Edmonton Real Estate Blog

Today, we’re going to make you work for your money. Sounds fun, eh?

Making sure that your Edmonton home for sale is in top shape should be your priority before listing it in the Edmonton MLS. A run down property will of course have a run down price and we don’t want that, right?

Today, we made a point of reference for things that you should try to fix. Get this done and you’ll have your property sold in no time!

Remember to follow Serge on Instagram @SergeBourgoin and get a first hand view on how he’s helping Edmonton homebuyers, sellers and investors.

For a complete list of available Edmonton homes for sale, check out the new Edmonton MLS listings.

Remember to follow Serge on Instagram @SergeBourgoin and get a first hand view on how he’s helping Edmonton homebuyers, sellers and investors.

For a complete list of available Edmonton homes for sale, check out the new Edmonton MLS listings.

Making your home bright and shiny is really easy so I’ve come up with a 5 ways on how you can do it.

Whether you’re selling your Edmonton home, staging it for an Open House or you want to simply make it look good, these 5 tips will definitely add more aesthetics (and financial) value to your home.

Carpe Diem! Seize the moment! Take a day off and make all these home improvement happen.

Follow me on Instagram @SergeBourgoin and get a first hand view on how I’m helping Edmonton home buyers and sellers.

For a complete list of available Edmonton homes for sale, check out my new Edmonton MLS listings.

Home maintenance is one of the most important things every Edmonton home owner should keep in mind. No matter how busy you are, you should (BOLD face, underline intended) make time to do this activity.

In our today’s discussion, we feature Dave Watson’s monthly Edmonton Home Maintenance Tip: Maintaining The Bathroom Fan

This material is full of useful information that you can do today, no professional help required! Yes, you can do it yourself.

Note: Remember, you can access all our available Homes For Sale in Edmonton through our Edmonton MLS Listings page.

Visit Dave’s website at www.CanadianResidential.com

Home improvements are one of the major money boosters in the home selling process. A few tweaks here and there could have the potential to increase the value of your Edmonton home.

Time and again, we have reminded all our clients to prioritize home maintenance and make those necessary improvements, in order to sell the home fast. Some activities are FREE while others would cost a pretty penny-nonetheless, it’s an investment.

Today, we’re going to reverse the procedure. Instead of writing about the things TO-DO, we’ve decided to show the other side, the “dark side” of home improvements. Here’s an infographic from Angie’s list showing you what’s NOT TO-DO.

Oh, by the way, remember to check out our Edmonton MLS listings to access all the newly improved homes for sale in the great city of Edmonton!

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Fitting support of your HRV is critical to the unit’s life span, to hold vitality expenses down and above all, to keep up the indoor air quality for your loved ones.

Check out Certified Master Inspector, Dave Watson’s tips and tricks on how to properly maintain your HRV.

(click on the image to access the video)

Organizing an Edmonton home available to be purchased is basically setting up a house to be sold. There are various perspectives to organizing, yet there is a straightforward establishment to every last bit of it.

Procuring an expert stager is justified regardless of the venture on the grounds that they address all parts of arranging. Be that as it may imagine a scenario in which you have no arranging plan.

There are a few steps you can take to stage your Edmonton home available to be purchased — and a hefty portion of them don’t cost a dime. Here are five free things you can do to set up your Edmonton home to offer.

Clean!

The most obvious thing individuals consider while in a house is whether they trust it is clean. A home that is totally flawless shows too looked after.

Clean all windows all around. Clean all entryway edges, light installations, roof fans and blinds. Don’t leave a solitary spot in your home untouched. Potential purchasers look all over, so verify the whole home is clean.

Depersonalize the house

Pack up pretty much all individual photographs and family mementos. On the off chance that you have an extraordinary photograph of your family getting a charge out of an outdoors excursion or other family movement, you can forget it on presentation if your house is being showcased to families. This one family photograph plants a seed of satisfaction in a purchaser’s psyche, making them think how content their own family could be existing in the home.

All different photographs, representations and mementos must be pressed away out of perspective — and in a perfect world, put away outside the home. All in all, family photographs and souvenirs attract a purchaser’s consideration regarding your family and keep them from seeing your home as their potential home.

You’re not offering the family, you’re offering the house — so dependably let that be the inside of consideration.

Pack — and pack some more

You could most likely live agreeably for a brief time with about a large portion of the things you possess, particularly on the off chance that you have existed in your home for more than a couple of years. We every one of the have a tendency to gather things. Whether we utilize them or not doesn’t make a difference, however what does make a difference is showcasing the space your home brings to the table potential purchasers. You can’t showcase rooms that are loaded with stuff — particularly a lot of furniture.

Pack up as much as you can live without, then store it offsite if conceivable. Store pressed boxes and additional furniture conveniently far from living spaces regardless. On the off chance that you need to store things in the carport, make certain you leave enough space for an auto.

Beauty treatment on outside spaces

Open air living is currently a piece of regular life for the greater part of us. Potential purchasers will totally consider the open air spaces as discriminatingly as they do indoor spaces. In the event that you don’t have the financial backing to rouse the scene with blossoms and enhancing things, you can in any case verify the yard is splendidly manicured.

Keep your yard watered, and slice grass to more or less 3 inches high. Any shorter detracts from the new green look, and any more begins to look unkempt.

Foliage ought to be extremely slick and appropriately molded to match your neighborhood. Trim the trees so that a 6-foot-tall individual can without much of a stretch pass under them. This makes the trees show up taller, and gives the yard a clean, clean look.

Force wash the walkway, yard, deck, garage and wall. You will be astonished what a distinction this will make in the look of your home.

Lighten up

At the point when indicating or shooting your home for potential purchasers, open each visually impaired and blind in your home, and turn on every light. Indeed the lights over the stove and inside the broiler ought to be on. (Keep in mind, the apparatuses are flawless — they have to be flaunted!)

Purchasers are searching for “light and splendid,” not “dull and troubling,” so provide for them light. Help them perceive how clean and decently administered to your house is. Don’t be hesitant to move a light to light up a space on the off chance that you have to. May there be light — and parts and heaps of it.

It can be a considerable measure of work getting your home prepared to offer. Indeed with no arranging plan, you can in any case take the time to roll out a couple of improvements that will have a significant effect on your Edmonton home for sale.

To find out what the latest trend is in Edmonton home staging, check out our new and improved Edmonton MLS listings.

It’s a common issue — your room doesn’t feel terrible, just flat or not quite pulled together, and you’re not sure how to fix it. If this sounds familiar, your room is probably due for a refresh. Rather than replacing everything (too costly), focus on polishing up what you have and making smart choices about spending on new things. Check out this five-step solution of removing, refurbishing, painting, shifting and shopping your way to an improved room.

1. Remove

Before you add anything new (including paint), your first step should be to take away anything that is detracting from your room. Remove any furniture that’s dated or really far gone, decorative items that have lost their appeal and items that belong in other rooms and are cluttering up this one. Now is also the time to remove dust bunnies from under the couch and grime from the windows. Pare back and make what’s left as decent looking as possible.

2. Refurbish

Once you have edited the pieces in your room, it’s time to look at what’s left anew. It can help to invite a design-savvy friend over to help at this stage, but even taking photos of the space and looking at them yourself somewhere else (at a café, over a cup of coffee) can give you perspective. The goal in this step is to find at least one piece with good bones to refurbish.

A few refurbishing ideas:

• Have a chair or bench reupholstered.
• Paint a mirror frame.
• Shorten the legs of a desk to turn it into a coffee table.
• Add casters to a table.
• Paint the legs of a chair or table.
• Paint the drawer fronts of a chest.
• Change out cabinet knobs.
• Add decorative trim to an ottoman, a lampshade or curtains.

Refurbishing can also mean having something made, like slipcovers, to cover your current furniture and make it feel like new. When you are having slipcovers made, consider increasing the length slightly to cover the feet of your sofa or chair — sometimes this subtle shift can make a big difference in how a room feels.

3. Paint

Even if you just painted last year, you can bet there are already a few spots worth touching up. Fill small nail holes and dings before covering them with a dab of leftover paint.

If it has been a while since the last time you painted, giving your room a fresh coat of color could be just what the house doctor ordered. The trend now is leaning away from colored accent walls in favor of rich color throughout the room. You could even try painting the trim and ceiling to match for a luxurious look in a small space.

Another fun painting project that can make a huge difference in a room is to give paint-grade built-ins a nice, rich hue. You still really can’t go wrong with a warm gray; it looks sophisticated and inviting, and works with any style.

4. Shift

After you paint is a natural time to try a new furniture arrangement, because you will be moving your furniture around anyway; use it as an opportunity to think outside the box. Try shifting the focal point of your room away from the TV to a fireplace or a window with a view.

If you have always had your couch pushed against the wall, try pulling it closer to the center of the room, or add a sofa table with lamps behind it. Move your bed to a different wall, swap the position of your chairs, move houseplants to different positions — challenge yourself to arrange things in a completely new way. And if you don’t like the new location of a piece, you can always change it back.

Right after repainting is also a great time to try something new on the walls. With all of your artwork and photos down, try shuffling them into different groupings on the floor and see if something sparks your imagination. Look around for a few found objects you could add to your gallery wall, like postcards or beaded necklaces; or dig out the childhood albums and make a family photo wall.

5. Shop

It’s important to hold off on shopping until you have gone through the first four steps. By this point you should have a good feel for what your room could use — so buy something new, but make it count! Go for something high impact, like a statement light fixture, bold artwork or a patterned coverlet for the bed.

Source: Houzz.com

When Listing your home, are you leaving money on the table? Do you know where you are losing equity that should be kept?

Factors that leave money on the table are undone repairs, decorated personal choice paint colors, outdated flooring and fixtures, or unappealing curb appeal that needs work.

When you were a buyer, do you remember how you approached other people’s outdated homes or ones that were in disrepair? You walked away, unless you got a SUPER low price.

So now that the tables have turned, the buyers are using their critical eye to determine if they agree with your price based on the amount of work they feel your home requires to make it move in ready.

The buyer will deduct a higher price than it actually would cost to do these repairs or updates. They do this because of the unknown factor and also the stress and time it will take to fix your homes issues.  You basically will pay them for their time and labor to do something that you could have done, or contracted and controlled the costs on.

So, you leave money on the table.

By doing your own updates and controlling costs through management of your contractors, you can KEEP money in your pocket. Your costs to update or paint, will be far less when you are in control. This will initially be an expense but in the long run your asking price will be at market value and  your price will not likely be reduced, plus the carrying costs will be much less due to having a move in ready sale able home.

Don’t leave money on the table!

Keep in mind that as a home owner you should be investing 1-3% of your market value every year to do updates on the home. This will ensure that when you go to sell, you are more likely able to list for market value and not have to do major updates to become a GOOD listing.

Today’s buyers are way too educated to pay market value for a house that need 10k or 40k or more worth of work. Gone are the days when a buyer bought a house and saved up to fix it over the years. Today people want what they see on TV and they will get it. It’s either going to be your house, or your competitors. You can decide.

Source: simply irresistible interiors inc. newsletter

Inspecting your home on a regular basis and following good maintenance practices is the best way to protect the investment you have in your home. Spring is here, and an important season regarding home maintenance. We may get more spring storms but I can promise eventually all the snow will melt.  So here you go, some tips to maintain your home through the spring prepare your home for summer.

• Check your eaves troughs and downspouts for loose joints and secure attachment to your home, clear any obstructions and ensure water is flowing away from your foundation.
• Check your sump pump. It will work very hard during the spring thaw. Is it operating properly? Clear any obstructions from the discharge pipe and make sure it allows water to drain away from the foundation.
• Examine your foundation wall for signs of cracks, leaks or moisture and repair as necessary.
• Assess all painted wood surfaces (window and door frames, wood siding, accent trim, decks and fences) make a plan to paint surfaces as required in the summer when the temperature is warmer during the over night period.
• Inspect all railings and stairs for safety.
• Using binoculars inspect the roof for missing or curled shingles, damaged air vents and anything that seems unusual, consult a roofer if you observe damage.
• Check all the places air enters or exhausts from the home. Are the grates clean, do the exhaust vents have functioning flappers. Check the dryer vent for lint. Vacuum all your bathroom exhaust fan grates and since you have the vacuum out do the same for your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors.
• Test your smoke detectors with smoke (light a candle and blow it out close to your smoke detector)
• In mid April it is time to clean your humidifiers and put them away for the season.  If your humidifier is attached to the furnace shut it off for the summer. If you use a de-humidifier in the summer, clean it, set it up and test it.
• Clean or replace your furnace filter.
• If your house is equipped with air conditioning, uncover the compressor unit, inspect the insulation on the lines and clean debris from the condenser. Check the breaker and turn it on, consider having your air conditioner serviced (recommended every 2-3 years). Do not test the unit until the outside temperature exceeds 15 degrees Celsius.
• Have fireplace and wood stove chimney’s cleaned, I also recommend a WETT inspection.
• Turn off pilot lights on anything you may not use for the summer, like a garage furnace.
• Check all your window screens and hardware. Replace storm window with screens if you have an older home, clean all the window tracks for smooth operation this summer.
• Open your outside hose bib once all danger of frost is gone, inspect it for leaks.
• Maintain your landscape. Check for any grading issues and correct as needed. Cut back tree branches that are close to or overhanging the house and overhead electric service.
• Finally get the BBQ cleaned up, BBQ season is just around the corner!