Don Murphy is your Prince County Realtor

Real Estate TV is here! With it comes a plethora of shows designed to help the real estate buyer and especially the first time real estate buyer to navigate the obstacles of entering the world of home ownership.

The process of making the single biggest purchase of your life can be daunting one. Certainly even a PEI real estate purchase still requires that you go through the same steps as if you were buying a more expensive property in Toronto. The first step Don recommmends is securing a pre-approved mortgage. This means that your bank or financial institution has looked at your finances and determined just how much PEI real estate you can afford. This will create a budget for your PEI real estate search and will ensure that you don’t waste time or fall in love with a PEI real estate listing that you can not afford and it also gives weight to your offer when you find the PEI property that you want to offer on.

Determining property features and finding PEI Real Estate that meets your requirements.

With your finances in order Don will have you make two lists, those features of your new PEI home that are “must haves” and a second list of “would be nice” features. With these in hand Don will search for PEI real estate listings through the MLS system that meet your needs. He will create a short-list of those PEI home and properties that you should visit. You should also check through the internet to establish some knowledge of what is available on the PEI real estate market.

You will begin to visit PEI home on the list and Don suggests that after you see 3 PEI real estate listings that you eliminate at least one. In this way as you see more PEI homes you short-list by removing one from your list. Ulltimately you will have the best two PEI properties on your list and then it is a matter of choosing between them.

You’ve found the PEI Real Estate listing that ticks all the boxes!

Now the hard work begins to secure the purchase of the PEI real estate listing that you have chosen and to get it at the right price. Don suggests avoiding emotional connection with the property as much as possible because should the vendors not negotiate a price you can accept it will be easier to walk away. Generally a fair market offer on any PEI real estate listing is based on comparables, similar PEI real estate that has sold in the area. Don will write your offer and it will be presented to the sellers. They may accept it, reject it, or counter-offer. It is common in negotiating on PEI real estate (as indeed in any real estate market) that there will be a counter-offer. Once again you are free then to accept, reject or counter. So it goes until either a deal is reached or the attempt is abandoned.

Once a deal is reached the rest of the process is carried out by your lawyer. You will need a lawyer with PEI real estate experience working for you. They will perform what is called conveyancing. They will search title, determine the pro-rated portions of oil, taxes etc that you will owe the vendor, as well as preparing the final documents etc. You sign and pick up the keys!>

There is a strong rental market on PEI. Many islanders rent their homes and if well treated as tenants they tend to stay for long tenancies. When investing in PEI real estate for rental purposes you should keep in mind the budgets that most renters will be working within. Basically make sure you are buying PEI real estate property that will be priced to allow for less expensive rentals. It is not that the there are not people who will rent larger more expensive PEI homes but they are harder to find. You should purchase PEI real estate in the range of $50,000-100,000 when you are considering becoming a landlord. As you can see from the previous table of home prices even in the lower end of the national real estate values it is possible to extract sufficient equity to make a PEI real estate purchase in this price range after you have bought the PEI home that you will live in.

If the average PEI home purchased for rental and as an investment in PEI real estate were to rent from $500 plus utilities to $800 including utilities then you would be at approx $300 to $400 per month added to your income. In addition you are building equity in the final sale of your PEI real estate holdings. You might consider it possible to add $5 per thousand dollars of investment equity to your retirement income by this means. Before embarking on such a program you should contact a licensed PEI real estate agent such as Don Murphy and Century21 for more information as this is just a basic outline of what the PEI real estate market and an investment in PEI real estate may be able to do for you.

The PEI real estate market tends to be split into 2 categories. There is the local market, which consists of permanent residents looking for family homes and then there is the recreational market, consisting in large measure of summer visitors looking to combine vacation and real estate investment. There are however several other categories of PEI real estate purchaser. There is the retiree coming to PEI for the lower PEI real estate prices and the PEI real estate investor who purchases starter homes to rent to fellow islanders. There is also room to combine these ideas into one and move to Prince Edward Island when you retire using the equity in your current home to fund a PEI real estate purchase that is a mix of personal PEI home and investment rentals.

Should you decide to follow this route and you own a home in an area of higher real estate prices such as Toronto or Vancouver where the average prices can be around $400,000 and up, you would be looking for a primary PEI home in the $200,000 range plus the purchase of 3-4 rental homes which would account for the rest of your equity. In this way you have split up your PEI real estate investment into half for personal use and the other half to bring in an income which could be in the range of $2000+ per month. As you can see a PEI real estate investment such as this would provide a place to live and an additional income.

PEI also known as the “Gentle Island” is home to a well developed tourist industry and our population increases to over a million in summer from 140,000 year round residents. Residents and visitors alike purchase cottages and summer homes in the country and the PEI real estate market has a good inventory of suitable recreational properties for personal use as well as rental. Some PEI realtors as well as specialty companies offer property management services to look after your PEI real estate investment both in season, caring for the needs of your guests as well as maintaining your PEI property during the winter. Some will also help to market your PEI recreational property and find guests to rent to.

As alluded to earlier PEI real estate affords some of the best value in Canada and the US. When compared with similar property elsewhere PEI real estate, particularly waterfront real estate is a great bargain. PEI real estate waterfront properties are a prime investment opportunity and is the sector in our PEI real estate market that over the last 5 years has posted the greatest gains. Waterfront property is comparatively plentiful here as well as being available oceanfront, on riverways, and situated on bays and inlets. As such PEI waterfront real estate has a variety of characters.