Buying a home can be a stressful process especially if you are unsure what to expect. Listed below are eleven great tips to help educate you about what to expect and how to deal with situations that are likely to occur.

• 1. Location, Location, Location! Look for a location in Toronto that has the potential for growth, this is the best advice when investing in real estate. If the house you choose in Toronto is not exactly as you’d like it to be, you can always renovate and change things. You cannot renovate an entire neighborhood.

• 2. The best Toronto investment properties are sometimes the ones that require the most work. Sometimes you can find a great property in need of repair in a popular area. When investing time and money into renovation, not only will you have a great place to live, but you have a home that has been designed to your liking and will get a much better return on your investment.

• 3. Remember you can always expand Typically it is a good idea for clients to think into the future and see the broader picture. Will the property be suitable within the next few years? If not, it is a good idea to see if the house can be expanded to accommodate a larger living space. This could be in the form of a finished basement or adding an addition. If major renovations are required, check into whether or not there are any building restrictions for the neighborhood. It is a good idea to find it beforehand than when you are actually facing the prospect of buying Toronto building permits.

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• 4. Check into the schools in the area. Even if you do not currently have children, if you are thinking about it in the future, it is a good idea to check into the local schools. Having a good school in the area is something a potential homebuyer should never overlook. Oftentimes, a family will move into a particular neighborhood to be within the district of a favorable school.

• 5. Perform a personal credit check now. Before applying for a mortgage in Toronto, it is a good idea to perform a personal credit check. If your credit report contains any errors, you can have it rectified before any financial institution makes the discovery.

• 6. Clean up your credit. Making any credit report repairs can sometimes be as easy as making timely payments. Even if you have had bad credit in the past, you can turn it around and the bank or financial institute can be surprisingly forgiving. This is why it is imperative to check on a credit report prior to shopping the Toronto real estate market.

• 7. Never underestimate the value of an energy efficient home. An energy efficient house can save you thousands of dollars over the course of time. More and more people are seeking energy efficient homes, it is a common request more real estate agents are hearing every day.

• 8. How far is the daily commute to work? If you are giving serious thought to a particular home, a good idea is to make a test run to see how the traffic flows in both directions during the average daily commute.

• 9. How much are the rates? Lock in a secure mortgage rate for as long as possible, if the rates are low and there is no chance of rates dipping any lower it can equal to saving a substantial amount of money over time.

• 10. Remember resale value. When you are considering purchasing a Toronto property, keep the potential for resale in mind. Do not let it determine your every thought, however, at some point you may want to sell the home so it is a good idea to keep the thought in the back of your mind.

As part as an ongoing series of illustrations of Toronto, the January Market Watch postcard is ready for distribution.

The government announced this week that mortgages will be limited to 35 years, require a minimum five per cent down payment, and be federally insured for only 95 per cent of the value of the home. At the same time, anyone borrowing mortgage funds must have a good credit rating and demonstrate that their debt servicing costs are not greater than 45 per cent of their gross income.

Liberal MP Garth Turner, the author of a book warning about a possible Canadian housing downturn, says the government’s decision could trigger a devaluing of homes by about 15 per cent nationally and as much as 30 per cent in boom towns like Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. It could also prompt Canadians to move quickly to beat the October deadline.

The federal finance department said forthcoming mortgage rule changes are implemented to avoid any mortgage crisis that could mirror the sub-prime mortgage fiasco in the U.S., rather than addressing any possible problems in the Canadian system.

Loft conversion buildings are growing in popularity, they offer convenient and clean modern living.

With large open spaces and huge ceilings, lofts have long been popular among artists for the area they offer in which to work. Toronto and other major metropolitan centres are seeing an increased demand for loft developments due to the convenience offered by a do-it-yourself, unrestricted space. Keep in mind when looking for lofts in Toronto that they are much more in demand than ever before; combined with the natural real estate prices in the Toronto area this means that loft seekers can’t expect their space to come cheaply – most lofts are similar in price to condominiums.

Given the background of the loft market, it should come as no surprise that major loft developments occur within the Toronto districts most likely to draw a bohemian, or bohemian-minded, crowd. These areas include the Annex, the Fashion District, the Theatre District and the Entertainment District. The Sylvia Lofts are located at 50 Camden Street in Toronto’s Theatre District. It is a low rise development that includes some loft conversions as well as new loft developments. Sixty-four units in the building have a price range between $200,000 and $300,000, and come with moving walls for private space as well as plenty of light from large windows.

Just to the west of the Theatre District, and to the southwest of the Fashion District, is the Twenty development at 20 Niagara. There are four suites per floor in this development, with every two suites sharing a private elevator. All suites include balconies, with penthouses incorporating roof decks and terraces. These spacious units are older, built in 1998, and range in price from $700,000 to over one million dollars.

The conversion of old warehouses to loft units is commonly called hard lofts (as opposed to soft lofts, which are new from the ground up). This hard loft style is what is offered in the Merchandise Building, on Dalhousie Street in downtown Toronto near Ryerson University and the Eaton Centre. The Merchandise building was built as a department store, and later became a Sears warehouse, before being converted to lofts in the 1990s under the guidance of the City of Toronto.

There are certain characteristics that are essential to loft living. Loft owners are typically inclined to create their own space while still maintaining easy access to important areas and amenities of the city. Toronto offers several developments that can meet the requirements of any potential loft owner.

I have commissioned designer/illustrator ptoone to create a series of artistic Toronto art scenes for the cover of my new monthly market watch postcards. Each month will be a new image that has been hand painted exclusively for TheDowntownToronto.com. The data this month shows the dramatic increase in sales and average price per sale over the past two years.

Twitter is a microblog chat room with a close-knit community feel. Each post, or tweet, gives you the opportunity to update your friends, or followers, on the latest. Like every online means of communication, the use of Twitter requires a certain amount of etiquette and respect.

Use Correct and Complete Spelling

Too many people are used to text messages via the cell phone. Shortcuts like using numbers and letters to spell words become commonplace when texting on the go. Twitter is somewhat restrictive on the word count of your messages, but don’t treat it like your usual text program. You are a real estate professional, tweet like one.

Always do your best to use correct and complete spelling while you tweet. Your potential buyers and sellers need to feel that you are professional and competent. Misspelling words just to stuff in some word count is not the way to get around Twitter’s 140 character tweet limit. If you can’t say what needs to be said, link to your website.

Another option is to offer leads your phone number or e-mail address by way of direct message. You’ll be meeting them in person if your marketing plan goes well anyway. Be courteous and kind while passing valuable information to your potential clients.

Create Short Links

Websites like Thexyz.org that allow you to shorten any website address to a manageable length. As you are probably well aware, Twitter allows 140 characters per post. You have to make the most of those 140 characters. Abbreviate where possible and always shorten lengthy website addresses.

Learn “at” Replies and Hash Tags

Twitter has a quite unique way of alerting people that they’re being mentioned. An “at” reply uses the e-mail “at” symbol, shift-2, in front of the username of the person it’s tweeting to. “At” replies are filtered to a specific destination in each user’s account, making it very easy to go read replies directed toward you at any given time.

Hash tags, shift-3, are used to specifically tag words that are important to your particular message. Originally hash tags were used to mark news events only. For example, using the hash tag “(hash tag)PresidentialElection” would group your message with other messages that used the same hash tag.

Keep it Personal and Connect with Your Followers

Make your followers feel that you’re paying attention and you understand their needs. You want to be their Realtor; they have to feel that they know you and can trust you. Provide them with the latest industry information as well as the most up to date real estate listings. But don’t spam them with a business-only atmosphere. Show them that you care about them as human beings as well as clients.

Don’t SPAM or Use All Capital Letters

It is true that your followers can un-follow you as easily as they followed you, but that would be detrimental to your purpose for tweeting. You’re on Twitter to gain leads, make sales and help people find the home they’ve always wanted. Don’t ruin your chances at success by spamming the same messages repeatedly.

The use of all capital letters is considered yelling or screaming. It is perfectly ok to get excited and use capital letters for certain words, but don’t overdo it. Remember, tone does not go well with text. It’s very difficult to express certain emotions via the Internet. Stick to words that describe how excited you are about something instead of using all capital letters.

Don’t Overwhelm Followers

Your followers won’t follow you long if you don’t take the time to explain things. Buying a home isn’t a seat-of-the-pants decision. Buyers and sellers are looking for real estate professionals to do business with. Be careful about crossing the line between friend and business acquaintance, but don’t overwhelm your Twitter followers with facts either.

Maintain Professionalism

As a Realtor, you’ve been trained to be a professional. Your training taught you the ins and outs of maintaining a professional atmosphere even in the gravest conditions. Twitter requires the same etiquette, determination and professionalism as a face-to-face conversation with potential clients. Let your professional background guide you through each and every tweet.

But has this new way of short-term, online connecting helped your real estate business? Do people really follow you on Twitter? Is your Facebook page crowded with enough Friends to fill Yankee Stadium? Are you LinkedIn with the people that matter? And if so, is your business growing? If not, you may need to adjust your technique, or get some help to update your knowledge or equipment.

Every real estate agent, or any business person for that matter, who takes the time to learn how their company can benefit from a few social networking lessons will reap the benefits. The advanced uses of the Internet will only continue to grow and with it, the better possibility to deal with leads and increase your conversion rate – change leads into sales. However, you must be the one driving the proverbial bus. Invite people to your website so you can further dazzle them with your business prowess and get them a great deal on their new home.

Many people are excited then they see leads start to pour in and they tell their associates how many contacts they have gained. The trick is to act on those contacts to close the sale, or at least keep the dialogue moving ahead. Here are some tips:

Make sure the information that you are putting out to the masses is relevant to your real estate business. Not too many people care that the corned beef on rye you had for lunch at Gino’s Deli was the best ever made.

Become blog savvy. Establish yourself on other sites by adding comments to another person’s blog notes.

Make sure there is a working link back to your site. Whenever you post a comment, send out a Tweet, or add an update to your Facebook page, test your personal, or signature link to see if it goes to your website as it should. If it doesn’t, correct the situation immediately.

Contact the genuine leads as soon as possible as they can grow cold quickly. Potential customers will move on to their second/next choice if they don’t hear from you in a timely fashion.