Last week, I came across a listing that could only be shown on Saturdays and Sundays between 2 and 4 pm.
It got me thinking about the importance of providing easy access to REALTORS® and their buyers, especially in a fast-paced, high-demand market like this one.
Any seller who wants to achieve a top-dollar sale on their home is wise to make a plan to accommodate two to three days of unfettered access.
Those first few days on the market may be a great time for a short staycation at one of our beautiful hotels. You can relax by the pool and let the showings unfold at home.
If you’re selling a tenant-occupied home, consider sending them on a similar staycation.For under a thousand dollars you can provide them with a few nights in a hotel and a few meals.
The additional showings will very likely return that money, and more. It will also take a lot of stress off of everyone involved.
Happy selling!
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Follow me on Facebook and Instagram to receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.
TeamFisher.com hosted over 350,000 user sessions in 2020 and displayed more than three million pages to our visitors. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes.
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. Reach out by voice or text at 306-900-4161 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com
Selling a home in a seller's market isn't hard, but extracting the maximum amount of equity from your home sale is another story entirely.
In this 20-30 minute webinar, Norm Fisher from Royal LePage Vidorra and TeamFisher will share effective ideas gleaned over nearly three decades of Saskatoon home sales to help you get the highest possible price when you sell.
Remember, profits from a resale home that has been a primary residence are tax-free, so every bit of extra cash you make from the sale goes straight to you, to serve the needs of your family.
Learn how to avoid the mistakes that many sellers are making right now that are costing them thousands, and in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars.
Fortunately, math and numbers are still things we can count on.
That said, things are not always as they seem on the surface.
As the Saskatoon real estate market ramps up you’ll be hearing all kinds of reports about how hot the market is. Those reports will be true on a broad level.
Don’t make important decisions about your family’s financial future based on stats that apply to the broad market. You see, there are pockets of the local real estate market that are super hot. There are other pockets that are significantly weaker. In this video,
I present one simple statistical measure that you can use to ensure you understand how supply and demand dynamics apply to you. If you’re buying or selling a Saskatoon home this year you’ll be glad you took four minutes to hear about it.
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Follow me on Facebook and Instagram to receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.
TeamFisher.com hosted over 350,000 user sessions in 2020 and displayed more than three million pages to our visitors. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes.
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com
Becky and I had an AirBNB request from someone interested in booking our property for a birthday party. We said, “no thanks.” This doesn’t seem like a good time to entertain.
If you’re selling your home, you may have concerns about hosting showings. This is understandable. You’re inviting unknown people into your space and you never know what they’re bringing with them.
That said, understand that as the home owner you get to set the terms of home showings and you should ensure that you make your wishes known.
Today’s video details a handful of things that you may want to consider to reduce the risk of exposurethat comes with hosting physical viewings.
✅ Be sure to select an agent that uses tools that can help qualify buyers during their first viewing, the one that happens online. Professional images, 3D tours and rich descriptions will go a long way in helping buyers decide if the home meets their needs.
✅ You can require masks and hand sanitizer use
✅ You can limit the number of people who can attend a showing.
✅ You can ask that all buyers answer a COVID questionnaire before they visit.
✅ You can ask that only the REALTOR® touch in the home.
✅ Turn on all lights and request that switches not be turned off.
✅ Leave closet doors open.
I loved this idea that I encountered last week. Cut sticky notes into strips and ask that one be placed anywhere that the home was touched.
Happy selling!
Transcript
With COVID numbers on the rise, I thought it would be a good time to recap some of the simple things that buyers and sellers can do, to reduce the risk of exposure, if they find themselves in a position where they have to buy or sell a home, at this time.
Yesterday I presented seven great tips for buyers. Those are available on my blog now at teamfisher.com/blog. And this edition is for sellers.
Home sellers, I want to remind you that every single first showing of your home will happen online, so the more information that is available for buyers there, and the richer the digital media that's available, the better chance that your home showings are going be highly qualified.
I was really surprised to learn recently, that fewer than 20% of the homes on realtor.ca, have a 3D tour on them. And I think that this is something that's just so important right now. TeamFisher provides professional photos and a 3D tour for every home we list, regardless of its value. And this is something that you might consider insisting on yourself.
Now, if you want to get offers on your property, you're going to have to have it shown. You know, the odds of getting a sight unseen offer, are very small. But there's a number of things that you can do there and you should remember first of all, that as the home owner, you have every right to set the terms for the showing. You can say how you expect it to go down.
So some simple things that I might recommend to you would be A, all of the buyers that view your home, complete a COVID questionnaire, that's available to realtors, through our real estate association. You know, all the basic questions about travel and potential exposure.
Secondly, you can insist that anybody that views your home wears a mask and sanitizes their hands before they enter the property.
Thirdly, you could limit the number of people that are allowed to view the home at any one time. I would say two people, plus the agent is more than reasonable at this time.
Leave doors opened and lights on throughout the property, so that you can reduce the need to touch and open things. And perhaps even specify that one person will handle all of the touching and opening. So the realtor can walk the client through and if something needs to be opened, they can open those doors and close those doors, with their cleanly sanitized hands.
I showed a property last week, and I thought the seller there had a great idea. She had taken sticky notes and cut them into slivers basically, and left them at the door and asked if you touched anything when you were on your way through if you could please just apply a sticky note to that spot. So that she would know where to concentrate her efforts when she got home and wanted to clean up a bit.
Finally, keep some Lysol wipes around and touch up those obvious spaces. The flat surfaces, light switches, door handles when you get home.
Most importantly, stay safe out there, good luck marketing your property.
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Follow me on Facebook and Instagramto receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.
TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 2.8 million pages to our visitors. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes..
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com
For a home buyer, possession day should be a fun and exciting experience.
There are always a lot of moving parts and things can happen, but this works best when everyone concerned does what they can to make it as pleasant as possible.
I’ve noticed a growing number of possession day issues lately. I think it’s probably related to the fact that many sellers have had to sell at a loss. Perhaps they let a little bitterness creep in, and that gets directed at the buyer.
Maybe they justify taking a fixture that they shouldn’t remove because “the buyer got a good deal”. Maybe they leave garbage and other crap at the house when they leave or fail to give the place a good cleaning.
Please remember, it’s not the buyer's fault that the market fell. In fact, they came along and cleared the way for you to move into the next chapter of your life without the burden of having to manage a home that you can live it.
Wrap this up properly and honourably.
Don’t kill the climax.
Transcript
I was talking to a colleague of mine the other day about what we both perceive to be a growing number of possession day problems. Buyer shows up not happy with what they found.
And we surmised that this is likely happening because so many sellers have been selling their home at a loss. The market's been moving down for four or five years. They need to get out and move elsewhere, and they're having to sell for less than they paid for it. And our human minds are really built for rationalization. And it's so easy to come to the conclusion that hey, this buyer got a good deal, and they should be happy with this house just the way it is.
But you know, that's not the right way to look at it. It's not the buyer's fault that the market fell and your investment is worth less today. They actually paid you market value for it, and you should treat them that way.
So how should you prepare for a possession date so that your buyer's experience ends in a good way?
Number one, don't take anything that you shouldn't take out of the house. If it's attached to the property, it's a fixture and it's expected to be there, and if it's not, the buyer is going to be disappointed. And it may even lead to a legal issue.
Secondly, do take everything that isn't attached, unless you have an explicit agreement for it to remain. A buyer is not interested in your grandma's old deep freeze or cans of paint that haven't been open for 15 years, or little bits of two by four that are laying around in your garage. Hire a hauler and get that stuff out of there, please, so that it's empty for their move.
And finally, clean the house as if you would if you were moving in, so, you know, washing out cabinets, cleaning the bathroom, cleaning up the floor. Create an environment where the buyer can begin to move right away and enjoy the home. They did relieve you of this financial responsibility and allow you to move on to where you're going next.
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Follow me on Facebook and Instagramto receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.
TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 2.8 million pages to our visitors. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes..
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com
I had a call from a client of mine yesterday who has a townhouse in a pretty attractive area of Saskatoon that they'd like to sell. They've been renting it for the past few years. They've had enough of that. And they'd like to take advantage of the market conditions that exist right now. Fair enough.
So she mentioned that they have two tenants that'll leave at the end of this month. And another two that'll leave at the end of next month. And she asked me about getting it on the market quickly and or whether she should wait until the tenants were gone before we began marketing it.
My answer was the same one that I give in 90% of these cases. You're almost always better off to market a vacant property than one that's tenant occupied.
I mean I've talked about the four factors that you can influence when you want to get a fast top-dollar sale. Preparation and presentation are the most important of those elements. And when you have a tenant living in a property, those areas are always weak. So, you know, tenants don't prepare the house properly for showings and it looks like a chaotic gong show when people arrive or perhaps. You have access issues just because the tenant isn't excited about having it shown and fair enough. You can appreciate why a tenant would not want to put a whole lot of effort into marketing or cooperating with the marketing of your home, right? They don't have any money invested in it and it's a massive infringement on their life to accommodate showings.
So in my view, you're better off to forego a couple of months of rent. Properly prepare the house and perhaps do a little bit of staging and you'll probably see offers that are 10% higher than you would have had you gone ahead and marketed the property occupied.
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I’ve upped my Facebook and Instagram game. Follow me to receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.
TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 1.2 million pages to our visitors in 2019. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes.
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com
As the real estate market heats up, if you're in the market to buy a home, you're more likely to hear these words. "Sorry, that property's conditionally sold."
When a buyer and a seller agree to a conditional sale, they've basically agreed that if the buyer is able to meet certain conditions within the timeframe that they prescribed, that a real estate deal will happen, and if the buyer's unable to meet those conditions, the sale become null and void. So in about 20% of cases these days, buyers are unable to secure the financing that they thought they could get. If you proceeded to look at that house, write a back-up offer, get an acceptable deal subject to the first one falling through, as soon as that deal went sideways, you'd be next in line and the property would be yours, essentially.
In another 20% of cases, buyers are asking for extensions because they've been unable to meet their conditions within the timeframe that they proposed, and again if a seller enters into a back-up offer with you, they essentially have to move to you if the buyer has been unable to fulfill within the timeframe prescribed. They have an obligation to move forward with your contract. So again, that puts you right at the front of the line in probably 40% of cases.
So when you hear conditionally sold, take that with a grain of salt. It's not sold until it's sold, and I'd give the same advice to sellers as well. Even if you have a conditional sale, you're wise to continue to show your property and entertain interest from other buyers, because there's about a 60% chance that that first offer's gonna come together and it's nice to have a back-up offer in your back pocket in the event that it doesn't.
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I’ve upped my Facebook and Instagram game. Follow me to receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.
TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 1.2 million pages to our visitors in 2019. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes.
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com
Oh, excuse me, I'm having a little celebration here because I just found out that the value of my house, came down 10%.
I know that might sound a little bit crazy but hear me out.
When I bought this home three years ago, I paid $500,000 for it, and at the time, my ideal forever home was actually $600,000 but I couldn't quite afford it so I opted in, at the $500,000 mark, and lo and behold, over the next three years, the real estate market dropped about 10% in the single-family homes category.
So my $500,000 home is now only worth 450,000. Bummer, but hold on, hear me out, there are two sides to this equation. In the meantime, the $600,000 house that I would have loved to have bought then, also dropped 10% in value. So today, I can buy that house for $540,000.
So, where three years ago there was a 100,000 dollars spread between the house I bought, and my ideal home, today the spread is only $90,000, thanks to the fact that the market came down.
So, if you're moving within the same market and you're making an upward move, especially if it's a modestly upward move, you may be better off to sell your current home at a loss today and take advantage of the loss that the other seller on the more expensive home, is also going to incur.
You could wait for the market to recover and for that $450,000 house to go back up to five. But in the meantime that $540,000 house is likely to go back up to 600,000.
So make the move now. $10,000 free equity in your pocket, that's something to celebrate
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I’ve upped my Facebook and Instagram game. Follow me to receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.
TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 1.2 million pages to our visitors in 2019. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes.
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com
If you've been following my stuff for any amount of time, you already know that I feel it's a big mistake for home sellers to market properties that are tenant-occupied. And it's not that I have anything against tenants, it's that I've never met a tenant who cares as much about the results of the sale as a homeowner would.
Absorbing a couple of months of vacancy will allow you to prep the home properly and to give buyers and realtors the access that you need to get the best offers on the home.
But I encountered a new one today that I wanted to call to your attention. If you own a property that's rented and a property manager manages that property for you and you want to offer it for sale, it's absolutely imperative that you open a line of discussion with your property manager.
Chances are when you signed your agreement with the property manager, you gave them a legal directive to lease the property on your behalf.
In this particular instance, we've represented a buyer who's purchased the house with vacant possession in 60 days' time. In the meantime, a property manager has entered into a one-year lease with a renter for that property, leaving the seller in a position where they have essentially committed that home to two separate parties, and they can't possibly honour both of those agreements.
In this case, the owner is busily engaged in a negotiation with the tenant to try to terminate that agreement, but that tenant has a right to occupy that property, and it's a bit problematic. One of those two contracts is potentially going to be in breach.
So if you're using a property manager and if you decide to market your property with the tenant in the home, make sure that you notify your property manager in writing and advise that they should not lease the property during the period of time that you have it on the market.
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I’ve upped my Facebook and Instagram game. Follow me to receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.
TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 1.2 million pages to our visitors in 2019. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes.
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com
We've talked at length about the four factors that are within your control as a home-seller.
As a quick review, they are again, the amount of preparation that goes into preparing the home for sale. How well the home is presented. The promotional plan to expose the home to the public, and the pricing.
And I wanna talk to you a little bit about promotion, which is arguably the one factor in your control which you control most indirectly. In other words, your marketing plan is largely going to be decided upon and executed by your real estate agent, so you want to take care in the agent that you select to ensure that they offer a promotional plan that will get your home the exposure that it needs.
Obviously, the more people that know your home is for sale, the better chance you have of getting showings and getting attractive offers.
A lot of real estate agents feel that just putting a home on the MLS and letting it migrate to industry-standard websites is enough. And certainly, given enough time, almost any house might sell that way, but, as I've said before, time is not on your side as a home-seller. The longer your home is on the market, the less likely you are to get an attractive offer. So your goal should always be to get an offer early on from some of the best prospects that are in the market when you list your house for sale. And that requires a targeted marketing plan that has some dollars behind it.
You know, if your agent is gonna post your house under Facebook page, I mean, well, wow, you know, they're probably not even reaching people who that information is relevant to. We're in a pay-to-play environment these days and some advertising budget is required and many agents are not into spending any money if they can get away with it. You want someone that is going to execute a targeted paper-click advertising campaign that will reach out to prospects who are most likely to be interested in a house like yours in an area like yours at the time that your home is for sale.
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I’ve upped my Facebook and Instagram game. Follow me to receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.
TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 1.2 million pages to our visitors in 2019. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes.
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com
I've been showing a lot of property lately and one thing is clear. Sellers be getting lazy.
Here are the three simplest and lowest cost ideas to help prepare your home to be well received by the market.
Transcript
I've been showing a lot of property lately, And there's one thing that's really clear to me. Sellers be getting lazy.
Listen, we've talked about presentation being the cornerstone of your entire selling effort. If the home doesn't look great in person and online, you're sunk. At the very best, you're losing thousands of dollars.
Look, I wanna give you three tips that you can do quickly and easily that will cost you practically nothing that you absolutely must do before you put your house on the market.
Number one, declutter. Put stuff away. And when I say put stuff away, I mean, put it into boxes and containers and get it the heck out of the house. Into storage if you need to. You need to create a spacious, clean, clutter-free environment. Anything less than that comes off as chaotic to the buyer. And it makes them anxious when they're in your house. So get rid of as much stuff as you possibly can before you put the for sale sign up.
Next thing, depersonalize. Take down family photos, degree certificates, things of that nature. Anything that might identify you as an individual. You want people to see themselves in your house, not your stuff. So allow them to have that vision by removing things that are highly personal.
Finally, deep clean. Listen folks, we all live in our houses and our houses get dirty, but nobody wants to buy your dirt. So, in fact, your dirt is gross to them. So you need to clean up around the bathtub, the caulking, food from in the kitchen. Make that place shine.
These are things that take some elbow grease, that take a little bit of time, but they don't cost a lot of money and they'll give you a great edge in the market. Without them, you could be sunk. You're certainly losing thousands.
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I’ve upped my Facebook and Instagram game. Follow me to receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.
TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 1.2 million pages to our visitors in 2019. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes.
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com
Keeping your house clean and prepped all the time, while you try to maintain some semblance of a normal life.
A buyer wants to come at 7. You rush to feed the kids, tidy the house, and pack the car for a half-hour drive to nowhere.
Another evening gone for what you suspect is a kooky-loo.
3D tours provide a simple way for homebuyers to get a good idea of what your home has to offer.
Using this amazing technology we can reduce physical showings to the most serious buyers only.
Meanwhile, you can stay at home with your family.
The Canadian Real Estate Association estimate’s just 24% of listings on realtor.ca have a 3D tour or video.
So, if they’re so effective why don’t we see more of them online?
Well, they’re expensive.
When an agent lists your house for sale they’re never certain if they’re going to sell it and get paid.
It could be easy to cut a corner like this one and save the cash.
That’s why we invested in two Matterport 3D tour cameras and that’s how we create a 3D tour for every listing we market.
Every one.
Because your life is hectic enough without having to leave for less than serious buyers to look.
Here’s a short news story that shows how the technology works for our seller clients.
This is an old video but it provides a great overview of the technology.
Take a virtual walk through of this Daytona Homes show home to experience it for yourself. Think Google street view as you work your way through the home by clicking the circles. It works exceptionally well on mobile devices.
If you're interested in having your home marketed using this technology reach out to anyone on our team.
The Saskatchewan REALTORS® Association (SRA) IDX Reciprocity listings are displayed in
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The information presented here is for general interest only, no guarantees apply.
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