What a space can look like when staged professionally
I was asked recently whether or not it is necessary to stage a home in order to sell it. Okay, here is the good news – no it is not necessary. You don’t have to do it. There is no requirement for staging.
But, that said, you still might want to stage it anyway! Making your home look its best will ensure your home sells and sells for a price that is higher than what it would otherwise sell for. What are we talking about when we say staging?
It really is the process of converting your home from the place you currently live in into a desirable place that is attractive for someone else to want to buy.
It starts with throughly cleaning your home from top to bottom, especially the kitchen and bathrooms, until they sparkle. It involves putting away many of the things we would normally have on display in our home: The family pictures; religious symbols; weapons; fridge magnets; magazines; and the accumulated piles of stuff we seem to accumulate.
Could this be done better, so the passage from one room to the next is not blocked?
The next level involves reducing the number of furniture pieces in the home and rearranging them to give the sense of space and to create ”flow”. Do you have natural pathways blocked by furniture? Do you have the best assets of a home as the focal points? Often I see furniture pieces in the wrong rooms. Each room should only have the pieces that make sense to be there. Bedrooms are for bedroom furniture. Living rooms are for living room furniture. The purpose of each room should be evident. These people are buying the space after all, not your furniture!
The next level involves adding the right accents and accessories that create mood and feeling to really attract and interest home buyers.
While some of this you can do on your own, it often makes sense to bring in a professional stager who is capable of taking the staging process well beyond what you ever imagined was possible. The eyes of an outsider can be tremendously beneficial to suggest approaches we cannot visualize ourselves. While they will mostly work with the things you already hav in your home, they can also bring in the additional pices to make the space even better. Staging doesn’t have to be expensive, and when done right will actually earn your more money than not having bothered.
So, before you just sell your home looking exactly like how you live in it every day, consider the value of staging your home. And don’t forget the landscaping – that’s outdoor staging!
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After Closing
With so much demand for pre-construction condos, it can really pay to get advance access to the developer’s sales centre, before it gets opened to the public. This gives you the best choice of suites available and the lowest prices. Once these advance sales are over, the developer typically raises prices and sells the remaining suites to the public. By that time, the choice suites are already taken. The ones best for investment and the nicest for living in.
Welcome to the Town and Country Condo! This is a modestly upscale building in a terrific location. These two buildings located at 1 Lomond Dr and 2 Aberfoyle are tucked in directly behind the Sun Life Centre at Islington and Bloor St in the west-end of Toronto, known as Etobicoke. The first building was completed in 1999 and the second one in 2001. It has a relatively high number of owner-occupied suites, resulting in a strong pride of ownership, which is immediately evident as you walk into the building.
The three buildings are:
Here we are into the first week of 2012. Let’s start by wishing you all the very best for the year ahead! In early January, many of us are planning and setting goals for everything we want to do and achieve in the year to come. While many people think of spring as the primetime home buying season, the Toronto real estate market will be very active through the winter months. It presents a terrific opportunity for both buyers and sellers to make that move happen. You could even be settled into your next home before warmer months arrive! If buying a house is on your “to do” list this year, now is also the time to begin preparing.
Given the generous lot sizes, this is a very favourable area to replace the original homes with larger modern homes. If the home has been really well maintained and is considered “up-to-date”, it will more likely be purchased by a homeowner to move in to. Still, they need to be able to adapt their lifestyle to fit into these homes. The closet space is limited, the rooms are small and the walls may not be insulated. Home that have not been modernized will more likely be snatched-up by a builder. These small builders generally work on spec. They purchase the property and will spend an additional $300,000 to $500,000 to substantially renovate or to rebuild and then market the finished product. Regardless of the condition of the home, all homes sell rapidly in this neighbourhood, as long as they are properly priced.
On the west side of Shaver Ave we find Belgrove Dr, Smithwood Dr, Lorene Dr, Maydolph Rd, Northampton Dr, Laurel Ave, Hamlyn Cres, Cronin Dr, Laurel Gate, Bloorlea Cres, Nipissing Dr, Oregon Trail, Lomar Dr, Blaketon Rd, and Friendly Dr. There is also an attractive neighbourhood of townhomes at 385 The East Mall, originally built by Tridel.
Then, as I wander through the store, I arrive at centre ice! Yes, tucked away amongst the tins of food in isle-25 a red circle on the floor marks centre ice. No special signs. As I take a picture of the floor someone asks me “Is that centre ice?” Fortunately I had already known where to look for it.
Mortgage brokers see a lot of clients who find themselves in a panic to arrange financing for a home purchase. Perhaps they thought they had their financing lined up. Perhaps they did have their financing lined up, when the lender suddenly backed-out. Financing is not a sure thing until you actually have the money! 
Rental apartments in buildings constructed after Nov 1, 1991 are totally exempt from this maximum rent rule. Yup, that right exempt! So, if you are the landlord of a condo suite you rent out in one of those recently built Toronto condo’s, you could increase the rent by as much as you’d like. You can increase it from $1,000 to $1,500, to $3,000 or to $5,000 – but I’d recommend staying away from unreasonably large jumps. The Landlord and Tenant Board could rule against you for acting in bad faith.
Toronto continues to see a booming business in new condo developments. I am frequently asked whether it is better to buy a condo suite new directly from the builder or to buy a resale unit. Let me offer these things to watch out for.
From its location at 1040 The Queensway and 1050 The Queensway at the corner of Islington it is close to a number of things – The LCBO Store immediately to the west, The Queensway Cineplex movie theatre across the street, immediate access to the QEW highway to get downtown, to the airport or out of town rapidly. Then residents of the Loggia find themselves not to far 
from the Islington subway station, Sherway Mall, Queensway IKEA, and shopping districts like The Kingsway and Bloor West Village.
Starting on June 8th 2011 I will be able to accompany you to the sales office to make a purchase here.
