Category: Starbucks with Sarah

Join Sarah Logue, RE/MAX Escarpment Team Logue Realty with Kristen Ervin, Sales Representative and Trisha Ross, Designer as they discuss the options of building a home from the ground up versus redesigning an existing home. Team Logue has the partnerships to put you on the right course . . .whether it’s picking a paint colour or deciding on a geo-thermal heating & cooling system, we can help!

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Hi Sarah Logue here on behalf of Team Logue and Remax Escarpment. I’m joined by Kristen Ervin from Team Logue and Trisha Ross a local designer and executive with HummingbirdHill Construction.

Ladies thank you for today. We’re here to talk about build and design versus construction and re-design. Trisha has done both for us many times and Kristen is in a position where she’s constantly dealing with buyers looking for premium lots or opportunities to build their custom designed house. Would you say that’s an issue that’s hitting you daily?

Yes.

People have questions, wants, needs, we’re getting it from all angles. It truly is.

Ok so, in neighbourhoods like this, some of our older neighbourhoods in Burlington, we’re finding that people are constantly looking for the tear down opportunities or the complete rebuild opportunities, correct? So Kristen, what’s the question you’re getting asked regularly from our buyers?

Well really they’re coming and saying “I already own this beautiful property but maybe the house isn’t working for me anymore” or perhaps their looking to get into a neighbourhood and do something. They’re in the dilemma, “am I going to do a complete rebuild? Buy a lot? Start from scratch. Or can I work with the bones that are there, maybe even in my own house and make that work for me and what I’m really looking for.”

There’s a lot we can talk about there and of course doing renovations, that scales from something really small, like a quick aesthetic update to a major overhaul and I think people sometimes think that one is a much more affordable option than the other. We can kind of break that down some what.

So today as a starting point we would advise our clients to budget at a minimum $400/sq ft. to build a home from scratch so if we were building a 2500 sq ft home we’d be talking about a million dollars to build. Plus your lot.

If we disect that further, 60% of that cost is hard construction and 40% is really about those finishes which can vary, that really brings you to a $400,000 interior finish.

When you say hard construction what are you talking about? So we need to pour a foundation, we need to frame that house, we need to insulate that house, we need to put a roof on that house, we need mechanical. There’s so much that will happen inside of a custom build versus starting with a home already. So if we look at renovation, at that $400/sq ft. a major renovation with a qualified team is roughly the same.

Ok, major renovation we’re talking pretty full scale, right, like someone comes in and says I want to re-work some walls, I’m looking at unifying flooring and updating kitchens, it gets them basically a new home from the outside walls, in.

Correct. So more than just aesthetic but actually improving the function and flow of the interior by modifying that floor planning. So you could do an addition in that group as well.

Yes.

Fabulous, so there is the options and it’s great to know that there’s someone whether its a designer or an agent we work in pairing all the time to give our clients the best answers so that if you’re looking at a lot is it worth rebuilding? Or tearing down and starting with something new like this?

Or potentially taking the roof off and going up. Those are all options that we have now.

Well, we’re very happy to have your expertise on camera and your expertise for our clients. We truly appreciate it. If there is any questions on your next step, whether redesign or rebuild, please check us out at teamlogue.ca.

Quarantine times taught us all the importance of making the most of our homes and outdoor space. Join Sarah Logue, RE/MAX Escarpment Team Logue Realty and Jason Anderson, Carved in Stone as they walk you through the various elements involved in Landscape Design. From gardens to 3D renderings to installing a pool or building a strucuture for outdoor entertaining, Carved in Stone can do it all.

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Welcome. Sarah Logue here with Team Logue.

I just wanted to welcome everybody as we join Jason from Carved In Stone, our landscaper who’s going to take us through some of the projects he’s been working on. Jason this is a pretty cool time to be a landscaper. One you can work outside in the freedom away from people and two it seems like all of our clients are requesting amazing backyards knowing they can’t get on a plane and vacation outside of their backyard. I feel like everyone’s asking me for pool referrals amazing landscaping referrals are you finding the same in your business?

We’ve noticed I think is that people are spending a lot more time at home and they’re kind of realizing that their backyards aren’t really up to snuff, their property isn’t really up to snuff and they’re really looking at doing stuff now knowing that they’re gonna be spending a lot more time at home.

It’s so true now we’ve had varying levels of requests from people I just wanted to make sure people understood what your company entails like there’s landscapers that just do a patio, or a deck or a little garden and then there’s landscapers that can build you a full outdoor structure with barbecue space and entertainment space. Can you handle all those levels of backyard entertaining?

For sure I mean our specialty definitely is the whole design-build process whether you’re looking for a pool, landscape lighting, stonework, concrete work, outdoor structures, outdoor fireplaces we’ve pretty much covered all of our bases we’ve got some great trades that help us with our framing and our electrical and all that but aside from that we pretty much handle everything in house.

That’s amazing so you guys can give us the whole design right. So if I look at a plain backyard like this you can transform it into my dream oasis?

Yeah for sure we work with a couple designers locally and everybody’s trying to stay on top of trends. We’re also trying to set new trends so we don’t want to be just your cookie cutter landscape project, we want to be able to give you something that nobody else has, something that when somebody comes into your backyard they’re gonna ask you, “who did the work?”

I have seen a lot of your work and I would say one of the unique things about your company is although your style is throughout all those projects you do trend set to the depending on the client and the house, I’ve seen traditional work by you, I’ve seen modern work by you, I’ve seen in-between so you do meld a little bit to the clients wishes and it’s not like this is what’s gonna work and you’re stuck to this one style, so that’s impressive.

Every every customers kind of has their own style they have their own inspiration of what they’re looking for and with the diversity of the products that we’re using now we really have the ability to cater to any style and really bring it to or customize it for the homeowner.

So anyone looking to drop in a pool an outdoor entertainment space an outdoor barbecuing space or just a simple deck and patio they can reach out to you and get a design done for that.

Exactly yeah they can reach out to us. We’ll get back to them in a in a timely manner, we’ll set them up and we’ll be able to provide them with 2d rendering 3d renderings and basically take it from there.

Amazing. Thank you. So cool can’t wait to see your next project.

Thank you.

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Hey! Sarah and Chris here. We’re in our kitchen living our best quarantine life and with the love of my life who treats my stomach well during this quarantine time and he’s gonna make us his famous meatballs. Cheers Christopher Logue. Thanks for being the chef to the house.

No problem.

We’re gonna make some spicy meatballs we got rustic sourdough. Take off the crust at your beautiful low carb, low fat cream, soften up let it sit for a few minutes and then you start adding all your ingredients. You got some fresh minced turkey, sirloin beef, some nice Prosciutto chopped up and some garlic sausage.

Now that’s the bowl.

First will be the cheese pop right in there some cheesy flavorness. you put about half of this in here. That’s an Italian parsley throw that in there some salt and pepper about a teaspoon in each. A few grinds pepper. and a couple of eggs that were then beaten. I don’t have any parsley because of the pandemic that we’re in so I had some basil so I just chopped that up. My girlfriend will be mad at me for doing that but that’s okay. Then last but not least the sourdoughs was sitting in the table cream. So I washed my hands 500 times today make it 501, quick rinse and then we’re gonna mush these bad boys together and make some meatballs. These are my favourite meatballs.

Yes, good answer.

How many meatballs does this make?

This will make about 15-18 size of like a tennis ball or smaller and they’re very tasty. So if I’m not forgetting anything I’m just gonna make one or two right now and then go over to the soft homemade sauce we’re gonna make a little cheating from long those basic spaghetti sauce a little add some ingredients to it. Okay so make a ball about that size a bunch of those you take about 35 to 45 minutes in the oven. Okay come over here everything is ready to go we’re just gonna do a little base some butter some garlic there add to the sauce again these are low carb low fat meatballs. Take blob of butter that going in there put some garlic in but make sure it’s on low heat so you don’t burn it. Okay it’s just gonna take a few minutes. That is doing that early preheat the oven cook the meatballs around 350 to 400. 375 is pretty good.

Okay so what happens just basil sauce you would wait a little but no big deal and then all tastes pretty good. So I put in the sauce I got a basil one yeah because you’re not going out or smooching anybody else today we’ll throw in a jar of garlic. The wife likes lots of sauce so let’s brew some that up. I usually hit it with a bit of lemon get rid all that little juice in there both cans. Whisk fast okay just put a little water with them rinse rinse, throw that in there as well and then I throw in some chopped tomatoes they’re nice to have on your plate. That’s gonna cook down for about 15-20 minutes we’ll cook the meatballs. I also throw in a bit of honey and then some more salt and pepper you see it turns up pretty good.

It doesn’t take that long to do do the whole thing. 45 minutes when you’re prepping and all that kind of jazz and go longer or shorter depends if your wife’s home from work you make dinner at eight and she gets home at midnight you can just reheat it warm enough so that’s gonna cook and then take the meatballs put them in the oven for say 40 minutes then we’ll take them out let them sit in the sauce for 50 minutes and then we’ll add some fresh Parmesan cheese and we’ll do some spaghetti noodles tonight.

Okay so it’s been a few minutes we’re all done now the noodles are done no no the new noodles. I forgot salt in my water so it’s this little flavor. The meatballs are done they took 40 minutes in the oven I’m into the the sauce which thickened up over the last 40 minutes so that worked out well. That’s two meatballs in which is usually enough. I’m gonna add some sauce on top one little tomato which is nice once they’ve cooked down they’re actually pretty tasty and I just put a little sauce on top garnish that nut with the lime but with a little bit of Parmesan cheese and the plates were in the oven so nice and warm so you won’t have a cold plate.

So there you go meatballs, spaghetti noodles from Team Logue. You all stay safe in the next few weeks then we get out of this mess and if you need me to come over and cook a nice fresh meal your new house I’ll be more than happy.

All the best and good luck.

Sarah Logue, RE/MAX Escarpment Team Logue walks you through the drastic difference a little paint and staging can make when prepping your home for sale. Lee-Ann Santos, Team Logue’s Home Stylist/Designer and Christina, Team Logue’s painter transform a predominantly red and yellow home to WOW. Check out the before and after’s and the benefits of Team Logue’s home selling services.

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Sarah Logue here. I’m enjoying my Starbucks at Fairhome Interiors a fabulous design house that can take you from top to bottom little project, all the way to the great big project.

Tori thanks so much for having us today. I love Fairhome, Fairhome’s all over my home. I use it in every shape that I can possibly. We love our Dash & Albert line that you constantly bring to our house, so thank you for that. I don’t know if people really understand everything that Fairhome offers, I think it’s you know, people walk in and think they can buy their cute mug or their fun card, but you guys are full decorators. Give me a little bit about the store.

So we are full decorators we do interiors we do everything from your bedroom to your help with finishings and kitchen. Some of our favourite lines to use are Dash & Albert rugs and Pinecone Hill beddings, one of our lines, but we have six lines of bedding, we also do custom beddings. What makes us different from a lot of interior houses in Burlington is that we have our own custom work room. All our custom lines are done in-house and really take you through every process from beginning to end. From the fabric choices all the way to install, it’s all done by us so we have full control on what you’re getting.

So if I see something cool in a magazine and I say, ‘Tori I want . this stripe fabric on the top and I want this floral underneath’ you guys can produce it?

Absolutley.

That’s amazing!

And our upholster too, you know everything is custom. It’s nice to know that you can come to such a small shop but you have such a large reach. Your design choices are amazing. Your expertise is amazing. Everyone I’ve ever dealt with in-house is fabulous to work with. You guys come right to my house, you pull things and you give me such great ideas and I love watching you with your clients because you’re not just putting your style, you always use a little bit of that person’s personality and pull it back into their house so well. That’s the most important thing, is that we’re decorating for you and not decorating for us.

Brilliant.

We look at your style, we talk to you for a long time, we get to know you and your spouse if that’s part of the equation and we decorate to you, so your house is comfortable. It doesn’t have to be a show home. It has to be your home.

It has to be you, it has to make you comfortable and you happy. And that’s why I love coming to Fairhome. Thank you so much, I certainly hope people will come to see you because you are fabulous at what you do. If you’re looking for a fresh take on your house, stop in and see Tori Brock at Fairhome.

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Good morning everyone, I’m joined with Alanna Stephen from Escarpment Law and we’re having a Starbucks just reviewing some of the tips and tricks that you need to consider when buying or selling a home.

I get asked quite often, ‘do I really need a lawyer when I’m buying or selling a home?’ And my automatic answer is, ‘yes of course’ but I love to give people the details as to actually why.

I can understand why people ask that question. A lot of work is already been done at the beginning they’ve seen their mortgage person they seen their agent I’m the end service provider. So I like to bring everything together We liaison really well with the agents with the mortgage people that we pull all the details in but most importantly what we do is we make sure ‘are you getting what you think you are getting?’ Are you selling only what you need to be selling?’ We protect your rights under the agreement of purchase and sale. We check title, we do something called execution searches, we make sure there are no liens on title and the key thing is protecting the client and making sure on closing date there are no surprises.

There is nothing worse than us finding out as agents that all the sudden there’s a $50,000 construction lien against your property and the lawyers missed it. Right or we weren’t advised of it. I love that with your clients you meet with them well in advance and give them the full rundown of: here is where the funds are going to go to and that you’ve done those checks.

We can certainly try to, we can’t always due to a number of circumstances but certainly I will be in contact with them I always advise clients to reach out early if possible we open the file we get moving we discover problems early on and then we can deal with him quickly in a headway fashion and get them resolved. I think that’s the real key is you’re hiring a lawyer upfront to make sure that you don’t have any problems So many people think of lawyers as a problem solver and I love that you’re already ahead of the problem. So our clients always rave about you. You’ve literally cut out the problems ahead of the time because you’ve time to deal with the other lawyer, deal with the other agent or deal with whatever that issue is. Thank you. Thank you, that’s great.

So one other thing that came out the other day that was kinda neat and I was chatting with you about it and that is deposits. How do deposits work when I’m buying a house in my agent says I need a $50,000 deposit. What does that mean? So the deposit acts as a security for the contract so you sign the agreement, the buyer then provides the deposit. That deposit gets held not with the buyers agent, but with the listing agents real estate brokerage. For the buyer what that means is they now owe that amount of money LESS to the seller on closing date. For the seller it means that that amount of money, if it’s $20,000 will be applied to reduce the commission that they owe their agent. That’s a good understanding. So if you’ve paid that $20,000 deposit you’ve already paid out towards the purchase of the house. Absolutely that’s money to your credit. So I buy a $820,000 house I’ve made it at $20,000 deposit I still owe $800,000.

Sometimes it gets confusing and it is a little fearful to think that you have to come for the big chunk of change and how does it work in the longplay. It does and especially that the deposit disappears right away it’s gone and no one seems to be quite clear where it’s going to resurface again. Right so if we were speaking to any buyer/seller today to make for a smooth transition what would you advise? Definitely get in contact with the lawyer, pick a lawyer take your agents recommendation early and reach out to that lawyer. The lawyer is going to have an opening letter for you and hopefully if it’s my office that you’re dealing with, we have a closing checklist really easily and comprehensively through the process. My biggest tip though would be if you were trying to buy and sell don’t try to do it all on the same day. Consider bridge financing and your agent, your mortgage person can talk to you about how that factors in. But the bottom line being: you buy before you sell and it makes for a single transaction. So your warning people that same day, ‘I close my house and move out and I move into my new house’ it doesn’t always go as beautifully as everyone would like it to go.

It surely does happen, I’m not saying that it can’t be done because it is done all the time but what ends up happening is a deal could fall apart which jeopardizes the deal on the other side but more practically speaking when the deals do come together, clients are not getting their keys for new home until very late in the day. So if you’re buying and selling same day you will not have your keys until late in the day.

And as an Agent I’m gonna say we can’t control when our clients get the keys. Now we do harass lawyers regularly and I get it’s always good to check with a lawyer when those keys are coming. Absolutely. On a side note we do always recommend to our clients when their meeting with you if they need to update their wills that’s a great opportunity at that time to do it and we’ve dealt with a lot of international buyers and sellers that you can easily advise on some of the tax issues there as well. If clients have a will, it’s not invalid just because its old. So what we like to do is meet with clients and go through the will and see is everyone still alive in the will? Are there instructions still the same? Powers of attorney are also important and we can talk about all of that in context of estate planning. Bigger issues I think you’re alluding to, if you have people who are living out of country and there selling property or living out of country in buying property those are all things that need to be discovered early on the process so that we can direct people accordingly.

Perfect. Well I thank you for today and I think the big takeaway here for people who don’t be scared the lawyer you’re not the dentist. We are not the dentist the sharp tools are in the drawer and that’s where they stay. You can give great advice on preparing for buying or selling right out of the gate.

So thank you so much.

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Is it time for that afternoon tea or is it time for an afternoon Starbucks I’m here with Andrea McQueen of Andrea McQueen Designs in her beautiful home Does this make you want to redo your home or what? This kitchen and family room makes me want to redo my home always. We’re always redoing your home. Thank you for joining us today I just want to walk people through why it’s so essential to have a designer to have that confidante when purchasing or selling or when planning to stay forever what you know what avenues they should take with regards to investment pieces versus non investment pieces and where to start.

So many of our clients come to us at this time of the year and wonder ‘where do I begin?’, like where do I start peeling back the lemon and it can get scary really fast. So where do we start? And how do we budget for it and how do we make it all come together?

Great questions, all really good questions which we talk about all the time. The first thing I think to consider is engaging a professional really early on in the process because you don’t know what you don’t know right and because we’ve been through this and this is what we do for a living and this is what we do on the daily basis we know what you don’t know. I think it’s really important to start early and engage a professional early on and a professional is going to help you determine the scope of your project so really it’s a good idea to have an a number in mind when you’re thinking about a budget but in my experience take that number that you’re thinking about and as a rule of thumb don’t hate me for saying this on camera, and I double it. Double it in our experience because there’s certain considerations when it really what you want to do to your home is what’s gonna drive the budget you know and there’s you can always go higher end or lower end or make trade-offs but I think what’s so important is something that I know you see all the time is to think about when you’re considering a remodel or a redesign or you know a renovation project it’s not just to think about the end result in the end picture and it’s not just flooring it’s not just you know the cabinets it’s not just the appliances really what makes a well-designed space feel good and look good is the way all of these different design elements work in harmony and we’re trained and we’re really experienced in where it’s a you know the great the places where it’s makes sense to invest and the places where it makes sense to save. At the end of the day working with the designers going to save you money because you’re going to invest your money in things that are going to give you the best return on your investment as you know oftentimes they’ll come in to a client site after they’ve already started and they’ve spent $30,000 on their bathroom floor you know and they haven’t touched the plumbing or you know window treatments so you can take that budget and do an entire bathroom so we’re really good at giving you realistic ideas about where you’re going to get the biggest return on your investment.

And giving you that that ‘wow’ factor right? We see so many patchwork homes where I’m like ‘oh I love the floors you did’ and then I get to the kitchen and realize and you did two more floors because there wasn’t a pre-thought out pattern as to how this was all going to link and I’m not suggesting that everyone has to come in and do it all at once you know? But at least if the plans there and they know the kitchens gonna be step one. Flooring step two. However the process works it’s nice to know there’s continuity and when we go to sell it and you’ve spent $50,000 on Brazilian hardwood but you didn’t do anything else yeah it’s hard for me to get that return. Totally right. Totally.

You know when we also can look at a space come into a space and say wow you know if you just spent ten thousand dollars and did painted your cabinets switched out your backsplash and did your hardware it’s gonna feel like a totally new space. So you know depending on how much money people want to spend and how long they’re going to be in their home something I love to do is to help them you know have a five-year solution or you know a forever home. Really whatever it is they want to achieve help them make sure that their space, client space really is a reflection of who they are and really helps them to live better. Because at the end of the day good design is really improving your life and improving the way you live in your home.

Well you improved our lives. Everyone loves our home and says it’s a great reflection of us. I’m so happy. And we did, we were smart and saved for the big plan and you put the whole piece together and it does it still allows us to add pieces on to it but our base plan is so easy to work from that it just makes our home all congruent it’s so nice. I hope you can help many of our clients come with that big picture image and move forward and you know have a serene look to their home that makes them feel comfortable.

Thanks Andrea!

No problem.

Good afternoon! Sarah here. We’ve traded our Starbucks for a fresh cold pressed juice at freshii. I’m here with Sim, Owner of the freshii restaurant in north Burlington.

Hello everyone! I am Sim G, franchise partner for freshii at Appleby crossing. We offer healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner please come visit us, we’re looking forward to seeing you at the store. We’ve been hearing a lot of topics about this restaurant, we see a lot of happy people coming in. It’s a pretty cool location, being in our square here. It’s a really neat take on a quick lunch, or a quick dinner, but with a great healthy vibe.

What got you interested in freshii to become its owner?

I was investing with, working with one of the banks when I started looking into freshii in 2011, ever since I’ve been following up with freshii, I am a fitness freak, I do a lot of my meal preps before coming into freshii. It’s one of the cleanest restaurants, quick meal, healthy options we have and a lot of variety. It’s not like you’re eating everyday the same thing. So we have wraps, salads, bowls, burritos, so they’re all healthy. We have rice, rice noodles, as a base or you can quinoa, which is full of protein and full of amino acids. Those are the things that when I always wanted to own something on my own when I really drilled down to, ok where would I be happy going to and where I would actually eat myself. Freshii stood out and definitely some stuff worked out and I’m here! One of the busiest intersections and I’m happy to be here in the community.

Well it’s amazing because I know January, we all jump on the get healthy wagon and it feels like you’re eating salad after salad so some of the opportunities here to try so many different things maybe that you wouldn’t try at home or buy from grocery store, it’s a great opportunity to get healthy on a great, tasty menu. We’re so excited that you are here in the north end and we’ve heard so many great things about the restaurant, we really encourage you to come out and try freshii. We love it, you can catch us here anytime having a quick lunch and Sim is a great person to ask for as our owner here, she can run you through the menu and some of the dietary restrictions.

Thanks so much!

[Video Transcription]

Morning Sarah here. I’m taking my Starbucks with the dear Natalie Robinson of Set The Stage and we’re going to talk about home staging. Nat thanks for joining me here in my kitchen. I appreciate you coming to talk to us about staging, I know there’s some differences between staging and design and you’re truly a stager. I had the pleasure of working with you for almost years and you’ve probably done thousands and thousands of our clients homes.

So lots of people know your face and know your stuff, give us the impression though so many people are nervous when I say we’re gonna stage your house what is the difference of staging versus design? What’s the goal?

Great question, Sarah. I guess the biggest difference is when it’s your home you’re trying to personalize it, it’s your family, you’re proud of your your children and maybe you don’t have some fabulous art that you’ve collected on the trip, but for staging we want to make the space look welcoming for everyone. Everyone’s taste sort of deep personalizing neutralizing the space you don’t want to lose the charm or the feeling of a home because I think a lot of people think, “Oh staging they’re going to make it look cold and you know sparse and and unrealistic” but I feel like there’s a line between making a home look presentable and marketable with not losing that ‘wow’ factor that we try to create.

It’s so true because our clients are always impressed once you leave, they feel like their house is going to be almost naked when you’re done with it because we’ve told them to remove so much. But you do such an incredible job and we hear the feedback from our buyers and sellers that we keep the home feel well presenting attributes of the house and staging is truly about retailing the home it’s no longer your personal home right. So the end goal of staging I always try to present to people is we’re selling your house not your things.

Absolutely. I have sometimes pushback there because they’re like but you know this artist is this much or these chairs I picked and I’m, and I know you know, it’s about making the house look presentable for every one of the highlights of the home, the the features, the upgrades that they’ve spent money on you know? I want them to notice the staircase and the backsplash and the hardwood not you know the knickknacks or the tchotchkes as you like to call them that stuff’s not stained it’s leaving. So we still want to make them fall in love with the idea of the house but not focus things that really don’t add any value to the home.

Perfect so what would you recommend to someone preparing we get a lot of people getting geared up for January/February you know to get ready for the market before you come in? What could I do as a homeowner to prep my house?

Things like neutralizing your space you know fresh linens, fresh towels, if you can provide those things that would be wonderful white shower curtain anything that can fit in your hand that’s a good rule of thumb we say if it’s if it’s fits in your hand we probably aren’t going to keep it. Our biggest thing is we focus on photography and and how that is going to look in you know five second MLS video. The camera sometimes will highlight the small things or the bold colors rather than showing off you know your beautiful cabinetry or your hardwood all those things that we want to highlight. Having something small or bold red in the corner it’s going to take that away from from the overall shot. It’s so true we have buyers that will be searching realtor.com seamlessly there, “I want to see the purple house”.

Right, I think oh wow if they just painted that purple wall you know to a great new tone of gray just we’ve been growing it it wouldn’t be memorable as the purple. Absolutely. Deep personalizing is huge. I mean if you can take a few minutes and you know pack up and the thing is you’re moving so the more you do ahead of time I feel like the homeowner, yes it’s a lot of work up front, but they are very pleased at the end because like wow I’m actually like pretty much packed up ready to go and better than you the homeowner packs their things I know I don’t want to take a risk of breaking somebody’s precious things. Right now I’m great grandmothers were exactly, the other thing is when when you have family photos in the home yes they’re beautiful for the family because it’s your space, but the homeowner you know they’re gonna be stopping people join do I know that person? Do my kids go to preschool? So you know just trying to make the place more neutral and welcoming for everyone.

Yeah so I guess the bottom line is you’ve got to remember when you’re selling your home you’re not selling exactly to your imprint you’re selling to a huge group of nationalities, age groups, different people to see your house in a different light. So staging truly works we know 78% of homes that are staged sell faster according to National Association Realtors and I think it’s worth it to present your house in the best light. Absolutely.

So before you step out the door and put a for sale sign on your house, contact Natalie or contact us, we can put you into contact with Natalie and get your house off on the right page. Right neat, clean, neutral clean. That’s a great point clean is if you didn’t do anything that I’m asking you know if they can’t do the fresh linens you can’t do the towels, please just, yeah clean is number one probably and keeping it smelling fresh but not perfumed or personal is a great tip as well people definitely appreciate a clean home.

So to get started, if you need tips on prepping your home for sale you’ve done a great handout for our clients we’re happy to share it with anyone who needs it and thanks so much. Great to see you Sarah. Thank you.

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Is it time to invest? You want to jump into the real estate market, have you been sitting on some equity that you need to maybe move around? We have a great option for you as becoming a real estate investor. I have a special guest speaker with me today that’s gonna take us through some of the pitfalls and highs of investing in real estate. For all the details check us out at teamlogue.ca.

Hi name’s Miles Kulik mortgage broker with The Mortgage Group servicing over 2,500 clients over the last number of years and we’re looking forward to helping those investment clients that are available today. Morning Sarah here. I’m having my morning Starbucks with Myles a fabulous financial advisor a mortgage broker and we’re here to talk a little bit about investing. We have a lot of questions from our clients about how they can buy a rental property or an investment property there’s a lot of changes in our mortgage rules these days and a lot of variables that we’re facing with in the financial world of Ontario and buying and investing in real estate. So I’ve asked Miles to give us sort of some of the fear factors and some of the jump off points that people should consider before jumping in and just making that purchase.

As Sarah said there is that basically get your ducks in order it’s kind of there we’ve talked about that for a long time now but as rules have changed and the markets change it’s never been as important and we always say meet with someone financial advisor, mortgage broker to sit down and go over where do I stand today and build a plan you know we always call, I call it the roadmap to success you know when you’re building going on a trip you want to have your roadmap upfront and that’s the the key ingredient to success in the investment marketplace today. Sit down early and go over the math in front of you and making sure that you’re building that budget or business you know for success in the future.

So we have clients always say to us, “Sarah we own this property we have this much equity in this property can we easily take the equity out and buy say townhomes say condo like fabulous condo?” like this where we’re getting people to buy a new build can they easily take that equity out to buy the next property? You’re giving the equity other property is available to them there’s multiple ways to do it and it is easy there are ways to do it the nice opportunities are really people look at what they call lines of credits and basically what happens is that they have equity in the home they’re allowed to leverage up to 80% of that property towards a line of credit sometimes they take a mortgage sometimes it’s purely interest only it’s really how they want to organize that get out of that property.

Ok so what are some of the immediate changes that have affected people to getting that liquidity maybe as fast as we used to be able to get the equity. So as everything as the pendulum swings in different directions and definitely swung in one direction to make it a bit more difficult from the qualification perspective what’s happening now is we’re now seeing lenders change the criteria of how they calculate the debt and previously it was balance only. Right now they’re looking at limits and so that does come into play when we’re calculating what they call the total debt service which is basically all your debts combined.

“How much do I qualify for?” What we want to look at is you know what is the limit right how is that affecting us but the key ingredient to that though also is looking at the entire market who’s offering what to me? Where do I qualify for a certain percentage with different institution and making sure you’re looking at market read versus what institutions written and I think just to clarify that for people you should be shopping lenders and that’s why we always refer people to you. Yes all those lenders are really determined who’s offering the best package for what you’re trying to accomplish.

Yeah most definitely and again at one point I’m vanilla ice cream was you know is everywhere it was all over the place now we’re looking at we call it Neapolitan you know what I mean and I like to relate everything to food I love food so you know looking at it is that everyone’s offering a bit different and I really want what is the best for you and that’s the opportunity that you should.

Well we really appreciate the help that you provide our clients and guiding them and I think if anyone’s investing in real estate they should obviously hire professional mortgage broker to shop the best positioning for them.

With regards to do you have put more cash down, less cash down, what did your rental ratio and then obviously hire a professional agent right? Most definitely. Most definitely. We were talking with that just a little bit ago you know? Go to someone who actually is in the game, you know someone who invests in real estate, someone who’s invested in real estate in the past you know? They have the experience, not just the open the book and what is it gonna tell me is someone who’s actually felt maybe a little bit of pain to you know?

Yeah most definitely.

I think that real life experience has so much more value than just looking at what would it tell me in the book here. Absolutely we’re constantly trying to position our clients again great equity climb where they’re buying fabulous renters but to understand that it is it’s a long-term gain. Yes most definitely and you know and the point that you made a great point without even maybe the Americans but someone who that says, hey I can find the property I’ll put you in the right path with a very financial people I can help you look to lease to the right people give you the pitfalls of a renter you know what to look for what not to look for in a renter. That’s a full package and that’s that’s more so than just finding a home and then walking away from the product right. It’s a great time to be invested it’s more balanced is easier to buy a product right so we encourage our clients to get out there and start looking.

Never a better time than when the market is maybe a balanced situation versus I’m rushing into something, maybe the price is a little bit more than what the cash flow can get. A balanced market to me would say now I can find the right rental income to offset that debt. I have on a balanced market. Alright so it makes a lot of sense at this point we definitely have more properties available and more renters available so it’s time to be an investor. Most definitely.

Thank you so much your help today, I appreciate it. You’re welcome. Thank you.