# Where do you get your real estate info?



## passivedividends (Dec 16, 2014)

Curious to see where the majority of the folks here keep tabs on the real estate market. A couple of mine that I frequent:

http://renx.ca/
CMHC website stats
Globe, etc

Are there any e-Newsletters or blogs paid/free that you subscribe to that provides market updates, tips or interviews from seasoned investors?

Bio:
I own a couple of condos in downtown Toronto - looking to divest and purchase some multi-res or commercial to scale up my time/effort.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

I have been investing in real estate since the seventies and have yet to see a newsletter or blog that was worth anything. There was one real estate forum I used to frequent, that had some good information provided by real estate investors. 

The trouble is real estate is so local, anything but your local paper and RE listings, is practically worthless. Prices in Toronto or Vancouver mean nothing once you get 50 or 100 miles away. Your provincial legislature may come out with new laws and regulations but you will no doubt see it in your local news.

I have gotten some encouragement and useful tips from books and courses but frankly they are mostly baloney, and worthless. The typical RE guru sets up in business after a year and a half or 2 years in the business.

Spend your time studying your local real estate laws, and your local sale and rental ads and get familiar with your local market or wherever you are investing.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

I tend to agree with Rusty. There aren't really any good resources out there and what is there is either twisted by bias or out of date in a lot of cases.

Personally, I don't really watch the market's per se, I look more at the macro picture...for example, the economy in Alberta is a lot different today than it was a year ago. I don't really care what the realtors tell you about that province (they are saying prices are stable) but I can tell it's going to go down unless oil recovers quickly (very unlikely).

Real estate has definite trends and cycles, they usually trail the indicators (so, if the economy goes down, real estate follows, but later than say job losses, when the economy goes up, real estate goes up later). 

There is a website/blog (www.easysafemoney.com) that I read, he hasn't been very active lately and it's probably too basic for you, but he's got some good information. 

There is, of course, also this forum.


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## passivedividends (Dec 16, 2014)

True - real estate is local and news do get dated pretty quickly. Although I would find it interesting to read successful investor stories and keep tabs with transportation developments, like new transit hubs etc


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Success stories I take with a grain of salt. Most people who tell success stories are generally trying to sell you their programs to help you achieve similar results. Of course, they also tend to make more money off their programs than they do from their real estate, so I really wonder about their real estate success...

As for transportation developments, that's generally covered by local news, most of which have on-line versions these days, just find the websites for the towns of interest. 

Since real estate has been rather close to the peak for the past few years, and has started to turn maybe, it hasn't been very popular in the investment discussions. Many people prefer to bash real estate as a loss. 

You'll notice that, after 2007 when the USA had their market crash, all the "house flip" shows went off the air or changed to "home renovation" shows instead. I've noticed that they seem to be starting to creep back in, so that must mean the USA is starting to recover a bit now and flipping is again becoming viable.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

I look on mls and what properties sell for in the area I am interested in. For instance I am probably going to purchase a property in next 7-9 months so i have started tracking the turn over and prices in that area for a while now.It will be for my daughter to live in and likely will be leveraged to the eyeballs lol


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## Ottawa Realtor (Aug 16, 2015)

passivedividends said:


> Curious to see where the majority of the folks here keep tabs on the real estate market. A couple of mine that I frequent:
> 
> http://renx.ca/
> CMHC website stats
> ...


I know there are a lot of people that don't like real estate agents but your best bet is to find one that works with investors. One that knows how to calculate a Cap Rate, ROI, etc. and uses spreadsheets and is willing to look at different properties and do some comparative analysis for you. Real Estate is regional like everybody says and Toronto Real Estate is different than Ottawa where I am and it's entirely influenced by the local economy.


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## nobleea (Oct 11, 2013)

I'm sure most big cities have similar forums. The local one I frequent is called Connect2Edmonton (http://www.connect2edmonton.ca/). There's lots of subforums, though the most interesting one is the Real Estate and Development one. A lot of talk focuses on big new ongoing projects, but there's also talk on future plans, changes, posts for meetings on city planning, TOD plans etc. Most of the posters are enthusiastic but uninformed, but there are a few people that work for the city or major developers that will post interesting tidbits once in a while.

SSP is another one (skyscraperpage forum). It's broken down by city.


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## liquid_ice (Jan 7, 2016)

A lot of real estate info you can find here


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## AlMansur (Jan 25, 2016)

I have been a RE investor for number of years and used to research on the internet and local papers too.
On a few occasions, I found the knowledge of some Realtors lacking, in fact I was telling them what to do (not boasting here).
Finally, I decided to study in my spare time, with a FT Finance job, and obtained my RE License so that I could buy/sell on my own and possibly assist other people too.
With my Finance background and RE knowledge, I believe I can assist others, esp. for investors, for searching suitable properties, comparing different investments, ROI and spreadsheet analysis, etc.

If anyone is interested, then you can contact me directly. 
My website has a ton of information available, including searching for suitable properties (over 35k TREB Listing), without any obligation.


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## Newby1983 (Apr 9, 2015)

I occasionally look at Toronto real estate boards "market watch" available on their website. It's a monthly report that details median price, days on market, sale to list ratio, etc for several years. I ignore their analysis of what the data means and plop the monthly data into an excel sheet going back several years. For Toronto the data is broken down into smaller zones which isn't too bad. But ignore their narrative analysis.


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