5 Things to Know About Your Home Owner's Insurance Policy

Many of us purchase insurance coverage for  various things, but don't actually know specifically what is covered and for how much.  Here is a checklist of what to look for.

 

1. Know about exclusions to coverage. For example, most insurance policies do not cover flood or earthquake damage as a standard item. These types of coverage must be bought separately.

2. Know about dollar limitations on claims. Even if you are covered for a risk, there may be a limit on how much the insurer will pay. For example, many policies limit the amount paid for stolen jewelry unless items are insured separately.

3. Know the replacement cost. If your home is destroyed you’ll receive money to replace it only to the maximum of your coverage, so be sure your insurance is sufficient. This means that if your home is insured for $250,000 and it costs $280,000 to replace it, you’ll only receive $150,000.

4. Know the actual cash value. If you chose not to replace your home when it’s destroyed, you’ll receive replacement cost, less depreciation. This is called actual cash value.

5. Know the liability. Generally your homeowner’s insurance covers you for accidents that happen to other people on your property, including medical care, court costs, and awards by the court. However, there is usually an upper limit to the amount of coverage provided. Be sure that it’s sufficient if you have significant assets.

 

Make sure to check with your insurance provider or broker to see if all of your needs are covered.

8 Reasons to Work with a Realtor

Not all real estate practitioners are REALTORS®. The term REALTOR® is a registered trademark that identifies a real estate professional who is a member of the Canadian Real Estate Association and your provincial Real Estate Association and subscribes to their strict Code of Ethics. Here are five reasons why it pays to work with a REALTOR®. 

 

1. Navigate a complicated process. Buying or selling a home usually requires disclosure forms, inspection reports, mortgage documents, insurance policies, deeds, and multipage settlement statements. A knowledgeable expert will help you prepare the best deal, and avoid delays or costly mistakes.

 

2. Information and opinions. REALTORS® can provide local community information on utilities, zoning, schools, and more. They’ll also be able to provide objective information about each property. A professional will be able to help you answer these two important questions: Will the property provide the environment I want for a home or investment? Second, will the property have resale value when I am ready to sell?

3. Help finding the best property out there. Sometimes the property you are seeking is available but not actively advertised in the market, and it will take some investigation by your REALTOR® to find all available properties.

 

4. Negotiating skills. There are many negotiating factors, including but not limited to price, financing, terms, date of possession, and inclusion or exclusion of repairs, furnishings, or equipment. In addition, the purchase agreement should provide a period of time for you to complete appropriate inspections and investigations of the property before you are bound to complete the purchase. Your agent can advise you as to which investigations and inspections are recommended or required.

 

5.  Property marketing power. Real estate doesn’t sell due to advertising alone. In fact, a large share of real estate sales comes as the result of a practitioner’s contacts through previous clients, referrals, friends, and family. When a property is marketed with the help of a REALTOR®, you do not have to allow strangers into your home. Your REALTOR® will generally prescreen and accompany qualified prospects through your property.

 

6. Someone who speaks the language. If you don’t know a CMA from a PUD, you can understand why it’s important to work with a professional who is immersed in the industry and knows the real estate language.

 

7. Experience. Most people buy and sell only a few homes in a lifetime, usually with quite a few years in between each purchase. Even if you have done it before, laws and regulations change. REALTORS®, on the other hand, handle hundreds of real estate transactions over the course of their career. Having an expert on your side is critical.

 

8. Objective voice. A home often symbolizes family, rest, and security — it’s not just four walls and a roof. Because of this, homebuying and selling can be an emotional undertaking. And for most people, a home is the biggest purchase they’ll every make. Having a concerned, but objective, third party helps you stay focused on both the emotional and financial issues most important to you.

14 Low-Cost Ways to Improve Curb Appeal and Help Sell Your Home Faster

With the real estate market in Kitchener slowing a little and become stable and a higher number of homes staying on the market longer, making your home stand out is becoming more important as competition increases.

Make your home more appealing for yourself and potential buyers with these quick and easy tips:

1. Trim bushes so they don’t block windows or architectural details.

2. Mow your lawn, and turn on the sprinklers for 30 minutes before the showing to make the lawn sparkle.

3. Put a pot of bright flowers (or a small evergreen in winter) on your porch.

4. Install new doorknobs on your front door.

5. Repair any cracks in the driveway.

6. Edge the grass around walkways and trees.

7. Keep your garden tools and hoses out of sight.

8. Clear toys from the lawn.

9. Buy a new mailbox.

10. Upgrade your outside lighting.

 

11. Buy a new doormat for the outside of your front door.

12. Clean your windows, inside and outside.

13. Polish or replace your house numbers.

14. Place a seasonal wreath on your door.

18 Simple Tips to Help You Sell Your Home

 
Selling a home involves several steps.  Pricing and Marketing are the steps that get potential buyers in the door to look at the home.  But what about once they are there?  You need to make the most of every showing because every showing may be the last showing.....

1. Remove clutter and clear off counters. Throw out stacks of newspapers and magazines and stow away most of your small decorative items. Put excess furniture in storage, and remove out-of-season clothing items that are cramping closet space. Don’t forget to clean out the garage, too.

2. Wash your windows and screens. This will help get more light into the interior of the home.

3. Keep everything extra clean. A clean house will make a strong first impression and send a message to buyers that the home has been well-cared for. Wash fingerprints from light switch plates, mop and wax floors, and clean the stove and refrigerator. Polish your doorknobs and address numbers. It’s worth hiring a cleaning service if you can afford it.

4. Get rid of smells. Clean carpeting and drapes to eliminate cooking odors, smoke, and pet smells. Open the windows to air out the house. Potpourri or scented candles will help.

5. Brighten your rooms. Put higher wattage bulbs in light fixtures to brighten up rooms and basements. Replace any burned-out bulbs in closets. Clean the walls, or better yet, brush on a fresh coat of neutral color paint.

6. Don’t disregard minor repairs. Small problems such as sticky doors, torn screens, cracked caulking, or a dripping faucet may seem trivial, but they’ll give buyers the impression that the house isn’t well-maintained.

7. Tidy your yard. Cut the grass, rake the leaves, add new mulch, trim the bushes, edge the walkways, and clean the gutters. For added curb appeal, place a pot of bright flowers near the entryway.

8. Patch holes. Repair any holes in your driveway and reapply sealant, if applicable.  

9. Add a touch of color in the living room.  A colored afghan or throw on the couch will jazz up a dull room. Buy new accent pillows for the sofa.

10. Buy a flowering plant and put it near a window you pass by frequently.

11. Make centerpieces for your tables. Use brightly colored fruit or flowers. A bottle of wine and a couple of wine glasses also add a nice touch on a table or counter top.

12. Set the scene. Set the table with fancy dishes and candles, and create other vignettes throughout the home to help buyers picture living there. For example, in the basement you might display a chess game in progress.

13. Replace heavy curtains with sheer ones that let in more light. Show off the view if you have one.

14. Accentuate the fireplace. Lay fresh logs in the fireplace or put a basket of flowers there if it’s not in use.

15. Make the bathrooms feel luxurious. Put away those old towels and toothbrushes. When buyers enter your bathroom, they should feel pampered. Add a new shower curtain, new towels, and fancy guest soaps. Make sure your personal toiletry items are out of sight.

16. Send your pets to a neighbor or take them outside. If that’s not possible, crate them or confine them to one room (ideally in the basement), and let the real estate practitioner know where they’ll be to eliminate surprises.

17. Lock up valuables, jewelry, and money. While a real estate salesperson will be on site during the showing or open house, it’s impossible to watch everyone all the time.

18. Leave the home. It’s usually best if the sellers are not at home. It’s awkward for prospective buyers to look in your closets and express their opinions of your home with you there.

Why Empty Rooms Might Keep Your Home from Selling or Getting the Highest Price

 This image is from a newly renovated living room - pretty blah!

This is the same main floor as shown in the image above. Now, this feels like a home that buyers can make an emotional attachment to! It's also important to give people a sense of how furniture fits in the space. Most potential home buyers can't visualize the possibilities without help. Notice how much bigger the area looks with furniture!

 

 

 

 

 

If you are hoping to sell your home quickly and for as much money as possible, it’s a bad idea to try and sell a house with empty rooms.

Here are 5 reasons why you should always use furniture and/or accessories in a room rather than showing it empty:

1. People don’t buy houses, they buy homes.

When you sell a house, you aren’t selling a commodity. You are selling a HOME, a place where a family will LIVE, raise their kids, have a refuge from the outside world. Even if you’re selling a tiny condo, you’re selling to someone who will bring their hopes and dreams of how their lives can be to living there.

Walking through empty rooms, or an empty house, is usually pretty depressing. It looks lonely, it doesn’t shout “this is your home, you will love living here.” So why would a buyer feel especially motivated to make an offer?

2. It’s hard to understand how large a room is when there’s nothing in it as a reference point.

Are you inspired by this freshly painted, but seemingly tiny master bedroom? Pretend you’re the buyer, which master bedroom are you more likely to remember favorably after seeing 8 houses in a day?




This is the same room, decorated to sell with furniture and accessories.
 

Buyers can’t tell the difference between a 12 x 10 foot room and a 14 x 12 room if it’s empty. It looks about the same even though one is 40% bigger.

And when you’re dealing with a space that is 15 x 20 feet, a potential buyer has no idea what to do with it or how to arrange it. They might think it’s just big enough for a couch, 2 chairs and a coffee table, yet there’s room for so much more.

3. People can’t visualize how furniture will fit in an empty space and if they’re unsure, they don’t buy.

As shown in the living room/dining room example at the top of this article, it would have been hard to imagine how much furniture would fit in there or how it might be arranged. It’s a relatively small space and it was important to show buyers how it could be used.

4. When a room is empty prospective buyers focus on negative details instead of falling in love with the overall space.

Instead of looking at the flow of one room to another, they get bogged down in questions like:

• Is the drywall smooth?
• Will those bumps in the carpet come out?
• How come the closet doesn’t have a hanging bar yet?
• Why doesn’t that molding fit perfectly?
• How come the light switch is in the middle of the wall?

5. When a house or even a few rooms are empty prospective buyers can get distracted from looking at the house.
Instead of focusing on whether this is the home for them, they may be busy wondering: Is this a divorce? Have they left town? Are they selling because they have money problems? This train of thought will take them where you, as a vendor, don’t want them to go!

They’ll start thinking, “maybe I can put in a low ball offer since the seller might be desperate.” Clearly this is not the situation to get you the best price for the property.

Weber Street Widening in Kitchener Will Change the Intersection Forever...

Everything is about to change on Weber Street West through central Kitchener.

The Region of Waterloo plans to tear down 34 homes and four business properties. Demolitions could start in October. It’s part of a $51-million plan to widen Weber to four lanes and build an underpass beneath the CN railway tracks at the Via Rail station.
Road construction begins next year.

Kitchener councillors got a look at demolition plans Monday.

“There will be impacts on the streetscape but over the course of time we expect that there will be redevelopment,” said Garett Stevenson, a planner with the City of Kitchener.

Weber is being widened between College and Guelph streets. Most doomed homes are on the west (or south) side of Weber. A few are on the other side of the street, east of Victoria Street North.

In total, 52 dwellings will disappear when homes and apartments are demolished. The Station Plaza at Victoria and Weber streets will disappear along with three other business properties. Council has acquired or is expropriating the properties.

Council is widening Weber in part to handle traffic displaced from King Street when street-level trains are installed there by 2017.

Homes facing demolition range from poor to good condition. None are heritage properties. Some materials may be salvaged for possible reuse.

Tips for Saving for a Down Payment for a Home

 

For many potential home buyers, the only issue that holds them back is the down payment required to purchase a home.

According to a recent TD Canada Trust survey, nearly 60 percent of Canadians were disappointed in the size of their down payment.  These findings aren’t all that surprising; in a world of record-setting consumer debt, slim savings and lacklustre investment returns, saving for a sizeable deposit can seem like an exercise in futility. And yet, the bigger your down payment, the less interest you’ll pay, the easier it will be to refinance and you’ll enjoy lower mortgage fees.

If you’re saving for a home, but are frustrated by the slow process, rest assured that you’re not alone. More and more first-time home buyers are simply skirting the savings train in order to get the keys to their new home faster. According to the TD survey, roughly 55 percent of the first-time buyers surveyed by TD said they would purchase sooner, instead of saving, if they had the chance to go back and do things over again.

But is rushing into homeownership the best financial option?

Down Payment Requirements

The minimum entrance fee to homeownership is 5 percent in Canada. According to the TD survey, it takes the average first-time home buyer two years or less to bank the minimum. Those who save the recommended 20 percent reported that it took anywhere from one to four years to pull their down payment together.
Many experts feel that these numbers are slightly optimistic, thanks in part to soaring home prices. The national average purchase price for a first time buyer is roughly $295,000 (according to mortgage insurer Genworth Financial Canada). In order to cover the minimum 5 percent down payment, the average first-time home buyer would need to save $16,000 plus closing costs. A 10 percent down payment would be close to $31,000.

How Long Will it Take to Save?

According to Doug Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, the average Canadian family (median income of roughly $70,000) saves at a rate of 4 percent annually. This means that the median family would be saving about $2,800 each year. Since most first-time home buyers are younger and less established, it’s not surprising that this demographic would be saving somewhat less than the median family. As such, Porter feels that a more realistic savings schedule would be between four and five years for the minimum 5 percent deposit.

The Argument For Saving

While saving up for a down payment may sound like torture, it’s still the best option for buyers. Saving longer will give you a bigger cushion if home prices suddenly drop and you’re forced to sell. What’s more, it will provide you with a better entry price if the market sells off before you’re able to buy (experts are predicting a price correction in the Canadian housing market in the next few years).
In terms of your best rate mortgage, buying with a 10 percent down payment could save you close to $80 per month in payments, not to mention nearly $2,400 in mortgage default insurance.
Of course, there’s always the issue of mortgage rates. Buying today with a minimum down payment enables you to lock in an insanely  low fixed rate for as long as a decade.
So, should you buy now with a low down payment or wait until you’ve banked a larger deposit? Here are a few things to help you make an educated decision.

• What are you current rental costs? Are they higher or lower then your monthly mortgage payments?
• How large is your emergency fund? Just because you can carry the mortgage doesn’t mean you’ll be able to manage emergency expenses.
• How financially stable are you? Is there a chance you might lose your job or get promoted in the future?

What’s more, there are several things you can do to beef up your savings. This includes:

• Cutting your spending
• Borrowing from your RRSP as part of a Home Buyers’ Plan
• Postponing vacations for 18 months or more.

If you are starting the process of searching for a home or at the point where you are ready to purchase, please contact me today so I can help guide you in probably the largest purchase you will ever make.

Home Sales Dip Slightly in Kitchener - Waterloo, but Home Values Continue to Increase

There were a total of 495 home sales through the Multiple Listing System (MLS®) of the Kitchener-Waterloo Association of REALTORS® (KWAR) in August, a decrease of 4.4 percent compared to the 518 homes sold in the same month last year.

On a year-to-date basis, residential home sales remain on par with last year – with a total of 4,492 sales recorded.

August’s residential sales included 322 detached homes (down 7.7 percent), 35 semi-detached (up 6.1 percent), 37 townhouses (up 32.1 percent), and 97 condominium units (down 4 percent).

The average sale price of all residential properties sold in Kitchener-Waterloo and area rose 7.3 percent in August to $314,623, up from $293,303 one year ago. Condominium units increased 9 percent to $231,654, up from $212,513 a year ago. Single detached homes sold for an average price of $354,064, a 7.6 percent increase compared to a year ago.

Very strong price gains were helped along by the fact that 3 residential properties sold for over 1 million dollars in August, compared to no sales in that price range last August.

Also putting pressure on August’s average residential sale price was the increase in the number of homes that sold for more than $400,000. 96 homes were reported sold that came in over $400,000, representing an increase of 37 percent compared to the 70 homes that sold above that mark in August 2011.

Contact me today to discuss the current market conditions in your neighbourhood.

5 Legal Items to Complete after Buying a New Home

Most buyers, especially first-time buyers, are very excited when they purchase their first home and in the excitement of preparing for moving they often forget very important things to take care of before loading that last box.

1- Read and understand your rental/lease agreement.  Most lease agreements have particular requirements regarding notice periods to vacate, sub-lease agreements and penalties for breaking a lease.  This should be done prior to drafting an offer to purchase so you can negotiate the proper closing date.

2- Protect yourself with insurance.  Most moving companies provide minimum insurance for your items, but you may wish to purchase extra insurance.  You would have been required by your lender to obtain fire/home insurance prior to closing or they won't advance the funds for the purchase.

3- Notify all your creditors of your new address.  All Canada Post outlets have a Change of Address form you can use which will redirect your mail for 3 or 6 months, for a fee.

4- Keep all receipts if you are moving for work.  Revenue Canada provides tax relief for these expenses.

5- Update your new address with all health insurance provider, lawyer, bank and other important contact with whom you have limited contact....they are easy to forget.

There are so many things to think about when selling or buying a home, why not let an expert help you with the actual process so you can concentrate on what's important.  If you are thinking of buying or selling, contact me today!