When it comes to buying a new home, the majority of Canadians are sold on safe neighburhoods.

There's a lot to consider when looking for a new home besides the price and the features it has to offer.

In fact, a safe neighbourhood is the big sell for homebuyers, according to a survey by BMO Bank of Montreal.

How do you know you've found the right home? Well, it's love at first sight of course.

According to a new report by BMO Bank of Montreal, 80 per cent of prospective homebuyers are sold on a home when they first set eyes on it.

The Psychology of House Hunting report, conducted by Pollara, also found that while 80 per cent know right off the bat that it's the perfect home for them, another 68 per cent say they are willing to settle for a home that's less than perfect.

Does your life seem like the movie Failure to Launch when your adult child is still living with you at home?

In the 2006 comedy, the reason for the 35-year-old main character's failure to leave home is that he's just too comfortable living with mom and dad where everything is looked after for him.

But today, in reality, it just may be the cost of moving out that's holding junior back.

Most homebuyers shopping in a choppy market are taking their time. But, if you're in the minority of people who have a deadline - because of an impending birth or a new job - this environment offers both opportunities and challenges.

Some people who move too quickly are motivated by timing pressures related to relocation, while others worry they'll be living with their parents because they've sold their home a bit faster than expected.

But the bigger issue is often with stressed sellers who are simply too anxious to get out in a hurry.

When a homeowner is desperate to sell and a buyer is ready to fork over the cash, the truth about a house is often swept under the rug, experts suggest.

Smoking is not only bad for your health but it's also bad for your house.

According to a new survey, smoking in your home can lower it's resale value.

In fact, it can lower the property value by up to 29 per cent. And, based on an average Canadian house price of $378,532, that's a loss of over $109,000.

Is there an ideal price tag attached to the dream of home ownership?

Well, first-time homebuyers in Canada think so. In fact, they are zooming in on the $300,000 price range when looking for a new house.

And, they plan on putting down about 16 per cent ($48,000), according to a new BMO First-Time Home Buyer's Report.

Sales of existing homes in Canada fell again last month, the Canadian Real Estate Association announced today, one more example that Canada’s runaway housing market is slumping.

What’s more interesting, however, is that actual sales for December, while not seasonally adjusted, were off 17.4% from a year earlier. That's quite a drop, given that interest rates remain essentially unchanged over the period. 

But rates don't matter if you can't get a mortgage in the first place.

It seems that Finance Minister Flaherty’s latest round of rule changes, which included cutting the maximum length of insured mortgages to 25 years from 30, may be making even more of a dent than expected.

Remember all that talk of a pending crash or, at the very least, a pending slowdown in Canada's housing market?

Finally, after much speculation, it's here. According to Royal LePage, a reduction in home sales will hit Canada in for the first half of 2013 -- a mild, brief slump, but a slump all the same.

Of course, all this is for the peasants.

Because when it's time to discuss the nation's million-dollar homes, the market's hot, hot, hot across the country.

Nearly four years ago, when I started on this very blog, the prevailing money story of the day was the Toronto housing market, which was so bloated it would burst any minute.

Specifically, we were talking the city’s condo market. Dubai was still the city most synonymous with construction cranes, but Toronto was getting there.

The question, even then, was: who’s buying these things?

As 2012 comes to a close, visitors to Toronto will notice the cranes haven’t left, and in fact they’ve grown in numbers, making Canada’s largest city the skyscraper capital of the western world.

Is now the time to lock in your mortgage? No, not yet, mortgage broker David Larock maintains.

Traditionally, a five-year fixed-rate mortgage has been about 1.5 percentage points higher than the five-year variable rate, depending on the prevailing yield curve. Today, you can get a five-year fixed mortgage for much less than that. 

Fixed-rate mortgages have traditionally been popular among first-time buyers looking for predictability in their payments. But the Bank of Canada's recent decision to stand firm on rates is likely going to keep variable-rate mortgages attractive for some time.

Larock says he’s able to offer his clients five-year variable-rate mortgages at prime minus 0.4 percentage points, or 2.6 per cent. Five-year fixed-rate mortgages can be had for 2.99 per cent, he says.

Most studies says that variable-rate mortgages have worked out to be better than fixed-rate mortgages over the past 25 years. And the difference was fairly dramatic, saving consumers thousands in potential interest costs. But is this likely to be the case going forward?

Yes, says Larock.