Thomas Cook
Toronto Real Estate Specialist
Office: 416-465-7850
Cell: 647-962-1650
Email: Thomas@LivingInToronto.com
It all started in 1979 after I sold my skydiving and hang gliding businesses based in Montreal. I decided that I needed to move into a profession that had broad appeal instead of a very narrow group of sports enthusiasts. It was either the food business (McDonalds restaurant) or real estate.
Real estate won out because I didn’t have the cash available to purchase a franchise. By September 1980 I had moved to Toronto, was licensed and never looked back :).
Two years later I started my own property management business and shortly thereafter opened up my own mortgage brokerage business. Running these two businesses alongside the real estate sales business was very helpful in learning how to help investor clients deal with their rental properties and in providing excellent financing advice to all my buyer and seller clientele.
Jumping forward to the early 1990’s, I started a real estate team and the fabulous journey began. By 1998 we were doing home buyer workshops on a regular basis and had developed several unique, proprietary systems for successfully helping home buyers and sellers.
Throughout the 2000’s we grew the team, ran multiple home buyer workshops monthly and had the good fortune to become one of the top teams for RE/MAX both in Canada and internationally out of almost 100,000 Realtors world-wide.
A few years ago I was presented with the RE/MAX Circle Of Legends award which signifies that I’ve helped over 2,300 families with their real estate needs.
Our HOMEWatch Program, Starbucks Strategy Sessions and Buyer Consultations, Market Experience Tours, Room-By-Room Review and Seller Standout Marketing Program became an essential part of the home buying and selling experience to thousands of Toronto buyers and sellers.
Our goal is to help people become educated home buyers and sellers at whatever pace they feel comfortable with. There have been times where clients have made a buying or selling decision within days of us meeting and there have been many others where they took several months or more.
Our record is working with one buyer who had several health issues and took over 12 years to make the move to home ownership. Whatever pace works with our clients works for us too!
Our team works with our clientele on a ‘By Referral Only’ basis - we want each and every Toronto home buyer or seller we help to be so happy with the advice and counsel we’ve given them throughout the process that they’re very comfortable with referring us to their friends and family.
As a result, every year over 70% of our business comes from past clients returning to us and them referring us to people they know!
In the last several years, I have been called upon to share my real estate knowledge and expertise with other Realtors. Every year I’ve taught several classes at the RE/MAX Hallmark Training Centre to help educate newer Realtors.
I’ve also travelled to Vienna-Austria, Istanbul-Turkey, Madrid-Spain and London-England for RE/MAX Europe and to several cities and towns across the province for the Ontario Real Estate Association.
I’ve also become the Toronto real estate market analyst for our brokerage and do monthly statistical analysis of the Toronto market for both the company and our clients.
In 2016 I published my book… The Ultimate Toronto Home Buyers Guide… which buyer clients can download as a PDF or receive the soft-cover book itself.
Along with our Team, I’ve contributed on behalf of our buyers and sellers just OVER $114,000 to the Children’s Miracle Network which helps conquer childhood diseases and treat our kids at Toronto’s Sick Kids Hospital when they need it. Our goal is to bring that total contribution up to $120,000 by the end of 2017!
Every year we continue to innovate and design new services to help our buyer and seller clients achieve their real estate goals.
The most exciting part of this business for me is seeing the joy on people’s faces when they’ve bought or sold their home and we’ve been fortunate that many of them have been willing to share their experiences with you.
Let’s start off slowly… meet with me for 15 minutes over a coffee so we can consider whether we might be a fit and become the perfect Realtors to help you with your next real estate transaction.
