One Canadian real estate pro’s journey to cash in on Europe

Don’t tell Michael Polzler the Canadian real estate market is the place to be. He’s got his feet planted firmly in Europe.

The 45-year-old former operations head of Re/Max Ontario-Atlantic Canada has pulled up stakes from this country to establish a stronger footprint on a continent he maintains has been vastly underserved by organized real estate.

People need to buy and sell and that doesn’t change

“It’s been crazy busy,” says Mr. Polzler, now the managing director of Re/Max Europe. “I’ve been in Sweden, Hamburg, Germany, and Austria, where I have been kind of living these days.”

And Mr. Polzler just doesn’t understand the fears that the struggling European economy has nowhere to go.

“It’s all very exaggerated. People need to buy and sell and that doesn’t change,” he says

“In the German-speaking economies of around 100 million in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, there is super-low unemployment and the economies are excellent. Even in the countries that have been written about, there is opportunity. Sure it’s harder to sell in Portugal and Spain, but we are making inroads in those marketplaces.”

The Vienna-based Re/Max Europe group, started by his father Frank Polzler and his partner Walter Schneider in 1994, is now in 33 countries.

The pair brought the Re/Max brand to Canada in 1979, turning the real estate market here on its head. Instead of agents giving up a large percentage of their commission to their brokerage, they were charged a desk fee. The group now has about 8,400 sale associates in Canada.

Mr. Polzler says Europe resembles the Canada of a few decades ago when the Multiple Listing Service was not prominent and there was little co-operation between agents.

“Generally speaking, agents do not sell each other’s listings, though we are changing that,” says Mr. Polzler, adding the practice in Europe of trying to sell a listing to just your own clients or handful of colleagues is very limiting. “In Re/Max, we are selling each other’s listings and that really puts the customer first.”

Exclusive listings may ultimately enrich the agents by keeping them among a select group but it hardly creates liquidity in the market.

“It’s very hard to sell property that way,” says Mr. Polzler, calling the European case “very odd” by Canadian standards.

“I don’t think we did that in 1980s or even the 1970s really.”

He says that is why 50% of the market is sold privately and why it is such a good opportunity for his company.

“You really want to expose your property to a lot more agents and [potential] customers, which, of course, is a lot better for the consumer,” says Mr. Polzler.

In Canada, real estate listings are put on a central MLS system at 100-plus boards across the country. Agents who sell another agent’s property listing are compensated directly and usually get about half of the total commission, usually 2.5% each.

Europe provides an interesting contrast to this country where the Canadian Real Estate Association was sued by the Competition Bureau for controlling listings and not allowing consumers enough choice in the services that can be selected through the MLS. The bureau remains in a court battle with the Toronto Real Estate Board over the issue of how listings are controlled.

Re/Max wants a more open market in Europe, although Mr. Polzler did not say he’s trying to emulate the Canadian model exactly. “Our slogan here is changing the way real estate is sold in Europe,” says Mr. Polzler.

He says you can’t start a pan-European MLS because real estate is more a locally driven product. MLS is available in few jurisdictions.

“People think creating an MLS is coming in and trying to organize everybody but really it needs to start with five, 10 or 20 agents to step in and share each other’s listings because this is better for everybody.”

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/10/11/one-real-estate-pros-journey-to-cash-in-on-europe/

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Neighbors hurt your home's value?

If you're trying to sell your home, a run-down or messy house nearby can cost you some serious money. 

Here's what you can do about it.

Bad neighbors aren't just annoying. They can cost you real money when it's time to sell your home.

A nearby property's overgrown yard, peeling paint and clutter can easily knock 5% to 10% off the sale price of your home, said Joe Magdziarz, the president of the Appraisal Institute and a real-estate appraiser with 40 years of experience. A true disaster -- a junky home in deplorable condition and a yard packed with debris -- could cost you even more.

"In reality, there's so much supply right now that people are just going to pass," Magdziarz said. "It might make your home unmarketable."

Magdziarz has personal experience with how a bad neighbor can hurt a home seller's chances. A few years ago, he and his wife were house hunting and found a property they really liked -- until they looked next door.

"He was a hoarder. There was junk all over the yard," Magdziarz said. "The last thing I want to see when I get home is a junkyard."

Even when real-estate markets were in better shape, messy neighbors caused problems. Kamie Dowen put her Harrisburg, Pa., home on the market five years ago but had problems selling because of a nearby property.

Toys littered the lawn, even in winter. The porch sported "a pumpkin that was two years past due," Dowen said. A garage door, damaged after the owner ran into it with his car, was never fixed.

"After I moved out and staged my home, it still took me over a year to get rid of it," Dowen said. "I had to sell it at my cost.

So what can you do?

Frustration can lead to guerrilla tactics. Jeanine Brydges Watt of Windsor, Ontario, got so fed up with her neighbors' yard that she waited until they went on vacation, then mowed the lawn and threw out the trash, which included old diapers and split-open bags of garbage.

Watt said she wasn't worried about being arrested for trespassing. The messy neighbors were renters and probably thought their landlord had done it, she said. And Watt's other neighbors were thrilled.

"If they had been asked, none of the other neighbors would have ratted me out," she said. "They were happy we cleaned up the eyesore."

You may not be willing to risk arrest, but there are other tactics you can try if a neighbor's property is hurting your home's value.

If your neighbor is elderly or disabled and simply not able to maintain her property, for example, you may be able to help her find free or low-cost services that can help. Habitat for Humanity's A Brush With Kindness program offers exterior painting, landscaping, weatherstripping and minor repairs to low-income homeowners who can't care for their homes because of age, disability or family circumstances.

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The Food You Should Eat Every Day

Turns out some nursery-school cliches are actually true: An apple a day reallydoes keep the doctor away, according to a new study in the Journal of Functional Foods.

Researchers had a small group of 16 people eat either an actual apple, capsules packed with the same amount of polyphenols (plant compounds) in apples, or a placebo every day for 4 weeks.

The results? Those who followed the old adage lowered their blood levels of oxidized LDL—“bad” cholesterol linked to hardening of the arteries and cardiovascular disease—by 40 percent. Those who popped the capsules saw a decrease too—but not as dramatic. Researchers suspect that our bodies absorb polyphenols more effectively when they’re in foods.

And sure, that seems like a helluva lot of healing power for one little fruit—and the study was small—but the ability to reduce oxidized LDL is always encouraging, saysMen’s Health cardiology advisor Eric Topol, M.D., director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute.

“This opens up a new mechanism that has not been reported before,” he adds. “Now we just have to see if it holds up against larger studies.”

In addition to protecting your ticker, an apple a day also reduces swelling of all kinds, thanks to quercetin, a flavonoid also found in the skin of red onions. Quercetin reduces the risk of allergies, heart attack, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and prostate and lung cancers. If given the choice, opt for Red Delicious. They contain the most inflammation-fighting antioxidants. (Discover even more ways to keep your heart pumping strong with The Lean Belly Prescription, your no-diet, no-workout plan that’s better than running 5 miles a day!)

http://news.menshealth.com/apple-a-day/2012/10/08/

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Toronto Marlies enjoying surge in ticket sales

Maybe Toronto is a hockey town after all.

The Marlies, the American Hockey League farm team of the locked-out Leafs, have seen a surge in season-ticket sales and are expecting a 15 per cent increase in attendance this season, which opens at home on Oct. 13.

“The growth of our ticket base hasn’t slowed down since our playoff run,” said Mike Cosentino, director of business operations for the Marlies.

Season-ticket sales are up 74 per cent from last year, he said, when the Marlies won the AHL North Division with an impressive 44-24-5-3 record and reached the Calder Cup final, getting swept by the Norfolk Admirals.

The Marlies, who drew an average of 5,480 fans to home games last season, forecast at least a 15 per cent increase at the Ricoh Centre this year, Cosentino said.

But before chalking up the growth in attendance to NHL-starved fans looking for a fix of games by current and future Leafs, Cosentino said he “can’t say one way or the other” whether the lockout is having any impact because the interest in Marlies’ tickets hasn’t slowed since late last spring.

“Last year’s performance helped us out so much in terms of awareness of the Marlies and getting the stories of our players out there,” Cosentino said.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/leafs/article/1265172--toronto-marlies-enjoying-surge-in-ticket-sales

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3 Ways to Remember Anything

Facebook users around the world freaked out this week when rumors spread that some of their private messages now appeared to be public. (We don’t blame them for being upset—you certainly don’t want your dad seeing late-night messages to your hookup buddy.) But after reviewing the reports, the social network stated there was no evidence of previously private content being publicized, and lots of people backtracked on their claims.

What happened? Facebook networks were more intimate back then, so some people were incorrectly remembering how loose they once were with sharing personal details. In other words: People’s memories were being recalled in a much different context than when they were first ‘saved.’ A new study in The Journal of Neuroscience could explain why.

During three days of experiments, researchers at Northwestern University asked people to learn the locations of objects on a computer screen, then recall them the following day, and a third day.

All of the people incorrectly placed the objects on the second day and during the third day, 70 percent of placements were closer to day two placements—not the starting point. The wild part? People gave off neural signals that suggested a new memory was being laid in the brain—even if it was wrong.

When you recall a memory, there’s a possibility that your brain creates another memory of that retrieval, says Donna J. Bridge, Ph.D., the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. When the details are confusing (like remembering something in a different environment, mood, or time), an incorrect recollection could become part of that original memory.

So the next time you need to remember something correctly, try one of these three tips. 

Look, Snap, Connect
This three-step method helps you create meaning, which leads to faster and more accurate remembrance, says Gary Small, M.D., a psychiatry professor at UCLA’s Semel Institute and co-author of The Alzheimer’s Prevention Program. ‘Look’ is a reminder to focus your attention; ‘snap’ is when you create images in your mind of what you want to recall later on, and ‘connect’ is a way to link up the mind pictures and make them more meaningful. Take Small’s example: If you have to buy eggs, stamps, and shoes in one trip and want to make sure you hit all three, imagine yourself holding a large egg with a stamp on it, and then watch the egg slip from your hands and break all over your shoe. He says the image of the wet stamp and eggshell on your shoe should be memorable enough. (Pro tip: If your errands include buying porn, picking up your stuff from your ex’s place, and finding an anniversary card for your parents . . . try something else.)

Tip of the Tongue
You know who’s jamming on the radio, but it’s escaping you. Grab your smartphone or a piece of paper and jot down all the clues you’re using to figure out the name (including a specific lyric from the song, the year you think it was released, or the name of the radio station). Tip-of-the-tongue experiences are from a memory that’s in there—you just haven’t retrieved it in a while, Small says. Your neurons are rusty, but you can reunite the pathways by using these triggers to jog your memory.

Use a Phrase for Passwords
In a way, the rise of the smartphone has meant that we store less information in our brains as long as we know how to retrieve it. (It’s Why Google Is Making You Stupid.) Small says the trick here is to how to choose your passwords wisely, no matter how many you have, by assigning a meaning to each of them. This way they’ll be easier to remember. A non-intuitive pattern like “My dog Rocky always makes me laugh” (the password would be: MdRamml) that alternates capitals or is made around the first letters of a phrase should suffice. 

http://news.menshealth.com/3-ways-to-remember-anything/2012/09/26/

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Creative Fall Centerpieces Featuring Natural Element

Bittersweet Pumpkin Centerpiece

White pumpkins and twisted vines of bittersweet put on an unrivaled display. Wrap long berry-laden vines two or three times around medium-size pumpkins, and secure the ends with florist's wire. Parade the wrapped pumpkins down the center of the table. Add to the warm autumn mood with glass votives partially filled with bittersweet berries. Bittersweet vines are also lovely tucked into a colored glass bottle, swirled inside a clear hurricane, or used as an accent with other fallplants.

Editor's Tip: To better preserve the color of bittersweet berries, keep the cut ends of the stems in about an inch of water while the berries dry out over a few days. Bittersweet berries hold their color for several weeks, making them a long-lasting seasonal accent.

Corks and Candles Centerpiece

Play the rustic, uneven colors and natural textures of wine corks against the smooth shimmer of clear glass for a simple and elegantfall centerpiece. A large footed glass candleholder lifts the scene above the table setting, while a white votive shimmers in the center of the medley of corks. Set the sophisticated neutral centerpiece on a brighttable runner to set the scene with fall color. 

Editor's Tip: For more fall flavor, tuck brightly colored leaves or berries amid the corks. Make sure any flammable elements are protected from the candle flame.

Painted Acorns Centerpiece

Oak trees drop beautiful elements perfect for afall centerpiece. Acorns become easy ornaments with a coat of acrylic paint on the seeds and loops of twine glued to the caps. Drape the acorn ornaments on a branch slipped inside a shapely vase. Place the vase in a silver tray filled with unpainted acorns. Bright red accents -- vase, napkins, and place mats -- add vibrant appeal. 

Editor's Tip: Choose an accent that suits your tableware palette. The hues of fall -- red, orange, gold, and yellow -- are particularly lovely in accessories, but blue, purple, and green shades also add an unexpected burst ofcolor to the nut-brown vignette.

Flowers Under Glass

Flip your thinking -- this creative centerpiece turns wine and champagne glasses on their heads for a fancy, no-fuss eye-catcher. Trim full-bloom florals at their stem, then tuck them under glasses. A charger helps bump it up a notch.

Editor's Tip: Fake flowers work just as well and last through the entire season.

Milkweed Seeds in Glass Display

Nestled with gourds in a natural woven tray, a glass vase filled with downy milkweed seeds captures the essence of fall's fleeting finish. White gourds -- with hints of yellow -- and wispy ginkgo leaves accentuate the pale scheme, while the rough texture of the basket provides a contrasting foundation for the centerpiece.

White Pumpkin Wreath Centerpiece

Orange and gold may be the traditional colorsof fall, but the ghostly hues of white pumpkins and pale pistachios have their own appeal. Design an intriguing centerpiece by gluing miniature white pumpkins to a straw wreath. Glue pistachios in the open spaces to cover the wreath. A white pillar candle set in the center completes the nature-focused tone-on-tone look.

Editor's Tip: If you prefer orange pumpkins, create a similar monochromatic look with miniature orange pumpkins, bittersweet sprigs, and an orange pillar candle.

Cattails Centerpiece

Create simple but striking arrangements with autumn beauties. A single cattail stalk with its fuzzy brown head and slender green stalk is lovely on its own. Grouped in individual green glass cylinder vases, the cattail stems' simplicity takes on dramatic elegance. Nest the stalks in a base of dried nuts, beans, or stones to echo the brown heads. You also can create a grouping of single stems using ornamental grasses, coneflower seed heads, or dried hydrangea blooms

Get more tips on : http://www.bhg.com/halloween/decorating/creative-fall-centerpieces-featuring-natural-elements/

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The Mayan Riviera - Investment Opportunity

Looking for an investment opportunity?  Check out The Fives in the Mayan Riviera!!  Two seminars coming up in the GTA.  Register now, space is limited.  Call Asif for more details at 905-888-6222.

REGISTER NOW: TORONTO October 11th MISSISSAUGA October 10th

Asif Khan, ABR

Brokerage

asif@asifkhan.ca

905-888-6222

Re/Max All-Stars Realty Inc.

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