In 2006, my brother and I purchased our first “fixer-upper” and slowly transformed it into a dream home during our spare time. As we all know though, goals change over the years and it was time for me to move on. My brother decided to buy me out of our place. Although may sound easier than selling to a stranger but it wasn’t. There was lots of red tape with the banks and negotiating with family isn’t easy when there are so many zeros attached to the property.
 
Selling was worth it though and my focus on this article is mostly my experience as a buyer however. Home sellers often forget about who is potentially buying their place. This can be detrimental in the sale of their property.
 
My boyfriend and I were very lucky to have an amazing agent who I would gladly recommend to anyone. We chose about 85% of the properties we wanted to see and our agent chose the remainder. We looked at almost 38 properties in Sunnyside, Hillhurst, Bridgeland, and Parkdale offered on 4 and 3 months later (in December – yes we purchased in December) we ended up with a perfect place for us in Sunnyside. The first property we offered on (also the first property we looked at) was staged. We ended up dealing with a bidding war (which wasn’t new to me from 2006 but wasn’t fun). The second property was this beautiful heritage building. Unfortunately, the building was 18+ and even though we aren’t planning on starting a family any time soon, we weren’t able to buy. The 3rd ended up having serious issues with leaks in the building.
 
Some things I noticed about myself while we were looking: I was determined to find something move-in ready. My previous experience with the renovations was exhausting and time consuming – I wanted a stylish home that would reflect my work. What I noticed about my boyfriend, he couldn’t envision vacant spaces. We looked at 2 suites with the same floorplan in the same building – one with furniture and one vacant and he felt the vacant one was too small. Interesting… These two points are what I tell my clients all the time…
 
So what about the other 34 we looked at? The memorable ones had dirty laundry out, bugs on window sills, a cute chihuahua(not a good idea if your buyers are afraid of dogs), the really “small” vacant one. But most of them… I don’t remember! Yikes, Out of 38 homes, I only remember 9! These 9 either were really good, or really bad.
 
This made me feel really good about my career choice to be a home stager. If those 29 properties in Sunnyside, Hillhurst, Bridgeland, and Parkdale had help from a home stager, they would have been more memorable to us as well as other buyers. If the 2 “gross” ones had advice from a home stager, perhaps they would have made more of an effort to present their home for showings. Both of these scenarios would have lead to quicker sales, better offers and who knows maybe even a bidding war.

I wanted to post a special thanks to Miki Somos for featuring our article Selling Vacant Properties in his January newsletter. Thanks Miki!

A home is meant to be lived in. Thing is, when it comes to showing real estate, it’s important to suggest how great the place will be to live in rather than how lived-in the place has been.
 
Signs of aging or wear and tear in a home creep up slowly and subtly. Decline can be so slow that we don’t notice it happening. When is the last time you examined your sofa or upholstered chairs to see how well the fabric is holding up? A close up look can be disconcerting, but if it’s time to show your home, you need to check upholstery for snags, runs, micro-tears, stains and colour-fading.
 
It’s only in recent decades that our society took to throwing out items that had become worn. Throughout the ages and until the baby-boomer generation, a cradle to grave mentality held true for furniture. When an item became natty, it was glazed in a layer of paint or treated to a new sheen of fabric.
 
Consider re-upholstering chairs or sofas as an inexpensive and effective way to breathe new life into them. Not only will this offer the chance to make them look ‘good as new’ but it also offers the chance to dress them in the latest fashions.
 
Take my inexpensive pub table chairs. They had a microfiber seat that looked okay but didn’t create that “wow” factor. I purchased some leather fabric, un-assembled the seats off of the chair base, stapled the new fabric ontop of the seats, re-assembled. Voilà, inexpensive and looks like a million bucks.
 

Before: Original pub chairs with microfiber seats.

After: After re-upolstering the chairs with a white leather, we added a new table and a healthy bowl of fruit to help the buyer imagine living a healthy lifestyle here.