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October 31st, 2019

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Get More Money without Spending an Extra Dime!

Get More Money without Spending an Extra Dime!

Wait!  Before you spend $20,000 on a new bathroom…or kitchen, or anything else you might think needs to be “upgraded” before selling your home, let’s make sure that putting that money in is going to get you more money out.

Seriously, folks. You might literally be throwing your money away when you spend money on pre-sale “home improvements.”

See, a competent agent will know exactly when and when not to spend money on a home by understanding the needs and intentions of the ideal buyer. And that is, after all, the main job of your selling agent: to connect your home with the ideal buyer who is willing to pay the most money for your property.

Although it won’t make for a good HGTV episode, when prepping a home for sale, sometimes the answer is to not touch a thing!

 

 

Using our original “4:1 Rule,” we consistently ensure that our clients not only avoid unnecessary expenditures but also get the most money for their property.

The bottom line is that unless $1 invested is going to get you a minimum $4 return, it is not worth it. Any upgrades to the home should be investments, not expenses.

Some agents do nothing other than stick a sign in the yard as a matter of habit. This might be great advertising for them, but it does not denote competence. Occasionally, however, there is a very good reason to do absolutely nothing at all.

When selling your Toronto home, we believe you deserve a unique selling strategy to secure the most return, whether that means investing in your home pre-sale or simply selling it exactly as is. And, in the spirit of transparency and intelligent decision making, we provide a clear explanation of when and why you should or should not invest.

In each case, we use the 4:1 Rule to determine whether an “improvement” will be an investment (yay!) or merely an expense (no thanks!).

Taking into consideration the type of home, the desirability of the neighbourhood, and current state of the market, we identify who your ideal buyer is and what she is willing to pay in a particular area at any given time.

Remember that agent who throws a sign out the front because that is just the way he does things?  We occasionally do this because it makes sense.

Perhaps it’s an eyesore on a great lot. If builders are coming after it, the worse it looks, the better it’s actually going to be for the seller. A builder is looking for a house on which they don’t have to spend money to change something the current owner has just done.

There are times when we look at a house and immediately know it’s a lost cause. Drawing on decades of contracting experience, we are able to advise our clients to avoid putting any money into a house if we know that the ideal buyer is a builder who is just going to rip it all out. 

Clients will invite us over and say, “The house is a bit rundown… but we just did the bathroom so that we could sell it for the most money” and we just about cry for them. What seems like the obvious choice is actually a bad idea in this situation.

We are forced to say, “We wish you’d talked to us before you spent that $15,000 – $20,000 because you’re not going to get it back.”

A builder may have planned to relocate the bathroom, completely restructure the layout of the house, gut it entirely, or even take advantage of a benefit to splitting the house into units.

It all depends on multiple factors that are not always obvious and require expert eyes to fully see.

Successfully selling any home requires an expert’s competence in identifying the ideal buyer and knowing precisely what will make them pay the most.

Sometimes it is the smart choice to hire the agent who is just going to throw a sign out the front. But they had better tell you exactly why they are doing it.

A competent agent can not only save you tens of thousands of dollars, but will make an even greater return.