A hole in the middle of a living room floor is patently obvious to everyone that visits a home, however what if there's a carpet and piece of furniture over top of it? It will be discovered after a Seller has moved out of the home and the hole is discovered latently! What are the rights and responsibilities of each party:
In this episode Toby McPhee shares the fundamentals of decluttering our lives. Learn how this process can:
Furniture Bank Toronto is a registered charity that changes lives by providing furniture and housewares to people experiencing poverty or displacement.
We share Furniture Bank vision of a world where everyone has the stability and dignity of a furnished home.
Moving? Downsizing? Remodeling? Your used furniture & housewares have value and can be donated. You'll receive an in-kind tax receipt & the exceptional good feelings of helping our Community.
Watch the Magic Unfold!
A growing need in Toronto. Recipients include women and children escaping abuse, newcomers, refugees and those transitioning out of homelessness.
Using the service as one of our RE/MAX Hallmark clients, you are eligible for exclusive flat fee pricing for furniture pick-up's and an invite to the super-cool8th Annual Chair Affair Fundraiser with us (Matt & Madalin Emerson) on Friday November 2nd, 2018.
Think move in ready! This, after all, is the on-demand generation. A dollar spent on updating a bathroom is money well spent or fresh paint goes a long way.
The falling prices of solar panels combined with the ever improving product quality make this a highly enticing feature to have for an environmentally conscious younger demographic.
Outdoor space should have a "relaxing retreat" vibe. Adding a single outdoor patio with some exterior lighting would go a long way to painting the picture here.
The idea of having a beautifully designed room that is used for a grand total of 5 times a year (we're looking at your dining room) wouldn't be a great use of space. Converting this space into an everyday lounge area is the right alternative.
Adding a smart thermostat or security features like a doorbell camera or floodlights with a camera are not as costly as they may seem (check out our Smart Home Guide). Allowing a Millennial to access their home systems via smartphone is a great selling feature.
You've probably heard the term by now; "Smart Home". It's all the buzz for companies creating a technology to save you time, stress and energy.
The misconception is that you need a modern home with expensive upgrades to have a smart home.
It's not true.
Below are 6 relatively inexpensive way that you can smarten up your home (some may even save you money!).
1. Video Door Bells
It's always concerning hearing the doorbell and not knowing who is outside. More concerning when someone is at your door when you're not home. Leave the days of not knowing to rest. These doorbell cameras will let you see, and speak with the person who's at your door and decide on who gets to enter! (Under $200)
2. Swap Out Light Bulbs For LED
Energy saving light bulbs are not exactly brand new - but it's surprising how many people DO NOT use them! These bulbs are able to save you up to $125 per year! That might not be a ton of money - but could be enough to buy your that Amazon Echo you've been wishing for! ($10-$25)
3. Smart Outlets
Want to leave the lights on for a few hours while you're out with friends - or while your traveling? These handy outlets allow you to set timers that you can plug lamps and any other electronics that you want to be on at certain times. ($25-$75)
4. MOTION-SENSING LIGHT SWITCHES
Forgot to turn the lights off when you left home? No need to worry. These motion sensor light switches do the work for you and will turn off after a pre-determined amount of time. Also helpful for those late night trips to the bathroom. ($15-70)
5. Voice Controlled Bluetooth Devices
(Amazon Echo/Google Home) These hubs can literally do it all. Order groceries, turn on lights, control the heat - you name it! They each have personal voice assistants that can help you to play your favorite music and tell you any factoid you are looking for as well! ($69-129)
6. Wifi Temperature Systems
Hate coming home to a cold house? Or when you leave the heat blaring when you go out? These handy systems allow you to control the thermostat from anywhere inside, or outside you home! Just download the app that the system requires, and you can lay in bed comfortably and make sure your home is the perfect temp! ($60-200)
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RE/MAX Hallmark is pleased to announce that we are accepting applications for the 2018 Scholarship program.
Children of past and/or present clients who are applying for their first year of post-secondary education are eligible. This is an amazing program to help with all the expenses of achieving a higher education, and we're here to help your family succeed!
The deadline is for submissions is April 20th, 2018.
Applicant must be a child of a past or present client of RE/MAX Hallmark.
The applicant must be actively involved in the community (outside of organized school extracurricular activities and programs)
The applicant is required to submit:
Matt & Madalin will provide a testimonial of the applicant and why we feel that the applicant should be awarded the scholarship.
Applicants must be first-year post-secondary students.
The scholarship money is presented directly to the post-secondary institution on behalf of the applicant.
All applications are to be submitted no later than April 20th, 2018 for review by the Scholarship Committee.
Home sales (and values) have been on a strong uptick nationwide thanks to low interest rates, freer lending standards and a drop in the foreclosure rate. Sellers everywhere are breathing a giant, collective sigh of relief! But for all of the buyer activity, it seems like most houses sit on one end of two extremes: they either get snatched up the moment they hit the market (with multiple offers and an above-asking sale price) or seem to languish on the market without an offer in sight.
All sellers aspire to be on the multiple-offer end of the spectrum. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to make that happen. Here are five tips to move your listing in to the multiple offers zone.
Homes that get multiple offers are often sold in an "auction" atmosphere. If you think back to the last auction you saw on TV or participated in online, you'll remember this basic element of Auctions 101: the starting price is lower – sometimes quite a bit lower – than the final sale price.
In fact, it's the low list or starting price that gets people excited about the possibility of scoring a great value, whether they're bidding on an antique Chinese pug figurine on eBay or on your home. And when it comes to your home, it's that same, low-price-seeking excitement that will cause many more buyers to show up and view your home than would have come at a higher price point.
In real estate, more showings are an inescapable prerequisite to more offers.
This doesn't mean you have to give away the farm, just that sellers who get multiple offers price their properties from a retailer's or auctioneer's perspective. Work with your agent through the comparable sales data – as recent and as comparable as possible – and then do your best to list your home as a slight discount, not at a slight premium, compared to the recent neighborhood sales. That will get buyers' attention.
Put yourself in your target buyer's shoes. Say there are 40 homes on the market which meet their specifications, in terms of bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, price range and location. And 25 of those top the list. But they only have time to see 8 today. If the buyer's broker can't get into your house today, because you have so many restrictions around showing it, your home could very well miss out on a showing with this qualified, motivated buyer.
It might seem overly simple, but if you want multiple offers, it behooves you to make sure your home is available to be shown today. Every day that it is on the market. Inconvenient? Yes. Frustrating? Sometimes. A challenge to keep the place clean at all times? Assuredly. But consider your priorities and what is at stake. If getting top dollar for your home is at the top of your priority list, then you have to be ready and willing to deal with the inconvenience involved in churning up multiple offers and getting your home sold.
Really, really beautiful. The homes that get multiple offers are those with look, feel and function that can be described in one word: covetable. You're not trying to create a situation in which your home barely edges out the listing down the street in the hearts and minds of your target buyer. If you want multiple offers, you need multiple buyers to fall deeply in love with your home – enough to bid above the listing price, and enough to compete with others for it.
To generate multiple offers, prepare your home by ensuring it is: immaculately cleaned from the inside out – closets, basements, garages and crawl spaces included, de-cluttered and staged to the nines – this includes fresh paint, carpet and other things that need replacing in perfect working order – make sure things like doors, windows and systems buyers test (e.g., stoves, faucets, heating and air conditioning) are not creaky, wonky, leaky or otherwise dysfunctional.
If you've done any major home improvements or replaced any appliances or systems lately, market that! Show off how immaculate, adorable and move-in ready your home is now – and tout its great working condition for the long run.
An offer the very first day your home goes on the market may sound like a dream come true. But it might also incur opportunity costs. See, many buyers can't get out to see homes that quickly – some are unable to house hunt except on the weekends. Listing agents who get multiple offers often plan from the start to expose the home to the market long enough for target buyers to see it and get their offers on the table.
Some agents expressly include open house and offer review dates in the timeline of the listing. It's not uncommon to see a listing come on the market with a calendar of 1-2 Open Houses and an offer date sometime early in the week following the second one. Ask your agent to brief you on the standard practices for market exposure in your local area.
Setting – and publishing – a timeline for market exposure and offers lets buyers know that they will be able to get to the property and get their offers considered, while still creating a sense of urgency.
Is your home one of the houses that has been sitting on the market for months without any action? Do not fret – there might still be hope. In real estate, there's something insiders call the Sweet Spot Phenomenon, where an overpriced home sits on the market for months with no bites, sometimes even through multiple price reductions. Finally, the seller lowers the price to the 'sweet spot,' and it generates multiple offers and sells for more than the final list price.
Yes – there are listings whose sellers net more than they expected because they were willing to revise the list price downward in response to market feedback (i.e., no showings, no offers or lowball offers).
If your home has been lagging on the market, talk with your listing agent about what sort of price reduction strategy is likely to maximize your net sale price. Hint: many more buyers are attracted by chunky reductions or reductions below a common online search price point limit than by tiny, incremental reductions.
For example, you might draw more buyers, and ultimately more money, with a price reduction from $499,000 to $474,000 than with a series of small reductions from $499,000 to $479,000, because there is a set of buyers who may be cutting their search off at $475,000 – so a price cut below that point will expose your home to a whole new group of prospects.
