Blog entries will be posted in the language in which they were written.
April 29th, 2010

Upcoming Jane’s Walks

Posted by Joan McGuigan

A wonderful way to get out and enjoy this gorgeous weather is to participate in one of Jane’s Walks!

Jane’s Walks are named after Jane Jacobs, the author of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” (1961). This book completely reshaped the field of urban planning, as it presented cities as ecosystems that grow and evolve over time, based on their use. A Jane’s Walk combines personal narratives, urban history, and local knowledge to bring communities together.

There will be two Jane’s Walks in the Westmount/NDG area on Sunday, May 2 (in addition to many more around the city):

Neighbourhood: Westmount
Language: English
Title: How citizen’s input shaped Westmount
Time: 2pm
Where: Victoria Hall 4626 Sherbrooke St. West (in Westmount Park)
To get there: Métro Vendôme, bus 24
Reservation : doreenlindsay@videotron.ca

Neighbourhood: Notre-Dame-de-Grace
Language: Bilingue
Title: La randonnée pédestre de NDG
Time: 1pm
Where: Devant le magasin de commerce équitable Dix Mille Villages,5674 Avenue Monkland.
To get there: Métro Villa Maria, bus 103 ou 162
Reservation : saumiera@videotron.ca

You can also see the full list of Jane’s Walks going on around the city of Montréal here.  Reservations are required for these two particular walks, so act fast!

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April 16th, 2010

Round 2 of our Open House Blitz!

Posted by Joan McGuigan

McGuigan Pepin is continuing our Open House Blitz this Sunday–and it’s getting even better than before!

This Sunday (April 18), all you have to do is go to any TWO McGuigan Pepin open houses, and you will win a gift certificate to Nagoya Sushi in Westmount!

Full list of open houses can be found here.

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April 15th, 2010

New Development in Shaughnessy Village

Posted by Joan McGuigan

It was recently announced that new condos will be built in the former Seville Theater in Shaughnessy Village. Real-estate developer Prével and investment firm Claridge are heading this project to develop 350 to 450 affordable condos (as well as storefronts) in this historic theatre.  We are very excited about this new development, as it promises to revive the Shaughnessy Village neighbourhood, and we will be keeping our readers updated on new devleopments in this project.

Read more:  The Gazette,  Canada.com, CTV

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April 8th, 2010

Announcing an Open House Contest!

Posted by Joan McGuigan

This coming Sunday, April 11th, McGuigan Pepin will be holding an Open House Blitz!

We will be holding FIVE open houses! When you come to any one of our open houses and sign our guestbook, you will receive your McGuigan Pepin Passport! In the passport will be all the details of each of the other open houses going on that day.

If you attend any three open houses out of the five, and have the representing McGuigan Pepin agent mark your passport, you will WIN a gift certificate to Nagoya Sushi in Westmount!

Nagoya Sushi is a fantastic restaurant, and the neighbour to our Ste-Catherine Street office! This is a great prize, and we’re all very excited about this contest. We hope to see you at our open houses this weekend!

Full list of open houses can be found here.

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April 6th, 2010

New Westmount Market Report

Posted by Joan McGuigan

The March Westmount market report has been released! It can be found here.

All Westmount Market Reports are courtesy of Andy Dodge.

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March 31st, 2010

Forecasting Mortgage Interest Rates

Posted by Joan McGuigan

Sacha Peter of The Divestor provides this article, Canadian Interest Rate Projections, in which he makes some predictions about mortgage rates over the next year. This could prove to be some important information for those readers currently wondering what type of mortgage they should consider.

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March 25th, 2010

Win a $25,000 down payment from Centris!

Posted by Joan McGuigan

We received the following notice from the GMREB this morning. If you visit Centris, you can enter to win a $25,000 down payment! Contest starts April 7th.

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March 25th, 2010

Montréal’s Incentives for First-Time Home Buyers

Posted by Joan McGuigan

The City of Montréal has announced special incentives for first-time home buyers, in an effort to keep young families from moving out of the city core.  The CBC has more information:

The City of Montreal has sweetened its home ownership incentives to encourage families to choose the island over suburban living.

The incentives target couples with children who want to buy new property with at least three bedrooms.

First-time buyers with families are now entitled to a $12,500 subsidy if they buy a three-bedroom home under $295,000.

The older subsidy is capped at $10,000 for homes worth a maximum of $265,000, bought by families with at least one child.

Childless households are eligible for a one-time grant of $4,500 to buy homes worth a maximum of $235,000.

All subsidies remain limited to first-time homebuyers.

Mayor Gérald Tremblay said the subsidies should tempt people to stay in Montreal.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/03/22/montreal-subsidies-for-first-time-family-homebuyers.html?ref=rss#ixzz0jD2scAzt

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March 22nd, 2010

Brian Williams’ thank-you note to Canada

Posted by Joan McGuigan

Brian Williams, the anchor of NBC Nightly News, posted a lovely post-Olympics thank-you note to Canada on his blog:

After tonight’s broadcast and after looting our hotel mini-bars, we’re going to try to brave the blizzard and fly east to home and hearth, and to do laundry well into next week.  Before we leave this thoroughly polite country, the polite thing to do is leave behind a thank-you note.

Thank you, Canada:

For being such good hosts.

For your unfailing courtesy.

For your (mostly) beautiful weather.

For scheduling no more than 60 percent of your float plane departures at the exact moment when I was trying to say something on television.

For not seeming to mind the occasional (or constant) good-natured mimicry of your accents.

For your unique TV commercials — for companies like Tim Hortons — which made us laugh and cry.

For securing this massive event without choking security, and without publicly displaying a single automatic weapon.

For having the best garment design and logo-wear of the games — you’ve made wearing your name a cool thing to do.

For the sportsmanship we saw most of your athletes display.

For not honking your horns. I didn’t hear one car horn in 15 days — which also means none of my fellow New Yorkers rented cars while visiting.

For making us aware of how many of you have been watching NBC all these years.

For having the good taste to have an anchorman named Brian Williams on your CTV network, who turns out to be such a nice guy.

For the body scans at the airport which make pat-downs and cavity searches unnecessary.

For designing those really cool LED Olympic rings in the harbor, which turned to gold when your athletes won one.

For always saying nice things about the United States…when you know we’re listening.

For sharing Joannie Rochette with us.

For reminding some of us we used to be a more civil society.

Mostly, for welcoming the world with such ease and making lasting friends with all of us.

Source

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March 12th, 2010

Great article: When to sell?

Posted by Joan McGuigan

We recently read a wonderful article by Anna Vozza for the Windsor Star, about how to decide when to sell your home:

Homeowners face a double dilemma when dealing with the prospect of selling their homes. How do you make sure the decision to sell is the right one? When is the right time to sell?

Traditionally, the four major reasons why and when people sell their homes are financial and market conditions, employment changes, family matters and lifestyle changes. However, the current issue of low interest rates and a large selection of homes also has a great bearing. These reasons not only affect your decision to sell, they can greatly impact your options about when to sell.

– Financial and market conditions: Almost every aspect to real estate involves market conditions and financial issues. For the seller they are of the utmost importance because it’s the seller who’s putting property, equity and maybe years of hard work on the line.

With so much at stake, it’s really beneficial that sellers contact a realtor who has the experience and knowledge of the real estate industry.


Read more here.

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