October Newsletter: Blackberry’s layoffs, fixing before selling, knowing how much to offer…

October NewsletterEvery month, I send out a newsletter to my subscribers. It’s basically the best of the blogs. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything.

 

This month’s newsletter is about:

Blackberry’s layoffs,
Fixing before selling,
Knowing how much to offer

 

Feel free to email or call with your real estate questions. I get questions everyday. And I respond right away. Just like this one from the other day:

Q: I’m thinking about selling my home. It’s in a great school zone, a nice neighborhood, and is one of the largest models on our street. It has a three-car garage. Here’s my dilemma: The house needs paint and carpet on the second floor. Would you suggest listing the house in the current condition with allowances, or taking out a loan to have aforementioned updates taken care of before putting it on the market?

A: A few years ago (2009) I would advise you to put your house on the market as is. It was a sellers market and you would have likely found a buyer quickly.

In today’s market however, you need to do everything you can to make your house easy to buy. The power has shifted. Buyers have more to choose from and will pass over a house that needs a lot of work. Our finance minister has been closing the big valve on the cash pipeline. House prices are high and home buyers don’t have a lot of extra cash to spend after they’ve just purchased a $300,000 home (one that would have cost $150,000 in the year 2000).

You mentioned that your home needs painting and new floors.

Paint and painting is relatively cheap. It is the best thing you can do to improve the value of your home. You will likely get all of your investment in paint and painting back in your sale price.

Floors are important too. It is well known in real estate that “flat surfaces sell homes”. That means, floors walls and countertops.

My advice is that you should do the floors, even though you will not recoup all of the money you spend on them. Don’t cheap out and install $1.00 square foot laminate flooring. Replacing the floors will shorten your time to sell and increase your position on price.

Link

 
Two blog posts about Blackberry

How will Blackberry’s layoff of 4,500 affect Kitchener Waterloo real estate market?  A lot of Kitchener Waterloo Realtors will argue that the impending layoffs at our beloved local iconic and (tarnished) hometown hero Blackberry will have no impact on our local real estate market. I disagree.

What will happen if Blackberry closes?  Everyone has their predictions and no one really knows for sure how this will play out, or when. It will impact our local real estate market. We just don’t know by how much.

 

 

And from the video blog…

How much should I offer?  In the video, “How much should I offer?” I wonder about this question. The wrong thing to do is to start with the listing price and work down. The right thing to do is to look at comparable sales and what’s currently for sale to arrive at and justify your offer price.

A little bit of history about Kitchener Waterloo Neighbourhoods: Rockway, Doon Valley and Westmount. This video is a look back about 90 years to how Kitchener Waterloo formed.

More from Keith Marshall
5 things that buyers should never say and do when buying a home
No, no, never, not me Clearly, there’s a lot at stake. You...
Read More
Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *