Nader Shureih
Editor in Chief
As a market researcher with the federal government, Nader's energies are focused on the good of the public - looking at the Canadian cultural and social landscape for the purpose of developing stronger ties between and among Canadians.
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Archives
NHA Blog
Proud to Launch New Web Video Series for Ottawa Home Buyers
Posted by admin | August 20th, 2010
Hi! Gen Tremblay here, President of New Home Alert. I’m really excited to share with you our very first pilot episode of ‘New Home Ed’ - launched today! Ed is New Home Alert’s newest personality, with a mandate to find local experts to educate Ottawa home buyers. The web video series focuses on what comes before, during and after the purchase of a new home. Ok, so why am I so excited, you might ask, when everybody else and his dog are creating videos and posting them on YouTube?
If everybody else and there dog are posting videos on YouTube, they’re also watching them. Over 1,000,000,000 videos are downloaded everyday on the web. When you combine a camera and an expert, you can get pretty interesting results! We believe that seeing is believing…so we’re bringing you current, engaging, entertaining and educational topics in the form of video. The series is far from being TV material (but kudos to our videographer Chris from Reality Homes for producing quality HD episodes). While fully researched prior to shooting, each episode is unscripted, exclusively local, and brings a human elemant to perhaps dry subjects. It’s real!
Episode 1: Buying an Energy-Efficient Home
The first ‘New Home Ed’ episode is about buying an energy-efficient home. Expert John Corvinelli of Corvinelli Homes takes us through an energy-efficient home, describing the important features and showing us what to look for. He’s excited to be able to share his knowledge and passion with future home buyers. He says ”energy-efficient homes and ‘green’ homes are just buzz words. My goal is to make sure home buyers don’t just use the words, but know exactly what they mean so they make informed decisions when buying a home.”
John was the perfect candidate to shoot our first episode, being so experienced and well-versed in the subject. He’s an honest man who truly cares. We hope this is what you will appreciate from all of our episodes.
Enjoy the first one!
IN THE NEWS: New Home Alert Inc announces launch of website for Ottawa home buyers
Posted by admin | August 5th, 2010
OTTAWA, ONTARIO – New Home Alert Inc. is pleased to announce the launch of its website for Ottawa home buyers. New Home Alert (www.newhomealert.ca) is Ottawa’s leading free search engine for new homes, filling an important void in the local real estate market that websites such as MLS® and Grapevine do not. The website offers the largest selection of local builders from Ottawa and Gatineau, with more than 150 new residential developments and 2,500 floor plans to view.
New Home Alert creates a positive and enhanced house hunting experience for home buyers with easy to navigate content via images and videos. The site also allows users to search for immediate occupancies and energy-efficient homes across the Ottawa-Gatineau region. With regularly refreshed content, home buyers can also benefit from email alerts on their favorite builders and models.
With more than 85% of home buyers now using the web to start their home buying process, “this tool is a great resource for local home buyers to make an informed decision about the most important purchase of their lives”, says CEO Sébastien Lessard. He adds that “There are many advantages to buying a new home, and we felt it was time for home buyers to quickly find the full range of options in our local new home market”.
John Corvinelli, President of long-time local builder Corvinelli Homes, confirms that “having my listings on New Home Alert has increased my number of sales”. He continues by saying that “the search engine is having a positive impact on the new home industry in Ottawa, generating more leads for home builders. Collectively, we are in a much better position to compete with the resale market than individually”.
About New Home Alert Inc.
New Home Alert is a local company established by 3 entrepreneurs to fill an important void in the Ottawa real estate market. Offering thousands of listings, it is the leading search engine for new homes.
New Home Alert’s goal is to be the #1 resource for local home buyers and the most forward thinking form of media for the new home industry. Proud to create a positive new home hunting experience, New Home Alert provides home buyers engaging content.
With promotional opportunities within its platform, New Home Alert also assists local builders and businesses to promote their products and services to home buyers in a creative and engaging new form of media: videos, video blogs and social media releases.
Contact Information:
Gen Tremblay - President
New Home Alert Inc.
www.newhomealert.ca
613.858.7298
gen@nha.ca
Franchising opportunities available.
Homes - Virtual Tours or Video Tours?
Posted by admin | July 14th, 2010
Hi – Seb here, CEO of New Home Alert. Our mission has always been to educate future Ottawa home buyers about the local new home industry by creating a positive and enhanced house hunting experience with easy to navigate content via images and videos of thousands of new home listings.
Most of the listings on our website feature 2D elevations and floor plans. These pictures and images can be very useful to give a general idea of what a home will look like once it is built. But for many people, trying to visualize the inside of a home with 2D plans is challenging.
When searching for resale homes on http://www.MLS.ca, I always take the time to view the “multimedia” link, which leads me to a virtual tour of the home. While I appreciate seeing all of those pictures, there’s nothing like seeing a video tour to get a better appreciation of the flow and size of a home.
I’m probably not the only one that appreciates seeing video, since over 1 billion videos are downloaded every day by web users around the world. That is why we have partnered with RealityHomes.ca, a local company specializing in shooting quality HD video tours of residential properties.
Video tour vs virtual tour?
What’s the difference between a video tour and a virtual tour you will ask? Most of the multimedia used to feature resale listings is virtual tours which consist of “stitching” of photos to produce a 360 degree tour of a room in a house. Video tours on the other hand are produced by a videographer who walks through every room in a home and then edits the footage to produce a video.
Personnaly, I feel that video tours present the most realistic view of a home. New Home Alert would like your opinion on the subject. Check out the following two videos, and determine for yourselves…
Virtual Tour
We appreciate your feedback! It will help us develop the best solutions to help you in your search for your next dream home!
Buying a new home brings out the designer in you!
Posted by admin | July 12th, 2010
Hi - Seb here (CEO of New Home Alert). One of the most exciting things about buying a new home is being able to personalize the core design elements of your home: the exterior finishes, the kitchen cabinets, the floors, the bathroom tiles, and so on. With all of the TV shows and magazines dedicated to interior design, most of us are inspired to become amateur interior designers, right?
My business partner Gen is building a custom home in Ottawa, and she’s in the process of choosing the finishes with her home builder. Yesterday at our business meeting, we spent the first hour exchanging ideas on the design of her new kitchen. We probably could have spent another 3 hours on the topic, going through the dozens of magazines she had on kitchen design ideas, but duty called!
Every future home buyer will have to go through this process of choosing finishes, and we know the list of finishes and options can be quite daunting. Because of this, New Home Alert is very excited to introduce a web video series dedicated to educating future home buyers with tips and advice for choosing the finishes of your new home. Our interior design series will feature a young and dynamic Ottawa company - Custom Home Interiors (CHI), who has in fact become a resource of choice for Gen in her new home buying process.
Custom Home Interiors is the ideal resource to help us create these web episodes, since they already work with Ottawa home builders and understand the new home buying process. You can look for episodes to start airing soon on www.newhomealert.ca, or follow us on Twitter or join our Facebook Fan page, where our episodes will be posted as we release them.
I look forward to presenting to all of you the great team at Custom Home Interiors and to get your feedback and suggestions on topics you’d like us to explore.
Oh, and one last thing. I hope this blog posting inspires Gen to start blogging about her own home building experience… What are you waiting for Gen?
Green Washing in New Homes
Posted by admin | June 1st, 2010
Has your new home really been built to ENERGY STAR standards?
Hi! Seb Lessard here, (CEO of New Home Alert.ca) writing about an interesting subject that recently caught my attention: ‘green washing’ in new homes. The ENERGY STAR certification logo has become one of the most recognized symbols today. Most of our household appliances like the hot water tank, the furnace and windows have the ENERGY STAR logo and the same can now be said with many new homes built in the greater Ottawa region. Some home builders will offer the ENERGY STAR certified home as a standard feature and others will sell this feature as an upgrade. But what does it really mean to buy an ENERGY STAR certified home and are you always getting what you paid for?
The quick and dirty goes as follows: your new home is built with materials and standards to minimize the loss/infiltration of hot or cold air in the house and use products that consume less energy to heat and cool the home. The major differences between a home built to the Ontario Building Code Standards (OBCS) and the ENERGY STAR Building Code Standards are:
· Exterior wall insulation has an R-22 factor vs. the standard R-19 factor
· Basement wall insulation is full height vs. the standard 2’ below grade
· Installed furnace has a 90% AFUE vs. the 88% AFUE standard requirement
· The duct work joints are all sealed vs. not being mandatory in the OBCS
· All windows need to be ENERGY STAR certified vs. not being mandatory in the OBCS
· Fully ducted HRV vs. the standard 50 CFM bath fan
The one thing in common for all home builders is that it costs them more to build ENERGY STAR certified homes, which is why some choose to offer this feature as an upgrade, leaving the buyer to determine if they want their home certified or not.
So what is ‘green washing’?
Here is where the problem lies. Some builders are ENERGY STAR Certified (i.e. have taken the course), but are not delivering each new home owner an individually ENERGY STAR certified home. This is called “green washing”, and you could be a victim of it!
A lot of the features that must be included in the build are hidden behind the closed walls and ceiling. It’s almost impossible for the average new home owner to know if the proper materials or techniques were used to build an ENERGY STAR certified home. To check that your new home was in fact inspected, you need to look on your electrical panel to see the ENERGY STAR registration number for your home. Some builders will even hand you a Natural Resources Canada Certificate confirming that your home was inspected and that it met the ENERGY STAR Building Code Standards.
If you haven’t received this certificate or you can’t find the ENERGY STAR registration number on your electrical panel, give your builder a call to make sure your home was inspected and registered with Natural Resources Canada. After all, kudos to you for having made a conscious effort to become more energy efficient, and shame on your builder for ‘green washing’ your home.
Stay tuned in the upcoming weeks for video blog on the ENERGY STAR certification in new homes. We’re meeting a nationally recognized ENERGY STAR builder with multiple awards under his belt, and he’ll actually show us the components that go into building to ENERGY STAR certified home.
How REALTORS® Help?
Posted by admin | May 18th, 2010
Many of you have probably seen the ads running on television promoting the website http://www.howrealtorshelp.ca/. I (Seb Lessard- CEO of New Home Alert) visited the website and found it to be very insightful and easy to navigate. I recommend to everyone entertaining the idea of buying or selling a home to take a look at the website to learn more about the important role of a REALTOR® during the purchasing and selling process. Visitors to the website can find very practical tools (forms and checklists) they can download and use before and during their house hunting experience.
The one thing missing on the http://www.howrealtorshelp.ca/ website is information about buying a new home (pre-construction) and the role of a REALTOR® if one chooses a new construction rather than a resale home.
With 9 out of 10 future home buyers using the web to start their research for their next home, many of them are now finding the choice in new homes available by local homebuilders. In Ottawa and Gatineau, the www.newhomealert.ca website presents more than 1,500 new home listings in over 100 residential communities. Can a REALTOR® help their home buyer clients uncover the choice available? Would it be beneficial for home buyers to have a REALTOR® assist them with buying a new home? You bet!
With “MLS like” search engines catering to the residential construction industry (such as www.newhomealert.ca) and the ‘for sale by owner’ industry (such as www.grapevine.ca), it may be time for REALTORS® to start learning about the role they can play to assist home buyers looking to buy a home not represented by a real estate agent.
There’s no doubt about it, REALTORS® really do have a wealth of knowledge to share with their clients, and their participation in a transaction alleviates many of the hardships involved. With easy to access information via web and mobile technologies, REALTORS® can rise to the top of their very competitive field by simply being able to help in all aspects of their local housing market.
The real estate game will drastically change for real estate agents with the imminent changes to the MLS service and the REALTORS® loss of its exclusive use. Add to this, emerging services where home buyers can find more web resources they can use and in no time, we could see the role of a REALTOR® diminish in importance…unless they become more multi-faceted in the expert knowledge they can share with their clients. Maybe that’s how the role of a REALTOR® will be defined in the future. Just a thought!
Russell, Ontario – Home of the beautiful Milan
Posted by admin | May 6th, 2010
As I (Gen Tremblay), sit down with long-time home builder John Corvinelli and his sales representative Tanya at a local diner in Russell, Ontario, I realize how very familiar everyone and everything seems around me. Why do I feel so at home in this place? Why do all of these smiley faces look familiar? As I listen to John and Tanya describe their daily lives in this very quaint village, I realize that the people of Russell, including John and Tanya, have everything to do with that ‘homey’ feeling.
Driving just 30 minutes east of Ottawa to get to Russell, I appreciate this time to unwind and relax before meeting with Corvinelli Homes. So what takes me there? The beautiful Milan home model in the residential community of Solidex Place. Chris Dunn of Reality Homes and I are there to shoot a video tour of this beautiful 1,700 sqft bungalow. John gives us a personal tour of the home, and describes his home with such pride, as if he had nailed every single nail himself. And then just like a magician pulls a trick from his hat, he starts to talk passionately about the energy-efficient features in all of his homes and the awards he has won for building green homes. Now he’s talkin’, so much so that this deserves its own blog posting. Stay tuned…
I’ve always been attracted to bungalows, but The Milan is a winner for me. I’ll let you see for yourself. Enjoy the video!
Mission: Get to know Ottawa Home Builders
Posted by admin | May 6th, 2010
My first blog posting…ever! I’m a bit nervous, but I’ll get over it! I’m Gen Tremblay, President of NewHomeAlert.ca, and my goal with this blog is to share with you the experiences that I have with our local home builders as I develop relationships with them. What I’m learning is that there is a face behind each builder, and each one of them has a story. But most importantly, somewhere in Ottawa, I think there is a builder that is building the perfect house for you, in your ideal neighbourhood. So my mission is to give you insight on these builders and hopefully help you in your home purchasing decisions.
When I first started out with New Home Alert, I didn’t know the size of the Ottawa new home industry. I could only name five home builders in Ottawa (who shall remain nameless). I’m pretty sure if we compared lists, we would have the same names. So now I’m learning, and my personal commitment is to bring you a series of insightful blog postings, short and sweet. And the first one follows.
Message from the CEO
Posted by admin | August 7th, 2009
Hello readers, Sebastien Lessard here, co-founder of NHA.ca and former new homes sales representative. As of today I’ll be starting a new mission of bringing you the readers and future home buyers, inside the ropes of our local residential construction industry. My efforts will see me try to contact every home builder in our region and get them to share some insight into how they go about building their homes and in turn provide us with the best choice of quality housing.
As you’ll quickly notice, and you may already have, I’m not the most eloquent writer and my French background may come through some times (or often times) in my postings. For this I apologize and hope that you can forgive me!?! You will however notice that I’m very passionate about helping home buyers in their most important financial decision they have to make in their present lives, buying a new home.
As a former new home sales representative I have met with thousands of future home buyers and this experience has led me to understand the hardships and tough decisions that come with trying to find the perfect home. As we did when creating this website, my goal will remain to shed a light on subjects of interest for all buyers and try to present the positive aspects and benefits that come with purchasing a new home from a home builder.
So moving forward, you will be able to follow my in & outs of interactions I’ve had with builders, my visits on site of their residential communities and the impressions they left with me afterwards. Now since I’m doing this to help you in your purchase process, your feedback, your insight and your questions will help me a great deal to ensure I provide you with the information you want and need. Therefore don’t be shy to write your comments and in doing so we can all help each other and make our experiences of buying a new home what they should be…fun and exciting!
I’m very excited with this new objective and I look forward to hearing from you! You can also follow me on Twitter @Seb_NHA and on Facebook.
Talk to you soon!
Thoughts?
Posted by admin | August 5th, 2009
Dear readers,
As the summer months pass, and NHA sees more and more visitors, we feel that this blog would be a great forum to help make NHA and the new home community at large a more interactive place by bringing together our collective thoughts and ideas.
The NHA blog welcomes your blog ideas and contributions.
Tell us what you’re interested in, what, in terms of housing, is on your mind, and what is it that you want to read about. Do you want to know more about eco-friendly retrofits? Do you want more information on Ottawa’s neighbourhoods?
Give us your thoughts, submit your articles, leave comments, and we will listen!
The opinions and positions expressed in any blogs, wiki's and comments in the above links do not necessarily reflect those of nha, its partners, members or users.