Introduction

North Americans are among the most nomadic of people. With frequent changes of residence during his lifetime, the average person relocates about every five years.


Many of these moves involve the sale of one home and the purchase of another.
Typically, we start out by renting. As we progress through life economically, changing jobs and developing partnerships and families, we aspire to own our home, be it condo, townhouse, duplex, or single-family dwelling. Usually as family size and incomes increase we want, and need, larger homes. Then, when we become empty nesters, we often move into smaller, lower-maintenance homes, until age has us considering a final move to a senior’s residence, with various levels of care.

This cycle often results in ten or more real estate transactions during our lifetime, each sale or purchase valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Over the course of time, we may well have sold and bought homes with a cumulative value amounting to millions of dollars.

Our personal real estate holdings often account for the largest portion of our net worth. Of particular benefit to Canadian owners, are tax laws which permit any profits from selling a primary residence, to be fully exempt from taxes. This allows Canadians to take maximum advantage of increasing home values, to add dramatically to their net worth.

Increasing net worth is paramount for most of us, if we are to achieve financial independence, and maintain our lifestyle once we retire.

The effective management therefore, of the process of sale and purchase of the single largest asset most of us will ever own, should be a key priority of every homeowner. IS IT ?

In the 1990’s, upon retirement from the corporate world, I was a founding partner of a very successful real estate company in Vancouver, BC, where I became personally involved in hundreds of, primarily residential, real estate transactions.


I found that many people with whom I dealt, were poorly prepared to manage effectively, the sale and purchase process, even in those cases where they had previously bought or sold a home.

I concluded that many of us expend much more effort in researching and purchasing an automobile or the latest media toy, than we do in handling our real estate transactions. As a result, we often miss out on thousands of dollars of potential value.

In 2007 more than 500,000 residential sales are expected in Canada, most of them through the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). These sales will result in approximately one million individual home sales and purchases. Despite this huge volume of activity, there is a real dearth of information available on how to achieve best value in our residential real estate transactions.
This book aims to fill that void, and to provide an easy-to-read, step-by-step understanding of what we can, and should, be doing to maximize our financial benefit when buying or selling a home.

It is my hope that this information will encourage the reader to become much more effective and involved in his future sale or purchase transactions than he has been in the past. His enhanced knowledge and constructive participation should result in the achievement of better value and hence, greater net worth growth, over time.

An added benefit should be a significant reduction in the level of stress that is normally associated with any transaction valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Throughout the book I have consistently used the masculine, singular form to describe a Realtor, Buyer, Seller, Inspector, Lawyer or Notary. This is not due to any sexist bias, but rather is simply for the sake of convenience. I hope that the female half of the population will understand!

If you, the reader, follow through on the advice in this guide, you will have graduated from “Naked Homeowner,” to an astute individual who can effectively manage the complex process of buying or selling his home, while at the same time achieving best value in each transaction.

Read on and….
HAVE FUN SELLING OR BUYING YOUR NEXT HOME!

Now available

The Naked Homeowner is a how-to guide for today’s Canadians to better understand the Real Estate Market, and to enhance their net worth with each transaction, whether buying or selling a home.

EACH chapter in this real estate guide provides the reader with examples and real-life anecdotes to vividly illustrate the subject matter. As well, each key conclusion is highlighted in the text at appropriate points for the SELLER or BUYER.


Check out http://www.thenakedhomeowner.com/ for more info.