Selling your home

Salt Spring Home Staging Tips

July 4, 2022 By Scott Simmons Leave a Comment

If you’re selling your home, you want to create the best impression possible for prospective buyers. And one of the easiest ways to do that is through staging. A well-staged home gives buyers a better sense of what living in the space will be like and makes them more likely to want to buy it. So if you’re thinking about listing your property this spring, here are some tips on how to stage your Salt Spring Island home:

Furniture Matters! Don’t try to sell an empty home.

Furniture Matters! A home that is empty or sparsely furnished can be difficult for prospective buyers to envision living in. Empty rooms feel cold, vacant and sad.

The Condition of your Home Matters!

Now we know this is Salt Spring and we know that some of us live without baseboards and with “island hardwood” aka plywood floors in areas but people do notice and focus on things like this when they are viewing homes. Many buyers can’t visualize the potential of a home and how your home shows now is how people see themselves in it. They can’t see past the clutter, stains and chips – in fact, they tend to focus even more on those things. And after price, the condition of your home is the single biggest factor determining how fast and for how much it sells for.

Here are some quick tips to help you get started:

Clean! Make it shine inside and out. Windows should be sparkling so don’t forget this important element when staging your home!
Declutter! Make sure every room is clutter-free, including closets and garages. Buyers want to see what they can do with your house, not how much stuff you’ve collected over the years and remember that buyers will look at everything.
Fix items that need attention! It may not be necessary to renovate a house before listing it for sale, but if there are obvious issues like broken seals on windows or leaky faucets that need fixing, now is definitely the time to do so.

Lighting Matters!

The lighting matters – emphasize natural light and ample soft light in every room, especially on gloomy days. A dark house will make it hard to show off the best attributes of your home and make it seem smaller than it really is.

You may need to install new bulbs or add more lamps for added light. If you have a dark entryway or hallway, try using mirrors to reflect the light from windows or skylights into these spaces.

Tour of the house without lights on;

Tour of staged house with lights on;

Curb Appeal and Outdoor Spaces Matter!

First impressions are everything, and the first impression that buyers have when they pull up to your home will influence their decision to continue the tour or move on.

If your front yard has any dead plants or debris, get rid of them! The same goes for your driveway, make sure it’s free of debris and leaves and if there are potholes, fill them! Mow the grass if you have it.
The front door is the first thing potential buyers see, so make sure it’s clean and freshly painted if necessary. Make sure the front door is accessible. Although many of us tend to use the back door when we live in a home, we want to bring buyers in through the front.
Repair or replace any damaged siding, decking and trim.

Some Before and After Photos with Scott

Staging your Salt Spring Island home is about putting your property into the best light. When effectively executed, staging allows buyers to imagine living there, not notice you and your family’s belongings. It can help your house sell faster and for more money and who doesn’t want that?

If you are looking to sell, contact The Salt Spring Team. When you list with us, we provide you with all of our tips and tricks to make your home more appealing to potential buyers. We can walk you through the process and make your home selling experience a little less stressful, and hopefully a lot more fun. Call us today to learn more: 250.538.8316.

Packing Tips for Busy Home Sellers

September 5, 2018 By Scott Simmons Leave a Comment

Packing correctly can simplify the burden of the entire process for a household and potentially their moving company. By packing smart, using proper protocols, and paying attention to the details, things can be ready to go far before the movers arrive and ready to unload upon arrival. Here are some tips for busy home sellers to ease the packing and moving process.

Get Rid of the Junk and Organize the Rest

Cutting back on possessions is the easiest way to simplify a move before the packing even begins. Get four piles going for every section or room of the home being gone through consisting of items to keep, throw away, donate and sell. No time to sell before moving day? Add those to the donate pile, and don’t forget about local ‘freecycle’ sites as an option to local or national donation drop off organizations. However, there are likely donation options for everything home-related, so there’s no pressure to take unnecessary items others can use.

Snap Pics of Gadget Hookups

Avoid looking for instruction booklets on how to hook up televisions, stereos, cable boxes, computers, dvd players and other electronics by snapping a few pics of the device’s back. This serves as a ready-to-go manual that streamlines hooking everything back up upon arrival at the new abode. This tip can apply to just about anything that has a complicated setup or multiple plugs. It’s also great to get some zip ties to keep cords organized, and in doing so certain cords may not even need to be unplugged for the move.

Prep With Proper Supplies and Pack Right

Running out of supplies can delay everything when moving to a new home, so be prepared with ample boxes, tape, protective wrap, cutters, etc. Most of these supplies can be obtained by the moving company hired a storage facility or at a local grocer or hardware store. Free boxes can even be found at local stores—just ask the manager. Avoid using trash bags for ‘keep’ items, as they could be disposed of mistakenly. Be sure to properly assemble moving boxes and pack them according to proper recommendations, with heavy items on the bottom and light items on the top of boxes. Have a variety of sizes on hand to avoid making boxes to heavy to be moved around in the new place.

Help Movers Help You: Label Every Box By Room

Avoid having to point and say, “That room, this room, over here” by properly labeling every box as to it’s final room destination while packing. Label the room on every side of the box to maximize visibility and reduce mover’s search efforts. Include a smaller itemized list on the box too in order to ease the search when looking for ‘must-have’ items upon moving in.

Separate By In Last, First Out

While labeling boxes, also specify WHEN the box should be loaded. Specifically identify whether that will be early in the process or as a final box going into the back of the truck that will be unloaded first. Those first out items typically consist of linens, kitchen and bathroom necessities, food items, electronics and other personal items that will be needed right away.

Pack a Last Minute Bag for the Transitional Phase

If there will be a few days passing between the time of departing the old home and arriving at the new one, prep a suitcase with everything needed until the family and the movers get to the final destination. As opposed to other situations, this might be one time in which packing a bit too much may come in handy, as unexpected incidences could delay timely travels meaning more could ultimately be just right.

Guest blogger,

Anthony Gilbert REALTOR® ABR®

The REALFX Group – Washington
7829 Center Blvd Suite 309
Snoqualmie, WA 98065

The Property Disclosure Statement in BC

January 26, 2016 By Scott Simmons 12 Comments

What is a PDS (property disclosure statement) and why you should anyone buying or selling Salt Spring real estate care. If you are selling think of the PDS as your trusted friend. Just like a trusted friend you can and should tell all to the PDS. The PDS will be there with you if you get into a sticky situation selling.

Why do I need to fill one out if I’m selling? You do not have to British Columbia doesn’t have a law requiring property sellers to complete the PDS, the REALTORS® of BC make the form available to sellers listing their home on the MLS®. It is not mandatory but strongly suggested as best practice. Think of it like “air bags” in a car. Most people will never need their “air bags” well why put them in a car if most will not need them? Well if that truck coming your way at high speed swerves into your lane you will be glad you had your “air bags”. 99.99% of real estate deals will never “need” a PDS but if you disclose chances are the buyers can not come back on you and take you to court. Here is info about the latest court case, Nixon v. MacIver, were the PDS was involved. Info below is from the BCREA which I have been a member of for more than a decade:

PROPERTY DISCLOSURE STATEMENT TIPS

The BC Court of Appeal recently decided Nixon v. MacIver, the court’s newest Property Disclosure Statement (PDS) case.¹ Once again, the court held in favour of the sellers. It seems timely to offer a few PDS suggestions for licensees.

Listing REALTORS®

Why use a PDS? It makes sense that the seller, the person most familiar with the property, should inform potential buyers about his or her knowledge of it. The PDS gives every buyer the same starting point for inquiring about the property and reduces a Realtor’s risk of being sued for misrepresentation.

A seller may want advice when completing a PDS. Review the PDS instructions with the seller and remind the seller to honestly and fully complete it. Warn the seller against assuming or guessing. Say, “If you don’t know, you don’t know.” In Nixon, much of the dispute might have been avoided if the sellers, when completing their PDS, had not wrongly assumed the age of a roof. Even so, the court dismissed the claim against the sellers because they honestly believed their answer to be correct.

If the seller says, “I don’t understand this question,” consider simplifying the seller’s inquiry. You can ask, “What part of the question don’t you understand?” If the seller does not understand a particular word, consider consulting a dictionary together and always document the inquiry in your notes.

Suppose a Realtor gives a seller certain advice about filling in the PDS, but the seller rejects that advice? The Realtor should warn the seller about the risks of not following that advice and fully document the exchange.

If a Realtor believes that a seller’s answer is misleading or needs clarification, they should explain to the seller why. For example, where a seller describes his knowledge of water damage in the PDS as, “some.” In particular, beware the half-truth – the answer that mentions a real problem, but downplays its actual magnitude. Warn the seller that he or she may be sued for giving false or misleading information. If the seller refuses to correct a misleading answer, the Realtor should withdraw.

In a lawsuit, there may be a question whether the buyer relied on the PDS before making an offer. A listing Realtor should record when the PDS is delivered to the buyer or the buyer’s agent.

Buyer Agents

It is important to put the PDS into perspective for a buyer. The Nixon case emphasizes the buyer’s own obligation to investigate the property. Subject to a seller’s duty to disclose a latent defect, Nixon held that a seller who completes a PDS has no obligation to add extra information beyond answering the specific questions in the form. The court reiterated that the PDS only asks a seller to say if he or she is aware of certain problems. As the Real Estate Council of British Columbia says:²

“Realtors who act for buyers should caution their clients that questions on the PDS worded, ”Are you aware…” refer only to the present tense. A negative answer does not mean that there has not been a problem in the past or that a past problem will not recur.”

Incorporate the PDS into the contract. If a particular statement in that PDS is especially important to the buyer, add that the statement in question, “is a fundamental term of this contract.”

Remind the buyer of the importance of a professional inspection and have the buyer give a copy of the PDS to the inspector. The buyer can ask the inspector to note any discrepancies between what the inspector sees and what the PDS says or omits.

In contract law, a buyer may only rescind the contract for innocent misrepresentation by taking legal steps before completion. If a buyer discovers information that is inconsistent with the PDS, advise the buyer to immediately seek legal advice.

Mike Mangan
B.A., LL.B.

	1.	Nixon v. MacIver, 2016 BCCA 8 aff’g 2014 BCSC 533.
	2.	Real Estate Council of British Columbia, Professional Standards Manual, online: Trading Services, 4. General Information, (a) (xxii)(1)Disclosing Defects: How the Law Works:http://www.recbc.ca/psm/disclosing-defects-how-the-law-works.

“Copyright British Columbia Real Estate Association. Reprinted with permission.” BCREA makes no guarantees as to the accuracy or completeness of this information or the currency of legal information.

The court case is interesting to read over. Here is what I think is the most interesting part about disclosure;

Disclosure statements

[48] Information contained in a disclosure statement that is incorporated into a contract of purchase and sale may be a representation upon which a purchaser can rely: Ward v. Smith, 2001 BCSC 1366 (CanLII) at para. 31. However, a vendor is only obliged to disclose his or her current actual knowledge of the state of affairs of the property to the extent promised in the disclosure statement and need say “no more than that he or she is or is not aware of problems”: Arsenault v. Pederson, [1996] B.C.J. 1026 (QL) (S.C.) at para. 12. In other words, the vendor must correctly and honestly disclose his or her actual knowledge, but that knowledge does not have to be correct. A vendor is not required to warrant a certain state of affairs but only to put prospective purchasers on notice of any current known problems. The purpose of a disclosure statement is to identify any problems or concerns with the property, not to give detailed comments in answer to the questions posed. See Anderson v. Kibzey, [1996] B.C.J. No. 3008 (QL) (S.C.) at paras. 13-14;Zaenker v. Kirk (1999), 30 R.P.R. (3d) 9 (B.C.S.C.) at para. 19; Kiraly v. Fuchs, 2009 BCSC 654 (CanLII) at paras. 47, 49; and Roberts v. Hutton, 2013 BCSC 640 (CanLII) at para. 83.

So there you have it. Please disclose all if you are selling. Buyers please do your due diligence, do not rely on just the sellers PDS, hire professionals to inspect the home and or property.

Cheers
Scott Simmons

add a stairlift

April 12, 2014 By Scott Simmons Leave a Comment

As a REALTOR® I know first hand the difficulty of selling and moving. It might be easier to reno your home than to move to a one level living home. If your steps have become a major challenge it might be time to think about a stairlift. I had always wanted to see one first hand and Patrick has just installed a state of the art stairlift system on Salt Spring.

For more info call Patrick Cassidy at Salt Spring Island Medical Equipment 250-537-1990 he is the contract sales person for Medichair/Centric Health. Email ssimedicalquipmpent (@) gmail (.) com

The lift shown in the video is a Bruno custom curved rail stairlift.

Cheers

Scott Simmons

Salt Spring EnerGuide

Home Energy Rating

Did you know you can get an EnerGuide rating for your home? A high rating on the EnerGuide scale signifies an energy efficient home.

I was surprised that you could get an EnerGuide rating for a house. And now the Victoria Real Estate Board will let agents put the EnerGuide rating on the MLS®. On January 6, 2010, a home here, on Salt Spring Island, BC, received the first EnerGuide rating on the MLS®. This rating happened with the efforts of the Victoria Real Estate Board, CRD, LiveSmart BC, Earth Festival Society and the dedicated group at the Salt Spring Energy Strategy.

The EnerGuide ratings are scaled between 1 and 100. The average energy efficiency rating for a house in British Columbia is 56. A home with a rating of 80 would be at the top of the practical list. Only houses off the grid, which don’t utilize any outside power, could receive a rating of 100.

In order to get a rating for your home, you have to hire an expert who will put a large fan in your door and do a test like the video above.

Once the experts rate your house they will prepare a detailed report on your home. The report will show all the improvements that could be made. Fortunately, it doesn’t cost much to receive this valuable report and the EnerGuide rating.

So what happens if your home comes in with a really low rating? Well, if you can feel a wind in your living room and you burn a cord of wood every week to heat your home, a low rating wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Most houses with low energy efficiency are obvious to the buyers anyway. But remember, most homes will do fine and this rating is a guide to give buyers some peace of mind when they purchase a home. The more information they have, the higher the probability they will buy your home.

This is just another way to show the buyers you are serious about selling your home.
How do we get started? Call me.

Cheers

Scott Simmons

How to sell Salt Spring Real Estate

How to Sell your Salt Spring Home

To sell your house first we need to define our terms;

Marketing is the process associated with promotion for sale of goods or services.

Merchandising means maximizing merchandise sales using product design, selection, packaging, pricing, and display that stimulates consumers to spend more.

This is a very powerful quote by Paco Underhill in his book “WHY WE BUY”

“We live in a tactile-deprived society, and shopping is one of our few chances to freely experience the material world firsthand. Almost all unplanned buying is a result of touching, hearing, smelling or tasting something on the premise of a store– which is why merchandising can more powerful than marketing, why the Internet, catalogs and home shopping on TV will complement but never seriously challenge real live stores.”

Paco Underhill’s book is written for retail sales. House sales follow the same basic principles. There are two parts to selling your house Merchandising and Marketing.

Follow my 3 easy steps to merchandise your Salt Spring Island house.

Step 1 We help you in gathering the information for the buyers…

Gather all the relevant information on your house. We live in the information age and buyers want any and all relevant information on the house they are thinking about buying. If you do not fill in all the blanks and thus leave doubts they will not buy. The buying decision is easier if all the facts are known.

This is the type of information the buyers would like; building plans, building permits, title, easements, floor plans, surveys, appliance receipts, septic tank pumping receipts, telephone bills, cable bill, electric bills, Internet bills, tax notices, fire insurance docs, water bills, propane rental tank contract, home warranty documents and any strata documents.

You can go the extra mile and hire a few experts such as;

House inspector to do a house inspection and then if there are any big problems you can fix them prior to putting your house on the market. In British Columbia, full disclosure is the law. Hide nothing!!!! Disclose all…
Septic inspection company to send a high tech camera down into your septic field. With septic systems costing so much, due to the new provincial regulations, a non-serviceable system could cost you the sale. Fields can be cleaned out with powerful high-pressure water.
Have a water testing company do a water test.
Surveyor to flag the property boundaries.
Hire an energy auditor to do a household energy audit and get an EnerGuide rating for your house.
Hire an appraiser to tell you what your house is worth.

Step 2 We help you set up the house to sell (Merchandise your house) …

Rent a storage locker and fill it. Removing 25% – 30% of the contents of your house will make it look 50% – 60% bigger. You’re planning to move anyhow, so might as well get packing.

Stage your house to sell. You are not selling your home you are selling your house. Your home is all your possessions and you will be moving them to your next place you call home. A stager will make your house look and feel like a gorgeous show home.

Hire a pro photographer and have them shoot a minimum of 20 incredible photos.

Create a Brag book. A Brag book is a book which is left out during the showing and has all the information on your house in it. About 70% of houses are shown by other agents, not the listing agent. A Brag book will give the buyers every scrap of information so they can make a buying decision. It should be able to answer every question about the house. If there is doubt or unanswered questions the buyers will hesitate. No one buys if there is doubt.

Step 3 We help you with a “showings strategy” that works. Set the stage to sell…

Put yourself in the shoes of the buyers. Chances are they have traveled a great distance to get here, they are not sleeping well, the winding roads have made them feel woozy, they are not in their comfort zone.

Most agents set up showings at 30-minute intervals. That includes travel time between houses. If they spend 30 minutes at your house it is critical that you make it count. If you have guests come over it is polite to offer coffee and cookies/muffins. The buyers have been run off their feet and chances are they are tired. Once they come into your house you want them to feel at home. Most buyers head for the center of the house first, which is the kitchen. This is where you have the coffee waiting for them, with a sign that says the cream is in the fridge. When they open the fridge they feel like they are at home (did you get that “at their new home”). A simple muffin and coffee makes them stop and relax. What do you think you could put right there in the kitchen? The Brag book, Brochures and a suggestion box for feedback. The buyers will be more relaxed, in a better mood and happy. Very few if any sellers do this. This is so simple and powerful.

With the Brag book out, property flagged and the house staged, the buyers will see your house at its best. They will be feeling better with a coffee in them and a snack and they’ll have a color brochure on hand that highlights your house. They will be sitting in their B&B that night analyzing all the houses and your house will stand out. There is a high probability that if you do all the above, the buyers will love your house and write you an offer at close to asking price.

This is how to Merchandise a house to sell. Now let’s look at marketing a house to sell.

My 3 Steps to Marketing your house to the buyers.

Who are the buyers? There are a few different buyer types;

The typical buyer moving to Salt Spring is usually a couple or single, 55 to 60-year-old, usually semi-retired or retired professionals or business owners, with a net worth between 500k and 1mil. Their net worth might be supplemented in the form of a government pension, annuity, rental income, proceeds from a business they may have sold or they may continue to work part-time via the net. They are from an urban city, have extremely high taste, are well traveled, well read and are very focused on themselves, their family and friends. They want it all, they want it now and they know what they want. Let’s face it, Salt Spring is not low end, Salt Spring attracts buyers with discerning tastes. Your house has to appeal to these buyers if you want to sell for top dollar.

The typical, on-island buyer, is either single or a couple who is doing an on-island vertical move either up-market, downsizing or moving closer to town. Usually, they work at a local business such as; school district, hospital, ferries and or private business. The on-island buyer will know the island very well and be focusing on location and quality, not necessarily the look of the place.

The last group of buyers represents less than 5% of the buyers. They are the handy person looking for the house to fix up either to live in or flip. This is a very small buying group. They are looking for a deal on the home that has been well worn. They buy on price, price, and price. To make it work for them they have to buy at a low market price. They have to buy a home in a great location that can be fixed up and sold for more without the market moving up in price.

So there are a few of the basic types of buyers.

What about the marketing?

How did it work? When I bought my first home, the MLS® was in book form, there was no online shopping. I could only look at the book at my agent’s office or in her car. She would not give me a copy of the MLS® book. She had all the information. I spent hours at her office going over listings.

About 10 years ago the MLS® went online. The buyers have complete access. This has been a paradigm shift and some agents have resisted. They were used to having all the information and hoarding it. They could direct the buyers to look at the properties they wanted the buyers to see. Today the buyers see what they want to see.

Today approximately 90% – 98% of the buyers are searching for real estate online. They search while sitting at their desks, at home, in the coffee shops (probably reading this). How many go to real estate offices and look? The days of the real estate office are numbered. Here is a picture of closed one on Vancouver Island.

So if the buyers are searching on-line how do we get them to buy your house?

What do the buyers want to see? Why will they look at your house?

Buyers want to see gorgeous photos of your house. This clip below shows what it takes to get great photos.

Step 1 Dynamic Presentation

Assuming I have 36-50 wide angle (28mm) photos of your home and perhaps a video clip, it is time to start to pull all the listing information together and to make a dynamic listing presentation of your house. With all the information that is in the Brag book and the photos, I make a powerful, online presentation of your house.

Buyers want to see rich listing details with all the information about the houses they are looking at. The days of 6 photos of a house are gone. We will make a dynamite, interactive listing for your house that is put on the MLS® and has a link off the MLS® to more photos of your home.

Once the buyers click on the view multimedia link they come right to more photos of your home.

Step 2 Price your house to sell…

How do you price a house to sell?

First things first. How badly do you want to sell? What is your motivation to sell? Are the bill collectors standing at the door? Is your mortgage in arrears? Do you just want to see what you could get? Are you fishing for a high price? Did you get an appraisal done on your house as part of gathering the information? If you did, you should have a pretty good idea of what your house is worth.

What most agents do is a Comparative Market Analysis of your house.

This CMA will have 3 types of houses it compares your house too; Sold houses, Active listings and Expired/ canceled listings. Each house should be similar to yours in lot size, size of the house, the age of the house, style of house, view from the house, lot location, etc… Now on Salt Spring, this is not an easy task but this is what the buyers are doing to select a house to buy. They are looking for Value and the Value leader in their price range.

No products are sold because of features of the product. Features are useless…… buyers buy because of the benefits of the features. Buyers want benefits from the house they buy, such as a large deck designed for entertaining. If entertaining is what they want to do, the feature of the large deck will appeal to them. If they do not entertain the large deck may be an unwanted burden that will require painting and cleaning. It comes down to BENEFITS, BENEFITS, and BENEFITS for the buyers. Does your house offer appealing benefits to buyers or does it look like a money pit? Very few people want a house that needs work.

Another type of pricing tool is replacement cost analysis. How much would it cost to replace the house with a similar lot? In this market, there is not a good selection of building lots and construction costs are way up. Some buyers will look at the possibility of building new and getting the Benefits they want.

There are three basic prices you can have for your house; below market, market priced and overpriced. The sellers’ fear is always that they are going to sell too low and give away their house. In reality, if you have a good agent this would be technically impossible to do. If your house is on the MLS and you have it priced at a market price or below the market price you will get lots of showings. If you are truly below the market price you will know because you will get multiple offers and the buyers will have to outbid each other to buy your house. The worst strategy is to overprice your house. It will languish on the market. Last year I visited with a couple who had their house on the market for over 1000 days and had three showings. They still would not believe they had overpriced their house. How could an agent overprice a house? Why would an agent overprice a house is a better question. Listings bring in the buyers. There is an old real estate saying, “you have to list to last”.

Here is a quote from Ray Wilson’s book “BOUGHT NOT SOLD”: “The same home advertised over a long period loses its attractive power, but the optimum is to have it around long enough to draw as many buyers as possible before being sold. For this reason, the tendency of owners to overprice their homes can have an upside for the agency, preventing the “premature” sale, letting the home attract buyers for other sales until the owner adjusts to its real value.”

Do you want your house to be the bait to sell other houses? I would think not. Do not get tricked into overpricing. If 3 agents tell you your house is worth 630k do not list with agent number 4 who says your house is worth 750k. It will not work. You have become live bait at that point.

Salt Spring in 2021 and early 2022 was an overheated sellers’ market with very few listings you might have a hard time overpricing your house. Just put any price on it and you might have just received multiple offers. Now you need to price your house very sharply to sell in this current market. Your house has to have the best value in its price range and with the benefits, the buyers are looking for.

Will the good old days of a sellers’ market come back? Probably, but if you want to list and sell now, you might have to adjust your expectations a bit.

If you get anything from this page I hope it’s this; do not make the fatal mistake of Overpricing your house and failure to take into account the opportunity cost of the equity in your house.

One veteran real estate agent told me 98% of Marketing is Price!!!

Step 3 List the house with The Salt Spring Team

Our Goal is to help you put a sold sign in front of your house through effective merchandising and professional marketing of your house. This will happen if we price it right to sell in this market.

Cheers

Scott Simmons