy...your Ego automatically goes into "Self Defense" mode and proclaims how busy you are and usually that's busier than the everyone else! People are actually killing themselves being busy....trying to be busy, and before they know it, they are in fact dead!

I really connected with the message this speaker was conveying. It was only 10 years ago, with 18 years of Real Estate under my belt, that I was actually considering jumping ship but I always found myself going back to the fact that I chose this career path for many reasons. I wasn't born into it, it wasn't the only thing I could do, I had a good education and many interests..Real Estate was a career choice that I quit a good paying and secure job to pursue.

When did I fall "out of love" with the business? When I got too busy to love it anymore. The change came gradually when I married another Realtor who was part of a Real Estate family. All of a sudden, everything became Real Estate. Family dinners, family telephone conversations and husband and wife conversations. Friends over...let's talk Real Estate! My Father-in Laws theory was that everything you did had to have some form of Real Estate payback...so that's why you never stopped talking about how busy you were in Real Estate. When you're busy with nothing but business, you stand the chance of overdosing on stress and growing very sick of being a slave to your business, if not down right resenting it! You add onto that the "busy" nature of child rearing and running a household and you have a recipe for unhappiness.

So, the lesson I've learned over the last 7 years of not being "married" to "busy-ness". Life is a much more rewarding place to live. My days are no longer jam packed with business related things. Now, when I work...I work, and I love every minute of it, resulting in an above average income. I cast aside the notion of going to the office everyday and simply keep my Blackberry by my side...while I fly airplanes, enjoy conversations and activity with my kids, take long time-wasting walks, sit and read books or casually clean my house...and sometimes I sit and actually do nothing. All of this allows me to tackle my career with a smile and enthusiasm. I've discovered that there is no law that says I have to be busy 100% of the time!

That brings me back to the speaker at the conference. My colleagues know that when they call me, there's a good possibility that I'm doing absolutely nothing and I'm not ashamed of saying it. They're actually so use to me doing "nothing" that they're surprised when I can't take their call because I'm taking a listing or showing houses! I've been after them for a while now to revitalize their love affair with the business by doing my "do nothing" therapy...and I think this speaker may have hit the ball home.

Real Estate Sales is the greatest job in the world...some people call it a lifestyle, however, I think it's simply a career that can be easily managed around your life. Stop painting your life with the "Busy, busy, busy brush" and start using the "living and loving brush". You'll love it!