This is a question I get all of the time, and the answer is—still good! It's Saskatchewan, after all, we just wear a heavier jacket and keep pushing forward.
I've had showings all week, wrote an offer that got accepted and accepted an offer on one of my listings. The buyers don't go away when the weather gets bad. Fewer new listings are hitting the market these days for sure, but the ones that are out there are getting some action.
Congrats this month to Orin and Taylor, who bought and sold, and to Jay Ross, who had his offer accepted and is moving into his first home in December!
Listing Pic Fail of the
Month
Not much to say about this one. The Realtor should have left this roll of film in the camera.
I call this one "I'll be right out, Imma wash up
first"
Thanks for reading! Keep scrolling for a buyer and seller tip and a great new listing.
Occasionally I hear Realtors accused of upselling their clients. The line is we try to capitalize on your excitement and get you to spend more than you budgeted for so we can earn higher commissions.
This is super not true.
If you've been a Realtor for any amount of time, you know it's not fun when some nice people you helped buy a house tell you they regret their decision.
I always start out by telling
buyers that they'll have to make some tough decisions. Buying a home is as much a process of elimination as a process of selection. You have to decide what features you can live with and without and work from there. Unless you have bags of money, that is, then buying a home is a process of selection. Selecting everything hahaha.
I recently had a client that started with a budget of just under $300,000. It was his family's first home, and hey, that's a decent amount of money. It's tough to save for a down payment.
We saw some lovely homes! After about two weeks, he phoned and told me he was going with a different mortgage broker who promised she could get him $350,000.
Ok, no problem. We looked at a few priced around 350k, but by now, he'd turned his eye to a new build that was $374,900 plus GST.
You guessed it—I got the call. He now had a 3rd mortgage broker that ran the numbers and told him 400k was possible.
The last time I
spoke with him, he was delivering Skip in the evenings to make ends meet. This is true.
I want you to be successful, and by most standards, house poor is not successful.
Curtis
Sail
Through Your Sale A Monthly Tip for Home Sellers
Turn Up the Heat On Your Listing
Quick tip for sellers—cold houses don't sell.
I list and show lots of vacant homes, and probably half of them are cold. Sellers
can be tempted to turn the heat down to 14º to save a few bucks. Always a bad idea.
Buyers use all their senses when deciding on which home to buy. If their feet are freezing by the time they walk out, you've lost them. Even 18º is no good, make sure it's 19º or higher.
Here's a memory trick to help you remember:
Cold Beer - √ Cold Home - X
CB
This Used To Be My House!
2315 Rae Street Cathedral $334,900
Hey! If you know someone that wants a great Cathedral home with extensive renovations, send them my way.
This was Lisa and my second home, we lived there from 1997-2002. We pulled all the lathe and plaster, rewired and drywalled the entire thing, added a new kitchen, refinished the hardwoods and tons more.
As it turns out, a friend of mine bought it years later and has lived there for ten years. He's on his way to Vancouver for
work now. I know, Vancouver, boo-hoo :)
