Kamloops Property For Sale Real Estate Blog - asking price

Home Staging Tips: Creating Curb Appeal

Buyers often make up their minds within moments of seeing your home. Tina Parker has all the essential tips to make a great impression

When people buy a home, the fact is that 78 per cent of the decision making process has already been made prior to arrival, based on the price and location of the house. But within seconds of seeing your home, potential buyers have formed an opinion of its overall condition and will likely spend the remaining time looking for consistency with the assumptions they made when they first viewed the home on the Internet. First impressions of the property’s exterior should be “welcome home.”

Exterior Facelift and Landscaping Overhaul

Beautify the front door: When dealing with curb appeal, the focal point is the front…

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Five Must-Do Tasks to Winterize your Garden

It might not seem like it just yet, especially since we’ve been experiencing such sunny, warm fall weather, but Old Man Winter is slowly breathing down our necks. Before long, you’ll be scraping the frost off your car windows and bundling up around the fireplace. Before you do that, though, don’t put away your garden tools just yet.

This month’s essential home maintenance task provides a checklist of to-do tasks to make sure your garden and lawn are properly winterized. So whether it’s your vegetable garden or your flowering one, grab your gloves and gardening tools one last time before the cold sets in.

Thanks to Conor Preston, gardener at Vancouver’s Figaro’s Garden, for his best advice on how to prepare your gardens and lawns for winter.

1)…

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Liberal win: Good for first-time home buyers, investors

But prepare for an “uptick” in interest rates

The Canadian 2015 election. “It was a very clear verdict that Canadians were seeking real change,” said Pramod Udiaver, CEO of online advisor service, Invisor. “The Liberals campaigned and won with a focus on the middle-class,” says Udiaver, “with many of their promises attempting to make a meaningful difference for middle-income families.”

While most Canadians still struggle with paying too much in taxes, trying to maximize savings while making sound financial decisions, the new Liberal majority government will have real impact on the nation’s real estate market.

Continued interest by foreign investors

“From a fiscal point of view, the Liberal government will be moving Canada from a modestly…

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6 questions to ask during an open house

Consider it an opportunity to learn more about the house, the sellers and the neighbourhood

An open house is the real estate world’s version of window shopping. It’s an opportunity to sneak a peak at a neighbour’s home, and a chance to size up a potential house or neighbourhood.

But for most window-shoppers, ignoring or minimizing talk with the real estate agent at an open house lands somewhere between a challenge and a sport. It shouldn’t. While there’s no question that the realtor hopes to drum up business by holding an open house, they can also be a wealth of information. It’s just a matter of asking the right questions. Here are six questions to ask at the next open house you visit.

1. Why do the sellers want to move?

Listen, we all read…

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Is it time to sell your rental property? Or time to buy another?

According to Statistics Canada, 69 per cent of Canadians own homes, so most of us have reason to worry about the fate of the housing market. Landlords, in particular, make a conscious choice to invest in real estate that goes beyond just a place for their families to live. As a result, landlords should be paying close attention to the conflicting views and data on Canadian real estate.

One in 20 Canadians own rental real estate according to the Financial Industry Research Monitor. An Altus Group study shows that for households earning more than $100,000 per year, rental real estate ownership is twice that of the general population – about 10 per cent.

So the question is: buy or sell?

Buy

Donald Trump may very well be the next…

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Interested in Buying a Foreclosure? These Tips Will Help!

Many home buyers are attracted to foreclosed properties because they can offer great opportunity. But don’t get too excited yet, though foreclosed homes really offer great deals, they also come with challenges. Knowing what you will deal when you decide to buy a foreclosure can prepare you in the process.

There are no disclosures

With a traditional sale, you’ll get disclosures from the sellers. With foreclosures, there’s none. It’s like not knowing what you’re getting into because you will not have any knowledge if the house will need some serious fixing. The bank will not give you the history of the home nor the problems you might encounter when you move in so you have to be prepared.

You can work with your agent on this. Search as much as…

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10 Things Buyers Shouldn’t Overlook When Viewing a House

“This house is lovely, I’m going to buy this!” one buyer decides within 5 minutes of viewing the property. Sounds crazy? Believe it, it does happen.

It is easy to fall in love with a property within few moments of seeing it and buyers forget to be objective. A home is one of the biggest purchase people make, do not make a decision on a spur of the moment you will likely regret in the end.

When viewing a home, it is recommended to spend more time viewing every nook and cranny of the property. So many spend so little time viewing a house and they live to regret it. After buying the house, buyers experience one problem after another – anything from dodgy wiring to noisy neighbors – which could have been avoided had they spent more time researching the…

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Home Staging Tips: How to Have a Successful Yard Sale

Decluttering is the first step in staging a home for sale, but what to do with all those unwanted items? Tina Parker has a great solution and how to execute it.

 We all know that when you’re selling up, decluttering is a key part of staging your home for sale. But after you have decluttered and come up with storage solutions, you will need to get rid of everything you have decided to part with. A good way to use this to your advantage is to have a yard sale.

In order to have a successful yard sale, you will need to apply the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. So you must know your products, set appropriate prices, find a place that will showcase your items, and promote your sale properly.

Product

Be organized and make…

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Dinner in Kamloops: Turn off the highway to discover B.C.’s newest food and wine region

You probably think of Kamloops as a refuelling stop, a place to pause for a tank of gas and a Tim’s before hitting the Coquihalla Highway. But it’s so much more than that.

Seemingly overnight, Kamloops has become B.C.’s newest foodie destination, where a small but mighty contingent of chefs, farmers, winemakers and craft brewers are discovering the potential of this city in the Thompson River Valley.

Perhaps it was inevitable. Kamloops is quietly booming. The population has slowly but steadily been growing (it’s now around 100,000), and the city has attracted a number of diverse new businesses. And yet, it’s still affordable enough for young families to buy a house and make a life there.

As Monica Dickinson, the acting CEO of Tourism Kamloops,…

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Info for Sellers: How to sell your home (Pricing)

 What is the correct price for your home...

Billy Buyer is looking for a new home. He has been pre-approved for a $360K purchase.  He has already expressed his desire to not even look at anything above his affordability level, so we’ve added just a bit of room to the price to allow for negotiating and will only be viewing those homes at or below a $375K limit.

Unfortunately, your house is priced at $410K, which is way above his $375K cap, and which is also about $50K above the market value.  Only you and your agent know why you priced it so high, but I do know your home would be PERFECT for Billy, and I also know it’s definitely overpriced.  Billy won’t see it, and therefore won’t buy it.

Not pricing a home properly for sale can be the biggest…

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