Wayne’s Newsletters

I wrote an article similar in content to this one a few years ago but feel it worth a rewrite

again. The article focuses on home remedial work and property information gathering. Certainly well worth consideration for those of you who are planning to sell next year and could benefit greatly in preparing as much as possible in advance and make the listing more effective when the time arrives. Go through this list and undertake as many items as reasonable during the next few months. This list deals with several interior items and important information about your property, but if there are any significant exterior issues they will have to wait until spring unless we get many warm winter days??! Continue reading →

Up until a few years ago it was pretty common knowledge that some of the best areas of your home to renovate and be confident of a good return on the work when you sold was to renovate the kitchen and bathrooms in particular.  However, with the proliferation of HGTV Reno shows, emerging decorating trends, as well as different buyer segment preferences in home features this is changing. Now a modern up to date kitchen can be ‘dated’ in 5 years with the constant changes in styles and products! Of course you can still enjoy your space if you are not moving but the challenge is when selling because many buyers now look for and want recent trends as part of their purchase or will budget to have the work done on a property when they buy affecting pricing. Continue reading →

Some things you obviously cannot change about your home or property, and likely you have been OK to live with them as they may not bother your lifestyle and that is quite understandable (we purchase what we like and what gives us satisfaction).  But in our demanding “new realty” real estate climate and much slower sales market, where buyers have lots of choice, are not easily satisfied, take their time and are more cautious, owners now need a greater level of patience and resilience when selling. Continue reading →

Because I have been selling country and city properties for over 21 years, and have been a Priddis area resident for just as long, I have observed many changes in country living.   One recent trend I have watched and discussed with other country realtors is particularly noteworthy and it is the decreasing number of young families moving to the country. Here are my speculations on why this might be so. Continue reading →

Landscaping can add tens of thousands of dollars to the value of your property. In fact, it is one of the few home improvements you can make that not only adds value immediately, but also increases in value as the years go by. While interior decor and design concepts regularly go out of style and mechanical systems wear down, plants grow fuller and more robust as the years go by. Continue reading →

The first thing I would comment on is that it seems as though the Foothills W5 area is still slower in sales than the W4 area and certainly much slower than many city areas. It also seems there is a growing trend of fewer buyers for the amount of country inventory. Still not sure why people would not want to live in this beautiful country setting but it seems more people are preferring the quicker access that the SE area currently offers  and certainly certainly a trend away from acreages for many younger families and many more older people now deciding for downtown condo options. I have been pondering these trends and have the following opinions as to possibly why. The irony of this is that many of the people still moving out to the country are still building new and very very large homes on acreages. The challenge is selling these expensive properties when it comes time to sell! Continue reading →

It was interesting to analyze and review the actual recorded sales activity levels for 2017 in the two MD’s so I could get a true understanding of sales across various categories and price ranges. We all need to be discerning when reading projections about real estate trends in the news as there is a tendency for some reporters to lump real estate statistics such as percentage historical results and predicted price gains across all real estate and one doesn’t get a true sense of differing actual numbers for various sectors of the marketplace. This can affect people’s attitudes and sometimes leads to unfounded pricing expectations and trends among sellers and the public. Continue reading →

When preparing to sell your home, the goal is to sell it quickly at the highest price possible within the current market, while investing as little as possible in renovations.

Tip #1: Refresh the Exterior
Many buyers will not venture out of their car if they do not find the exterior appealing. Painting trim, pressure washing vinyl siding and windows, replacing damaged eaves troughs will simply improve the exterior look. Also repair exterior & paint outbuildings to tie them to the home and reflect care. Continue reading →

Winter has set in with colder temperatures and short daylight so one can’t do much outside work on one’s home or property. But if you are planning to list and try to sell in 2019, whether in spring or early summer, there are still a wide variety of things you can do in advance during the winter months. Many of these items will aide in your listing preparedness and take pressure off you when it comes time to actually list.  It will improve your marketability by improving the look of your property and provide your agent with valuable information, as well as help speed up potential purchasers ‘due diligence’ process because info would be readily available that buyers might request or be curious about. This is not an exhaustive list and you may not be able to do all of them but certainly do as many as feasible and achievable over the next 1 – 3 or so months. Many of my past clients have taken this approach with improved success in their sale. Continue reading →