Blog.ByTheOwner.com

ByTheOwner.com reached a new milestone today: 1,500 homes for sale in Ontario!!! A large volume of homes for sale is very important to a For Sale By Owner company because the greater the selection of homes for sale, the greater the number of buyers visit the website.

LOTS OF HOMES FOR SALE = LOTS OF BUYERS = LOTS OF SOLD HOMES

ByTheOwner.com is Canada’s Largest For Sale By Owner website with more than 6,500 homes for sale and more than 20,000 homes SOLD.

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As of June 23rd “FINTRAC” Financial Transaction and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, the government agency responsible for enforcing money laundering and suspicious financial transactions has new regulations which will effect all real estate transactions. For now, there are no regulations for private sales unless an agent is bringing buyers to you and in which case the agent is responsible for following this regulation to record and keep the necessary information on file.

Here is a link to more information: CTV News Story

I think having the buyers and sellers show proper id is a step in the right direction. This rule does not affect private sales yet, however it is assumed that these rules will also soon be applicable to real estate lawyers and mortgage professionals. When that happens, ID will be required for all sales, and not just for real estate agent sales.

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ByTheOwner.com just reached 3,200 homes sold so far in 2008!!! With June not even completed yet, we are on pace to sell more than 6,500 homes this year. This would be an increase of 21% over 2007’s sales. This means that ByTheOwner.com’s sales are increasing while mls sales are decreasing!!! CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association) is forecasting an 11.5% decline to 460,900 homes sold by agents in 2008.

An 11% decline in Agent sales and a 20% increase in ByTheOwner.com sales means that in 2008, ByTheOwner.com is on pace to sell 1.4% of all the homes in Canada! Combined with our partner sites (Saskhouses.com and okhomeseller.com), we would account for approximately 2% of all the home sales in Canada (Up from 1% in 2007).

We are looking forward to the day when 100% of the homes in Canada are sold ByTheOwner!!

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ByTheOwner.com is approaching 1,000 testimonials for our English website. So far in June, we have more than 50 testimonials. The satisfied comments from our customers is a great inspiration to us and all our home sellers. Here are a few recent testimonials…

The process was very easy. We have found the By the Owner site to be very user friendly and would consider using it again. Both parties saved money and it was stress free. Jeff was very helpful and took great pictures. Good luck to all the rest and happy selling!
Jennifer Steller
London
2008-06-18

ByTheOwner.com worked marvelously, we had our house valued at $230,000 by a realtor and sold it to someone at a reasonable price, making the same amount we would have made if we had a realtor!! We like that we could give someone the opportunity to buy a house that might have otherwise been out of our pricerange, and it took less than a week!!!
Julie Hare
Kitchener-Waterloo
2008-06-17

Thanks ByTheOwner.com & John Babic for the great photos.We Sold 2 days after John our Rep placed the signs up! We intentionally listed a high price for our area & we are ecstatic we received $375k! I have called my brother in another province to list with Bytheowner.com & give it a shot.The price for this service is very reasonable.I would recommend this website to all.
Thomas/Slyvia Tims
Parry Sound
2008-06-16

ByTheOwner.com gave us the tools & exposure we needed to do the job.You control who and when the buyer’s view your home.Plus saving over $35,000 on commissions really says it all!
Jim/Janice McKnight
Orillia
2008-06-16

We sold our home in less than a week.This is our second time using ByTheOwner.com and we always have a good experience. Our agent, Tarlochan was very helpful and efficient. We will definitely use the service again in the future.
Raymond Bucoy
Mississauga
2008-06-15

ByTheOwner.com turned out to be a great experience all around. To my surprise it was very easy and obviously effective. I would deffinatley use this sevice again in the future when selling a property.
Erin Collins
Kitchener-Waterloo
2008-06-13

To see all our testimonials please click here…HAPPY SELLING…

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An article in the Toronto Star this weekend provides some statistics to indicate that the “Canada’s housing boom is over”. Sales in May were down 16.9% from last year and the overall price increase across Canada is only 1.1 percent (which is below the inflation rate). An appropriate quote from economist Gregory Klump states:

“Increasingly cautious homebuyers may keep listings on the market longer before being sold, which increases the importance of realistic pricing”.

To real the entire article please click here: Toronto Star: “Canada’s housing boom is over”

ByTheOwner.com has not seen a decline in our sold properties. In fact, for the first 5 months of the year, sold properties have increased 30% over 2007 (from 2180 sales in 2007, compared to 2827).

Selling privately allows the seller to adjust their price so that they can remain competitve plus keep more from the sale of their home when they sell. For example, if 2 exact homes are asking $300,000 and one is being sold with an agent and one is being sold ByTheOwner, then the private seller is able to offer their home for $295,000 and still keep $10,000 more from the sale of their home. On the other hand if the home being sold with the agent drops their price to $295,000 this results in the owner only taking home approximately $280,000 (assuming a 5% commission plus GST).

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ByTheOwner.com’s website statistics for the month of May 2008:

Website visitors increased from 640,480 visits in May 2007, to 937,305 in May 2008. This is a 46% increase in website visits from May 2007 to May 2008.

Pageviews increased from 5.4 million page views in May 2007, to 7.9 million pageviews in May 2008. This is 43% increase in pageviews from May 2007 to 2008.

Unique visitors increased from 344,287 unique visitors in May 2007, to 494,039 unique visitors in May 2008. This is 43% increase in unique visitors from May 2007 to 2008.

Unique visitors and pageviews are the two most useful statistics when it comes to measuring the exposure you will receive from a For Sale By Owner website. Unique visitors is the number of individual people coming to look for properties on the site. Pageviews is the number of pages that those visitors look at.

Some websites claim to have a certain number of “hits”. This is not a valid measure of website activity, because a “hit” can be counted a number of different ways. For example, if a page has 30 images on it, and one person goes to that page, it could be counted as 30 “hits”. This would be like saying ByTheOwner.com received more than 200 million “hits” in a week. ByTheOwner.com does not quote how many “hits” we receive because it is not a valid stat. Unique visitors and pageviews are the only real measure of website activity.

Stats provided by Google Analytics

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According to a recent Toronto Star article, real estate agent sales dropped 16% in May. This is the 5th month in a row that existing home sales have dropped in the Greater Toronto Area. To add to this news, new listings increased 15% in May. New listings, plus a drop in sales, signifies a change in the real estate market from a seller’s market, to a buyer’s market.

In market conditions like this, it is very important to have a fair price and to make sure your home in great condition. Buyers have more choice and more options in terms of the numbers of homes to choose from and different price points to choose from.

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ByTheOwner.com is proud to announce that, for the second year in a row, we have been ranked as one of Canada’s Fastest Growing Canadian Companies! In this year’s edition, we ranked at #111 on Canadian Business Magazine’s Top Fastest Growing Companies!

Canadian Business is Canada’s top magazine for news, opinion and community information for business leaders, entrepreneurs and investors. Each year they release a list of the fastest growing Canadian companies over the past 5 years. This is ByTheOwner.com’s second time on the list and it is an honor for us to be ranked among other great Canadian companies such as Research in Motion, Garda World Security, etc..

The top 100 list is ranked by calculating a company’s revenues in 2002 and in 2007 and then comparing the rate of growth. ByTheOwner.com’s employees grew from 10 employees in 2001 to 85 employees in 2006.

It is important to note that this list calculates growth in terms of revenues and not profits. Since we started operations in 1997, ByTheOwner.com has invested all profits back into our business in order to expand our service, and increase the visibility and functionality of our website. During the 5 years, from 2002 to 2007, ByTheOwner.com helped more than 15,600 owners sell privately, resulting in more than $150,000,000 dollars saved in real estate commissions!

A big “Thank-you” to all our customers over the past 5 years. We look forward to helping many more owners sell privately and save!

More info about ByTheOwner.com in the Canada’s Top 100, can be read at Yahoo Finance (Click Here)

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How much does using an agent cost?

Real Estate agents charge anywhere from 4-7% commission, plus GST. That can amount to a lot of money. But wait…the news gets worse…

There is no tax to pay on the increase in value of your primary residence when you sell. For example, if you buy your home for $300,000 and sell it for $400,000, then you do not have to pay tax on the $100,000 increase. Great News!!!

But here is the bad news….

If you use an agent, not only do you pay commissions, but you also lose that tax free money!

For example, if you sold that home for $400,000 and used an agent at 5%, you would need to pay $20,000 in commissions, plus GST, for a total cost of $21,000. So you only get to keep $379,000 from the sale of your home. But that $21,000 was tax free money. So how much is that tax free money worth? How much do you have to work to make $21,000 in tax-free money?

The federal tax rates for 2008 are:
15% on the first $37,885
22% on the next $37,884
26% on the next $47,415
29% of taxable income over $123,184

So lets be nice and assume only a 15% tax rate. So this means that you need to work hard and make $25,000 in order to keep $21,000. So now using an agent just cost you $25,000!!!

At a 22% tax rate, using an agent would have cost you $27,000.
At a 26% tax rate, using an agent would have cost you $28,300.
At a 29% tax rate, using an agent would have cost you $29,500.

For sure it’s anyone’s decision to buy or sell their home privately or with an agent, but it’s good to know all the costs involved.

ByTheOwner.com