Over the last few months, you’ve been following our story as Julio and I spent months navigating the Toronto housing market in collaboration with Engel & Vo?lkers. Our mission: to find a family-friendly unit that would be the perfect starter home for Canela, Julio and I as we expand our growing family (yes, you read that right!). We learned quickly that family-friendly units in Toronto are in short supply. Our real estate advisor, Shawn Blander, of Engel & Völkers Toronto Uptown proved to be an asset in a market that is really competitive right now, but we’ll get to that later. After months of searching, we’re SO excited to announce that we finally found the perfect home! Just in time to be the best Christmas present from ourselves to ourselves. I can’t wait until we can have a housewarming party so we can show our friends and family our new home. A couple of our friends have moved into a new house too and I’ve heard about a gift Source website where I can buy a fabulous gift for them and their new place.
Rewind! You’ll remember that back in June, Julio and I started working with the team at Engel & Vo?lkers. We chose them because Engel & Völkers believes luxury is personal and all about the experiences we want to achieve in the place we called “home” – something we really value. Now, we’re not saying that other real estate agents wouldn’t have treated us in the same way, but they just seemed like a perfect fit for us when it came to looking for a home. It also helped that they were local to our area too. Our friends had a great experience with their estate agents in Burlington, (read more about it here) and so that restored our belief in knowing that there are great companies around. It’s just about finding the ones who are able to fit in with what you want. In our case, they completely understood what we were looking for and presented us with precisely the right types of properties based on our personalized needs, all in an efficient manner that fit in with our crazy schedules. Overall, it was a great experience with Shawn acting as an amazing consultant and partner throughout our journey.
This year, Engel & Vo?lkers was the first to make VR tech a standard at across its North America shops. This means that we were able to browse 3D listings at Engel & Völkers’ Toronto Uptown shop andremotely using the immoviewer app and Google cardboard glasses.
Curious? Here’s a link to a 360 tour of our new place!
What we couldn’t have known about the Toronto real estate market is how competitive it truly is. As a city, Toronto is in an exciting growth phase, however two and three bedroom units, designed for millennials entering child-rearing years are in short supply. This summer we dealt with competition, crazy overbidding, and many other situations that we didn’t see coming. I can honestly say that we learned the true advantage of working with a service-first brand like Engel & Vo?lkers. At the end of it all, when our deal was signed we received a note from the property’s listing agent that we thought would be nice to share with you. While there were multiple offers on the property, with two others wanting to come in higher, the owners ultimately decided to accept our offer because they felt better working with us and our agent. Not only did Engel & Vo?lkers do an incredible job in representing us to secure the property, they even negotiated a better price than we expected!
And just like that my friends, we received the call that the house was ours. I am beyond excited to be moving from our current condo in Liberty Village to an entire house. We now have space to grow into. Moving into a new home is always a bittersweet process, but there are ways to make it run more smoothly such as hiring a Professional Moving Company to ease the process. As for our house, there is a second bedroom to make into an office, that could one day become a nursery if we invest in a bit of paint and wall stickers just to give it a little more character. Most importantly, we have found a new neighbourhood to explore and fall in love with. The house is also located close to Julio’s family – another bonus! Having moved more times than I care to admit in the years that I have lived on my own and with roommates, I can say with certainty that this has been the best experience to date. With the help of Shawn and the Engel & Vo?lkers team, we found our dream home and can now proceed into the next chapter of our lives.
For those of you also looking for a new home in Canada, I encourage you to check out the Engel & Vo?lkers website today. For our readers outside of Canada, Engel & Vo?lkers has a global network that spans more than 30 countries. And of course, don’t forget to follow along in the excitement of finding a new home with us by following @EVAmericas on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Use and follow #EVAmericas to see and share beautiful houses around the world.
For more behind the scenes of this and other amazing brands we are working with around the world, make sure to follow along with the #DoTheDaniel Instagram account. We would love to have you join on our adventures!
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Photos: All social media accounts listed above, Engel & Vo?lkers & Daniel Reyes
Cheers!
Mobile photos are always taken on my NEW Huawei P10 Plus
*Please note that this is a sponsored post – our disclosure can be found at all times by clicking here.