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A new programme has been proposed which will benefit our clients immensely, and save them more money! All new home buyers will be eligible to take advantage of this great offer. This offer is $150 off transfer of services from one home to another OR no start up fees for new Rogers customers.

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As forecasted, The Bank of Canada cut their overnight interest rates to 3.5% from 4%, the biggest cut since 2001. This will of course, affect banks Prime Rates as they will be dropped to 5.25% from 5.75%. 

You will start to see (if any) drops in the 5yr fixed rate (5.74%) sometime within the next couple of weeks and movement on the Variable Rates very soon.

Clients in variable rate mortgages will reap the rewards of this rate drop. 5 yr Variables will be starting as low as 2.9% (Prime minus 2.35%) after the official announcement of the lowered Prime Rate!

 

 

Sellers are looking for ways to get the most for their homes and buyers, of course, are looking for the best value. A flowing floor plan, spacious layout, a not-so-crowded street, great curb appeal or planned community fees, etc. are certainly big influencers for buyers. But so, too, are some of the items in your home that you might not give much consideration.

A changing environment and more talk of all the trash that's filling up our landfills is causing more people to go green by using recycled goods or products that are renewable and easily break down instead of sitting around in our dumps.

Did you know that nylon fabric takes 30-40 years to degrade in a landfill? Cotton fabric takes only 1-5 months.

That's why businesses like the Kaaya Collection are taking off. Established in 2005, its founder, Vinitha Watson is not only selling an environmentally-friendly home décor but also hoping to educate consumers. The company aims to reduce the damaging environmental footprint as much as possible.

Watson says it's a very important mission for her to educate people about what types of materials they are being surrounded by in their homes. She equates it to the push for organic foods that is gaining in popularity.

"I really wanted to concentrate on natural fibers which do have the ability to break down faster," explains Watson.

She uses artisans from India, some who "do phenomenal work for European royalty," says Watson. "We use their craft and their art to embellish fabrics and then bring them here with a kind of Indo-Western flare and we sell it in the U.S.," adds Watson.

Most of her home décor products are items that people would typically pack up and take with them if they moved; however, Watson says there is a value to having natural products in your home when it comes time to sell it.

"In staging a home, if you decorate it in a very natural way, people will feel very cozy in that home," says Watson.

Home décor experts say the "in" products for items that are left behind when the home is sold are things such as wood shutters and woven wood shaded designs for window coverings. These items tend to hold their clean, simple, and up-to-date look regardless of how the styles change over the years.

And Watson adds this, "A lot of the time when sellers move, they leave curtains, so that would be something to highlight." She says especially so if they are made from natural fibers.

Using natural products isn't just about cashing in on what might appeal to buyers; Watson says it's really about creating a better environment and lessening potential health issues that can come from synthetic materials.

"They cause a lot of allergies. They can cause rashes. They can be carcinogenic," says Watson

Getting started in the natural décor theme doesn't have to break the bank. "Buy something that is really good that is also 100 percent natural fiber," says Watson. She recommends starting with pillows and curtains. She adds, "They're great to make you feel good about your environment."

When you shop for products ask questions about dyes. "I educate people about the dyes that we use. We use Azo-free dyes which are non-metallic dyes and we also use vegetable dyes whenever possible," says Watson.

"Turn over the product label and look at it," says Watson. You might be surprised by what you find.

Developing an inquisitive approach to shopping for home décor will likely get you to understand how certain products are manufactured, where the materials come from, and even who is making them -- then you can decide if that's the kind of product you want to be surrounded by in your home environment.

"Do you think it's chemically treated to get that softness?" is another important question says Watson. "That's also something that people are not very educated about," she adds. Watson says there are often many chemical products used on fabrics to break down the fibers and give it that worn feeling or make it soft to the touch. But she cautions you could be getting a nice texture and an overly-treated product.

Even if now doesn't seem to be the ideal time to sell your home, you can take heart in knowing that small actions may make a difference in getting your home sold.

"Scentmosphere" isn't exactly new but it is rapidly becoming a way to attempt to attract buyers.

When buyers walk into a house before they actually see anything in that house, because they breathe, they are smelling. So they are actually getting an impression, whether it's conscious or subconscious, of your home -- just by the way it smells.

So, right now take a deep breath. What kind of "smellment" is your home making?

Choosing to proactively make a statement in the way your home smells is just another step in helping to sell your home faster. It's the next step after curb appeal. Curb appeal gets buyers in the door but then they see and smell your home and begin to decide if this is the home for them. Remember, if it's a vacant home it can be musty. But if it's an active home it also could have odors of whatever activities that are going on in that house.

Are buyers going to smell the over-sized dog that traipses around the house after rolling in the newly-cut grass? Are they going to smell your son's gym bag filled with dirty socks that has been buried deep in his closet for the last five weeks? While we certainly don't all have the same preferences for scents, most would agree neither of those two things pose a welcoming aroma.

Try candle fragrances such as the smell of freshly-baked cookies. Not everybody likes to eat cookies but everybody enjoys the smell of cookies, and when I say everybody, there may be the exception here or there, but the vast majority would enjoy the baking smell. So we're always fond of fragrances that are in the vanilla family.

Fragrances such as French vanilla, butter cream, and créme brûleé that mimic baking scents are welcoming and inviting for buyers. Scents register in our brain and frequently remind us of our past experiences. Creating pleasant aromas in your newly-listed house can help the buyer to experience an emotional connection with the home.

When it comes to bathrooms, great rooms, or even basements it's a good idea to try different fragrances. You may want to think of what we refer to as clean or fresh fragrances and those could be based in various fruits, so the citrus family is a really good one.

However there are some fragrances that you should avoid as they don't tend to appeal to the masses or they have too strong an odor. Stick to such winners such as vanilla, kitchen spice fragrances, citrus, and the smell of freshly cleaned laundry.

Candles are the best way to get the fragrant aroma in the air, but if you don't have time to let them burn before showing your home there are other methods that work to get the right "scentmosphere." Try electrical plug-in products that have oil them so they provide continuous fragrance. If you're away from the house for a period of time, you don't have to worry about the candle being lit.

Reed diffusers are both decorative and powerful for giving off fragrance. The diffusers contain oil and the reeds help to draw the oil up and out into the room.

But if you give every room a fragrance, is there a point of over-saturation? No likely! It's not like the person who put on too much perfume. A home is a very large place and it absorbs a lot of the fragrance so it would be pretty hard to overpower a house with too much fragrance,.

With all the tips out there about selling a home, the scent factor is often the most forgotten. If you don't have a scent that you want in there, buyers are going to smell whatever is going on in that room. So if it's been closed up or doesn't have a lot of air flow there will be more of a musty, damp, or a less desirable scent.

It just makes sense that if you want to create an appealing environment for buyers, pleasing scents should be part of the selling plan.