GTA real estate market definitely back to normal

After the turbulent times on our housing market in June and July, things have calmed down a little. This is the brief summary of the August Toronto real estate board report. All the numbers confirm that the situation has stabilized and is much better than in the comparable period of last year.

Of course, there have been more positive economic news lately, and according to Jason Mercer, TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis, the healthy development on the real estate market has played a key role, as home buyers spent their money also in other sectors, such as financial and legal services, moving, renovations or furniture. More details and statistics are to be found on our main website (article GTA real estate lessens the pace (a little!)).

Are you welcoming ants into your home?

Annually, with the arrival of warm weather, many people living in houses and condos in Toronto have to fight against thousands of uninvited guests. There are two sorts of ants that most usually move into people’s homes – sugar ants and carpenter ants. While real Sugar Ants live in Australia, the little black Pharaoh and Pavement ants that you keep stepping on in your kitchen are usually called ‘sugar ants’ in the US and Canada because of their huge appetite for sweet foods. This type of ants is rarely found living indoors.

Sugar ants are tinier than Carpenter ants, the other common ant species, who are sometimes even half an inch long. A common mistake is confusing the Carpenter ants and termites. However, termites eat wood and they are white, whereas Carpenter ants are black and they just use the wood for making homes for their colonies, they don’t really eat it, just burrow into it. They usually live in old tree stumps or fence posts, but sometimes they try to find a cosy place inside of a human house. If you want to make them move away, the best way is to get rid of the things they love in your home.

Shutting down the cafeteria

First try to find out if the ants just come into your house for food. If so, try to do these easy cleaning steps for at least two weeks, and if it doesn’t help, think about some more radical action. Keep your kitchen sink area neat and dry: ants love sinks as it offers food and water for them. If you try to wash the dishes and wipe all the water drops in the sink and around, the ants won’t have anything available to eat or drink. Every night, wipe down all the kitchen tops with bleach or white vinegar. You can also use one of these agents for washing the floor. By the way, vinegar is a very eco-friendly but also effective choice. Also apply vinegar or bleach for cleaning the sink – pour a few drops down the drain every night. This is also a really practical solution. Store all food in air tight boxes. Take the rubbish bin out at least once a day, but if you manage to do it more often, it’s better. Find out where your visitors are coming into your home and seal up all the cracks. Expanding Foam is probably the easiest and fastest choice to achieve this (your local Hardware shop will stock this). If you have tried all this and you still keep encountering some ants around, try tossing some bay leaves or cloves around, that should help.

Finding the nest

In order to get rid of Carpenter ants and their nest near or inside your home, it’s crucial that you destroy any rotten wood in your garden and remove any damp places in the house. However, if you cannot locate any nest outside but still keep seeing some ants inside, they have already probably moved into the house. So you will have to apply your detective skills to discover where the nest is hidden. Carpenter ants like to nest in damp wood, so you should go through any old trees or firewood around your house. Check around sweaty pipes, washing machines, dishwashers and any other damp places. As one colony can have even 3 to 10 thousand ants, they can quite extensively and potentially dangerously damage the wooden structures of your house. Because Carpenter love feeding on wood, sawdust can be a dead giveaway of their location. Or in moments when it’s silent around, try to listen for a dry rustling sound, which is also detectable with a stethoscope. There are also professional companies that can clean your home from the ants, but if you don’t deal with the ant favorite places around, they will come back again next year. Of course, you can set bait to wipe them out, time after time, but if you don’t keep your kitchen completely spotless, then the insects will keep coming back.

Photo source: Maggie Osterberg

The preferable alternative for real estate investors, Canada or the USA?

Real estate properties have alluring discounts available now the boom period prices have been regulated. This is the time real estate investors celebrate. A alluring transaction can be had now. How do Canada and the USA compare.

Canadian prices are already on the increase again and their MLS are crammed, whilst in the USA the prices are still bottom. So do lesser prices mean a top investment? However, professional investors and analysts still see Canada as a top place to lay out some spare investment dollars.

The most practical option for real estate investment is still Canada over the the USA as stated by property experts everywhere in the world. It is anticipated that the USA prices could still drop again. The complex tax system, poor returns make the US a less than enticing option. The long term investment ranking chart only bestows the USA 2 stars out of 5.

Canada has been given 3 out of 5 stars in the same chart. This is because it has an better taxation system, a good rental market and a more reliable economy. (For clarification the city represented in Canada is Toronto and the USA is New York)

Transactions costs are less expensive making Canada an even more agreeable investment chance. Transaction costs total registration, real estate agent, legal costs and sales, transfer taxes. These costs are much lower in Canada than in the USA, 6.96% compared with 9.07% Real estate investors will welcome the 2% lower charges.

Asbestos Around Us : Are You Endangered?

Photo source: Matthew Niemi

Still quite a short time ago, asbestos used to be admired for its great qualities such as resistance to heat, fire, chemicals or wear. All this made it a very desirable substance.

For a long time, people used to make a lot of things out of asbestos, such as building material, clothes or toys. But then, some 50 years ago, it was found out that it was poisonous. Asbestos poisoning – what is it actually? The advantage and curse of asbestos at the same time is its durability, which has been exploited in various industries. On the other hand, when present in human bodies, the body has no means of disposing of it.

As long as asbestos stays compound in the substance it is part of, then it is harmless. What is dangerous for humans is breathing in the tiny needle-like asbestos fibers, when they become airborne. The trouble with asbestos poisoning is that its primary symptoms such as dry cough, tightness in the chest or shortness of breath match the symptoms of numerous less serious diseases. Regarding also the long latency period, it often happens that the real cause of the problem is found out only when it is too late.

The most often diseases that have been linked to asbestos poisoning are asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer. The lungs of an asbestosis patient are attempting to dissolve the asbestos fibers and they create an acid that scars the tissue which then hardens. Eventually, the person can breath only with problems. Mesothelioma is a kind of cancer that affects the outer lung lining. There is currently no known cure for this disease. Mesothelioma can be caused also by only a brief, even accidental exposure to asbestos poisoning (unlike asbestosis). Asbestos-induced lung cancer has been responsible for more than half of all deaths triggered by asbestos poisoning. On the other hand, when treated in its early stage, patients can enjoy an active lifestyle for many years after the diagnosis.

Asbestos in Canada: Canada used to be one of the main producers of asbestos in the world. The asbestos mines in Quebec are still functioning and Canada still supports asbestos use in less harmful forms. Nearly all office and public buildings or schools finished before the 1980s used asbestos for thermal, fire and sound insulation. The most ‘at risk’ people tend to be the workers who have installed asbestos materials, mainly if they ignored the health and safety guidelines and allowed dust from the installation process to escape into the atmosphere and then breathed in this poisonous toxin. The use of asbestos still hasn’t been banned in Canada. However, things have improved a little – using asbestos as insulation material has been banned in Ontario in 1973. Local governments have made an effort to get rid of asbestos from public buildings, and any job involving asbestos installation or removal is under very strict regulations.

Asbestos in Toronto: Ontario has severe rules concerning asbestos in buildings, especially since 2007. If a landlord finds any strange substance deteriorating in the building he owns, he has to submit it for examination. If the presence of asbestos is confirmed, elimination by certified professionals has to take place without delay. If there is any danger of continuous deterioration, the whole affected area has to be removed, again following strict safety regulations.

The most common use of asbestos in non-domestic buildings: – insulation on pipes – ceiling tiles – panels boards – cement panels – sprayed coatings on walls – asbestos ropes and cloth – textures coating The most common use of asbestos in residential homes in Toronto: – exterior surfaces: deck undersheeting, roof felt and shingles, window putty – all kinds of insulation – flooring: vinyl asbestos sheets, tiles and undersheeting – interior surface: sprayed-on acoustic ceilings, acoustic tiles – appliances: water heaters, range hoods, clothes dryers and dishwashers A sufficient solution for the whole issue of asbestos hasn’t been discovered yet. A year ago, there was the Sunrise Propane blast, as most of us can still recall. Asbestos debris hit 5 streets and around 3000 residents had to leave their homes, until the whole region was carefully cleaned up. The danger posed by asbestos is still here and local governments have to keep struggling with it. But it is really difficult to say how dangerous asbestos actually is. It has been found out that only 0.5% of asbestos in material is really poisonous, so that’s also why it is so difficult to trace back all the possible dangers.

There are professional companies that you can call and they will inspect your home in case you have even the smallest suspicion it might have been affected (there is a list of such companies available in the GTA region). Anyway, people should never try to manipulate with the suspect material on their own!