Brian Shular

Sutton Group – Huron Shores recently opened for business in Southampton, Ont.

This is the first Sutton office in the region and the first brokerage for broker of record Brian Shular, who has extensive knowledge of the local market.

“I have lived in this area for 52 years,” he says. “I was born in Southampton and currently reside in Port Elgin.”  Prior to beginning his real estate career, he worked for the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) for 28 years. “I was a union steward for approximately 20 years, which involved negotiating several contracts on behalf of CAW employees.  It’s very helpful to be able to bring these negotiating skills to real estate transactions. It’s such a thrill to guide first-time buyers through the process of finding a home and handing them their keys at the end.”

The new broker’s plans for the future include a measured expansion.  “Eventually, I would like to have three or four more offices from Kincardine to Wiarton.  In each office, I plan to have just a few Realtors who are experts on their own communities. This makes sense given the relatively small population spread out over the region. These are generally affluent lakeside communities that are popular with tourists and attract permanent residents such as retirees and thousands of Bruce Power employees.”

Although the majority of the CPS Victim Assistance Unit funding comes from the Alberta Government, every penny counts when it comes to the extensive training and support needed for the Unit’s 82 civilian volunteers.

Jason Stephen addresses the media after releasing the NBREA report on taxation.

The New Brunswick Real Estate Association (NBREA) has released a discussion paper calling for changes to the property tax system, and is appealing to provincial political candidates and leaders to make property taxation a primary election campaign issue.

“Over a six-year period, governments have increased their tax base by $15.6 billion on the backs of property owners in this province,” says Jason Stephen, chair, NBREA Government Relations Committee. “We strongly believe that, for an issue directly affecting the quality of life of New Brunswickers, property taxation must now become a government priority.”

NBREA’s paper, A Discussion About Property Taxation in New Brunswick, addresses the imbalance of the methods currently used to calculate property value assessments, the system’s impact on fixed income residents, and the issue of double taxation, which affects renters and those owning more than one property. 

 The paper indentifies four key recommendations for property tax system improvements:

• simplifying property value assessment calculations; 

• making the system easier to understand; 

• addressing urgent issues for fixed- and low-income residents; and

• eliminating double taxation on non-owner occupied property owners.

“The property tax system, in its present form, is unpredictable, complicated, unclear and inconsistent across the province,” says Stephen. “Some people own properties that haven’t seen an increase in assessment or taxes whatsoever, where others receive assessments that have skyrocketed by hundreds of percentage points. In fact, more than 8,700 appeals were filed in 2010. This imbalance is unfair and it must be addressed.”

 The paper also examines the Accountability Mechanism designed by the government in 2010 to help the province and municipalities continue to experience growth in annual property tax revenues. NBREA says the system fails New Brunswickers in six areas:

• It does not provide the desired level of transparency;

• Property taxes are not completely dependent on real property values or trends; 

• It does not account for major annual variations in the value of property, or the amount of new construction; 

• It relies on new construction for a major portion of annual increases in municipal revenues; 

• It puts property owners in the middle of a jurisdictional battle between the provincial government, the municipalities and the local service districts; and

• It does not address the issue of double taxation.

“If changes are not made soon the economic prosperity and growth of the province may be at risk,” says Stephen. “Fixed- and low-income residents may struggle to maintain home ownership, renters may unfairly carry the burden of a negative tax shift and first-time buyers may choose not to buy at all. The time has come to fix what’s broken in this province. Whoever forms government after this election will be absolutely required to take a leadership role in solving this growing problem. New Brunswickers deserve better.”

Last summer with the support of several key businesses throughout the city, a show home was constructed in the Riverstone subdivision in the city’s west side. Many local suppliers and contractors contributed to the Flip4Food Project, along with several local media outlets and retail establishments. Net proceeds from the sale of the home were presented to Interfaith Food Bank.

The donation will kick off Interfaith Food Bank’s new capital campaign to encourage others to contribute to the Building Fund and to help raise funds for a new home for Interfaith.

Photos courtesy of the Toronto Argonauts Football Club

Fans of the Toronto Argos’ football club had little to cheer about in the last two years, but this year, with the team playing much better, they are more optimistic. If the fans are right, much of the credit will belong to a real estate agent.

Early in July, in Toronto’s third game of the season with fewer than two minutes to go in a match against Calgary, running back Jeffrey Johnson was sent into the game to fill in for the injured starter. The ball was snapped and handed to Johnson, who quickly covered the short distance to the goal line. He barrelled across – touchdown! Toronto won its second game of the young season and moved to the top of its division. A great result for Etobicoke sales rep Jeffrey Johnson.

He never planned to become a professional footballer. In fact he had no aspirations to play football at any level. “I went to Etobicoke Collegiate. I was never very interested in football. My main sports interests were hockey, soccer and basketball,” he says. That changed in Grade 12, when a friend talked to him after they had been working out in the school gym. “You should try out for football,” his friend said. So he did, with mixed success.

Jeff Johnson

“I didn’t really know all the rules and I knew less about tactics, but I was young, competitive and fit, so I kept playing,” he says. Clearly the lack of either interest or knowledge made little difference. “In that first school game I scored 5 TDs.”

Then came university.  “My university move was based on academics alone. Football was never a consideration,” he says. He went to York University, which had a pretty unsuccessful football program, but Johnson joined the team. Although York did not improve sufficiently to win a Vanier cup, Johnson excelled. He was named outstanding rookie in 1996 and was a University First-Team All Star in 1996, 1997 and 1999.

Surely after such an illustrious university football career, dreams of professional football, perhaps even the NFL, were dancing in the young man’s head? “No, I never really thought about it,” he says. “My coaches said I would be drafted by a Canadian team in the first or second round of the annual draft, but they were wrong.” No Canadian team thought him worth a look so he was undrafted. Football was clearly not in his future. Until, that is, just before training camps opened in 2000. Two days before the Hamilton Tiger-Cats opened their training camp, Johnson was invited to camp, and after a good showing was signed by the Tiger-Cats.

He spent two years with Hamilton, then was traded to Toronto, where he has been ever since. Entering his ninth year as an Argonaut, Johnson is the longest-serving player on the team. In a league where a three-year career is the norm, he has proven himself to be a durable performer.

At 33 years of age, now married to Kelly and father of three-year-old Maya and six-month-old brother Justyce, Johnson knows the end of his professional football days are in sight.

“You always know football can never be a long-term career. Injury can end the most promising future, and if injuries are avoided the passing years make keeping up with the younger players harder, so there has to be another long-term career.”

If football was an unexpected career move, it real estate was a natural. Johnson joined Century 21 Brown in Toronto, where his father, Bruce McGuire, also works and his uncle, Glenn McGuire, is broker/owner.

That strong family connection has been particularly important for Jeff. Although football has a short season, just 18 games, it makes great demands on its players during the season. Every day is a practice. Away games mean days out of the office.

“I have had a lot of people in the office who have picked up the slack for me,” he says. He considers himself a successful agent, but football has been of no use in developing his real estate career. “That has been achieved the same as everybody else – through hard work, building clients and working for them,” he says. Johnson admits that perhaps one aspect of his temperament developed through football has helped. “I hate to lose, whether a football game or a real estate deal.”

Johnson uses his celebrity status as a CFL player to help raise awareness of several charitable activities he takes part in, including walks for the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Meeting a professional footballer, I expected a giant. Not so. He is not tall (5 ft 9 inches according to the Argo register), a trim 211 pounds, but with the solid build of a strong man. When Jeff Johnson hits an opposing player, he remembers it. But it won’t be long until the final whistle is blown and then Johnson will be a full-time Realtor. He will not be hitting any other agents but his competitive spirit ensures that his presence will be noted.

Max Francischiello

Jones Lang LaSalle has boosted its Montreal business by adding landlord representation expertise. The firm has appointed Max Francischiello as senior vice-president who will lead the practice, Claudio Celli as vice-president and Maria Yannakis as associate.

With more than 18 years of real estate experience, Francischiello is a seasoned expert in landlord representation.  He joins from Courtage Immobilier Asgaard Inc., which he co-founded with Claudio Celli. 

Claudio Celli

Celli brings more than eight years of landlord representation experience to Jones Lang LaSalle. A graduate of economics from Concordia University, he is an Affiliated Real Estate Agent and member of ICSC, IDU and BOMA.

Maria Yannakis

Yannakis has worked in the Montreal office leasing field for six years and has been involved in many high profile projects while at Courtage Immobilier Asgaard Inc.

Jones Lang LaSalle has operated in Canada for the past 10 years.  With its Canada headquarters in Toronto, the firm also operates in Mississauga and Montreal. The firm offers tenant and landlord representation, project and development services, capital markets and integrated facilities management services to its clients in Canada.

Team captain Angela Wilson says, “We don’t have any exceptionally good players; we just played really well together. We worked as a team and it probably helps that we’ve played together in several tournaments.”

The first report, by David Macdonald of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, says Canada has a housing bubble because house price increases in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal and Ottawa between 1980 and 2010 “are outside of a historic comfort level.”

“The bursting of housing bubbles is a rare event in Canada, but the steep rise in house prices in so many cities displays all the hallmarks of an accident waiting to happen,” says Macdonald.  “As house prices rise outside of their historical range they become much more susceptible to mortgage rate changes. The hottest six real estate markets could be in for a correction at best or, at worst, a bubble burst. Rate setters at the big banks are in the driver’s seat now as mortgage rates inch up. They need to hit the brakes lightly.”

But another report, by Jim MacGee of the C.D. Howe institute, concludes that Canadian housing policies have done a good job to ensure that a U.S.-style housing market crash is not likely to happen here.

“Canadian housing policies, which avoided the sharp decline in underwriting standards seen in the U.S, worked well in reducing the possibility of a housing bust in Canada during 2008-2009, and continue to mitigate the risk of a massive wave of defaults in the future,” says MacGee.

In a report released on Tuesday, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. predicts that existing home market conditions will remain balanced during the next two years as MLS sales ease and inventory levels remain elevated. It forecasts that “existing home sales will be in the range of 450,000 to 485,700 units in 2010, with a point forecast of 463,800 units. In 2011, MLS sales will move lower and are expected to be in the range of 425,000 to 490,700 units, with a point forecast of 456,000 units.”

It says that with an improved balance between demand and supply, the average MLS price is expected to edge lower through the end of 2010 and then rise modestly in 2011.

To view the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report, click here.

To view the C.D. Howe Institute report, click here.

To view the latest CMHC housing forecast, click here.

Karen Flood

Karen Flood, 49, broker of Re/Max Hallmark Realty in Port Carling and past president of The Muskoka & Haliburton Association of Realtors (MHAR), lost her battle with cancer on August 11.

She served as president of MHAR three times and she was a current member of the MHAR Board of Directors.

In a note to REM, the association says, “Karen had many friends throughout the area and because of her involvement in organized real estate, was well known by many, at both the provincial and national level. Karen was always the first to volunteer for any project and used her strong negotiating skills to solve issues at the association and throughout her real estate career.

“Karen is survived by her mother Maria Schwab, sisters Linda and Chris, her brother Peter and many nieces and nephews. Fondly remembered, sadly missed.”