Not much to do this weekend?  Check this out.  The Heritage Christmas at the Burnaby Village Museum and Carousel. It's FREE!  

Date:  Sunday, November 29, 2015

Time:  1pm - 9 pm

Location:  6501 Deer Lake Avenue, Burnaby

                Burnaby Village Museum and Carousel

Whether you are planning to put your home on the Burnaby real estate market or are simply looking to spruce up the home, renovations can be highly effective. Simple jobs can have a huge impact on the aesthetic appeal and value of your home.

But some renovations can also be expensive, either up front or in the long run. These kinds of jobs are often great to do eventually, but can easily destroy a budget and even keep you out of your own house for a long time. Here are some cost effective, relatively quick renovations for your home to get it spruced up for the spring.

The Front Door

As you have probably heard before, cleaning up the gateway to your home can have a huge impact on its value. It’s also one of the quickest jobs you can do. There are few returns on investment that come close to front doors. Whether you buy a brand new door or just repaint the current one, a few hours’ work at a couple hundred dollars will grab the attention of passersby and potential buyers equally.

Lawn Care

While you are outside working on the front door, work on the lawn a bit. Simply cutting back the grass from the walkway and pulling up weeds can improve the look of your home. In addition, strategically planting flowers near the house or placing potted plants near the doorway can create a welcoming atmosphere for visitors.

New Appliances

If you have a beautiful kitchen with new countertops and flooring, nothing negates its appeal more than old, dirty appliances. Spending a few hundred to a few thousand dollars on a top-of-the-line stainless steel refrigerator or range can increase the value of your home drastically. And if your kitchen is in need of renovations, new appliances can draw attention away from those dingy floors.

Retouching the Bathroom

Few things set off visitors like a grimy bathroom. By re-caulking the bath or installing a new toilet seat, you set a perception of cleanliness. For something more drastic, spending a couple hundred dollars on a new vanity can go a long way toward a first impression.

New Lighting

Of course, even after you have made all these small renovations in your house, you want it to look good when you flip on the lights. If you are willing to shell out a couple hundred dollars and an afternoon of labour, you can install beautiful fixtures that highlight the best aspects of your home. Recessed lighting and daylight bulbs can make any house feel more like a home.

For only a few hundred bucks and a free weekend, you can drastically increase the value and aesthetic appeal of your home. For more information about increasing your home value, including staging and marketing ideas, be sure to visit our sellers page.

Meta: If you have some spare cash and a free weekend, why not spend it increasing the value of your home? Here are some cost-effective renovations you can do quickly.

It has been a miserable winter, with record low temperatures and horrible precipitation across the continent. The weather has finally taken a turn, however, and spring is upon us. Along with the birds, bunnies and blue skies, this means it is time to dress up your home for the season of renewal. Here are some great ways to welcome the new season, whether you are looking to host guests or put your Burnaby real estate on the market for sale.

Flowers

Flowers are the most obvious way to dress up your home. Get your lawn garden going and pick up some potted or in-the-vase bouquets to bring some bright color, beauty and wonderful aromas to your home. Not only do flowers look wonderful, but they are natural air fresheners, giving off oxygen while consuming carbon dioxide. This can help to improve your overall health.

A Coat of Paint

A fresh coat of paint is one of the best ways to give your home a great new look. Call in the painters to touch up those rooms that are looking a bit rough, or to lend a whole new color palate to your house. Make it look vibrant and bright to go along with the youth of spring.

Organize!

Spring is the perfect time to get organized and give a new life to your schedule and coming tasks. Go through your home and clear the clutter. Organize those drawers and file cabinets. Get rid of trash and downsize your life by removing those things that have been sitting around unused for far too long.

Change the Linens

Put away those heavy, dark comforters and replace them with lightweight spring sheets. Move from blues and grays to lighter hues of yellow, green and brighter earth tones. Get the color scheme and energy of your whole home lighter and brighter.

Host a Tea Party or Barbecue

Having a party may not seem a way to spruce up your home, but it is! Bringing guests in and having an afternoon tea will bring life and positive energy to your home. You and your nearest and dearest can celebrate the season of renewal and life, and make plans for the coming months.

If high tea isn’t really your thing, try opening the grill and having the first cookout of the season! What better way to celebrate spring than by cooking and eating outdoors? Open the picnic tables and lay out the steaks, burgers and hot dogs.

Springtime is also a great time to buy or sell real estate. If you are looking to buy a new home or sell your existing home, we are ready to help. Give us a call today!

Our last post talked about how real estate listing videos can be a powerful marketing tool. Like any tool, the effectiveness depends on how you use it.

People who want to use a video when selling their Burnaby real estate home should be aware of the common tactics employed by video creators. This knowledge will help them work with the realtor or filmer to shoot their footage in the most impactful way possible.

Prepare the Home with Staging

The first step is to help give the camera person something worthy of shooting. You will want your home to be in its most flattering state possible. Every room should be cleaned, organized and staged in a way to look magazine-worthy.

Having clear, uncluttered and aesthetically pleasing spaces can transform your home into a veritable movie set. Every room should have a presence.

Light can be just as key of a component, so homeowners should pull back curtains or install natural-looking light throughout the house. The filmer may even need to choose the perfect time of day to let the light flow in as beautifully as possible.

Recreate a Tour Experience

One of the major advantages of video is that, unlike photos, video gives you a context when moving from room to room. Whereas a photo can make a living room look small when viewed from a kitchen, the video will reveal that as you move through the area, it actually feels spacious.

Camera work must be certain to incorporate these context clues by moving naturally from one part of the house to the other. Most videos start from the exterior to give the viewer a glimpse of the street and neighborhood as well as the home’s curb appeal. As the camera person moves into the entrance, the video shifts through various rooms to lead viewers and create a sense of narrative when moving throughout the house.

Savvy camera work can incorporate subtle touches like “guiding” the eye along a key feature like a stone fireplace, just as someone’s eye would when viewing the home in person.

An Eye for Editing 

While filming the home tour all in one go may be tempting, the most effective videos use editing transitions to create a seamless video with a film-like quality. Editing is timed to dramatic music that elicits emotion when the viewer watches. Editing can also cut out things no one wants to see, like a toilet seat left up or a camera person’s reflection in the mirror.

Made to Be Found

In addition to the quality of the video, search engine optimization (SEO) will help home buyers find your home listing when searching online. Strategic use of keywords and an eye-catching thumbnail allow buyers browsing online to find the video and take notice immediately.

For help listing your home with a dramatic and effective real estate video, you can use our expert agent’s services. Visit our selling page to learn more.

Home tour videos have become a powerful tool for Burnaby real estate owners to sell their property. Videos have an impact on your market and are a way of reaching potential buyers that other methods cannot match. Here is why:

Increased Visibility

Only 12 percent of real estate agencies have a YouTube account, and around only 5 percent update theirs regularly. With so many home listings on the market at any given time, a listing that includes video will certainly stand out above the competition.

Since Google owns YouTube, the number one search engine often ranks videos highly among search queries. Add to that the fact that YouTube is the number two search engine, and you have more opportunities to reach a potential buyer than most listings could only dream of.

Make an Impact

Videos typically leave a more lasting and full impression on viewers than text listings can alone. The experience of watching the video commits more details of the home to memory.

Additionally, videos can use thematic music matched with timely editing cues to create a dramatic effect on viewers. Homes can be lent a sense of gravitas or friendliness based on the artistic decisions exercised.

Web Ready

Video is becoming one of the fastest growing types of web content in the world. For example, the number of videos viewed month-over-month increased 60 percent between November and December of 2014.

The rise in video consumption correlates with the increase in traffic coming from smartphones and other mobile devices. Mobile platforms and online video fit hand in hand because of the attractiveness of mobile screen displays and the bite-size nature of most videos.

Embedding allows videos to look beautiful when home sellers advertise through other venues online. Facebook, Twitter and blog posts can all be enhanced by the presence of a video. Users are more likely to click on a video than read text, and they are more likely to remember the content and recommend the listing to interested parties later.

A More Intimate Look

More and more home buyers look to the web for researching their desired real estate market. A well-written listing with beautiful photos will help enhance their impression of the home.

However, photos can never tell the full story. Camera lenses by nature flatten images, distort them or leave out contextual clues. A video can complement listing photos with a fuller understanding of space and dimension as the camera walks through the home and guides the eye along important features. Potential buyers will have a more three dimensional perspective on the home, and they will likely have felt more of a personal connection with the space and the surrounding neighborhood after watching.

Make sure to not pass by on these incredible advantages that real estate listing videos can provide. Visit our selling page to find out more about tools we use that make your listing more competitive.

Our last post mentioned many helpful ways to have your home in near-perfect form before you list it in the spring. We covered projects that improved your curb appeal and the perception of your home’s value. Here are even more ways that you can be on top of your game by the time the busy Burnaby real estate selling season rolls around:

Start Researching Your Market

Before you can know what price to ask for your home or what features to accentuate, you must perform some research. Look up comparable homes that have sold in your region and how they chose to price and position their listing.

Your neighborhood will be the most important place to look, but finding a home with a similar square footage or floor plan can give you an idea of how much your home could be worth. You can find helpful data on sales price trends using online tools available from sites such as Trulia or Zillow.

Get the Buzz Out Early

Networking through friends and colleagues is one of the best ways to get interest in your home.

Mention to as many people as possible that you intend to list your home in the near future. They may be able to recommend your home to someone who will be in the market for a new house. You may be surprised at how many people can come out of the woodwork just from the mere mention that your home will be listed soon.

Find an Expert Burnaby Real Estate Agent

Only an agent who is intimately familiar with your area will be able to sell your home to the best buyer at the best price. Agents experienced with the luxury Burnaby home market will have the knowledge and expertise to make your sale as wonderful of an experience as possible. The earlier you get in touch with them, the more you can prepare to list with as few changes as possible.

Start Thinking About Staging

In today’s online-focused culture, flattering home photos are critical to a successful sale. Well-staged photos can attract the right sort of buyer who is highly interested in your property and willing to pay the right price to get it. Similarly, home staging can enhance the experience for anyone viewing your home during an appointment or an open house.

Since staging requires a lot of time and effort, thinking about the process in advance can make the experience less taxing. You can prevent mistakes like packing up an attractive sofa or switching your color scheme to something that looks unappealing in photos if you keep staging at the forefront of your mind.

For advice finding the best professional stagers or the best price to list your home based on the current market, you can consult our expert Burnaby luxury real estate agents. Take a look at our selling page to learn more.

 Spring is just around the corner. Since it typically marks the busiest buying season, homeowners who want to list soon should start working now to prepare their home. Here are some of the best ways to have your Burnaby real estate property in perfect condition for a speedy and effective spring sale.

Get a Head Start on Curb Appeal Projects

Curb appeal is one of the most important factors for attracting the right buyers to your property. Luckily, with most plants being dead by the end of winter, cleaning up for spring should be a breeze. You or a landscaper can easily cut back all the dead vegetation and prepare for a fresh growing season.

The more light you allow to penetrate through your yard and property, the more gorgeous everything will start to look in the coming weeks. As the days warm up and sunlight reaches your yard, plants will grow back more robustly and beautifully than ever before.

On the other hand, putting off clearing out dead leaves or undergrowth could lead to weeds and messy-looking lawn areas that will be harder to fix once new plant growth begins to harden. Getting a head start now ensures that your lawn and entrance will look beautiful the instant people arrive.

Start Packing Now

While it may seem strange to begin packing before you list, the process makes spring cleaning that much easier. As you clear out your closets and main areas, you will be able to organize and clean your house to prepare it for beautiful staging.

On top of that, you can start getting rid of things you will not need to take with you when you move. Getting rid of clutter is an important step to presenting your home in the best way possible.

Make a Checklist of Repairs 

As you go through your property cleaning and landscaping, you may notice small problems here and there. These issues may seem minor, but they add up to a lot in a buyer’s mind. Every small problem a buyer sees gives them an excuse to haggle down your price or, worse, walk away from a sale altogether. Knocking out small projects early will make getting your home ready for viewing that much easier in the long run. 

Make a Deadline for Improvement Projects 

Homebuyers will not be keen to see their potential new property under construction. Major projects like kitchen remodeling, porch additions or flooring replacement will likely take a few days to several weeks to complete. Try to have all of these projects wrapped up so that your home will be ready in time for an advantageous spring listing. 

Part II of this post will cover even more great ways to have your home put its best foot forward come listing time. For general advice on preparing your home for a sale, take a look at our selling page.

A home with a pool can provide countless hours of entertainment. From pool parties to entertaining guests, your pool can be your backyard centerpiece. Proper maintenance will keep your pool looking like new and allow you, your family and your guests to enjoy that pool all summer long.

Last time, we offered tips on keeping your pool clean. These tips included skimming and vacuuming your pool, proper pool filter care and understanding your pool’s heating system. Now we would like to offer you tips on proper water care for your pool.

Testing the Water

The most important part for your pool’s water is that it is at a proper pH level. A proper pH level will ensure that the water in your pool is clean and healthy to swim in. A pH scale measures the water’s alkaline and acidity levels and range from 0-14. A reading of anywhere between 7.2 and 7.8 is ideal and will ensure that your pool’s sanitizers are working to their optimal levels.

You can monitor your pool’s water with a pH kit. These kits include strips of paper that will tell you what your pool’s pH level is by comparing the colour of your paper to a chart. This reading will determine what type of chemicals your pool needs.

Sanitizing the Pool

Once you have determined what your pool’s pH level is, the next step is to apply the proper chemicals to get your pool water within that ideal pH range. Chlorine is the main chemical that is used to sanitize your pool water and bring that water into proper pH range. When first sanitizing the water, it is recommended that you use chlorine shock, which is an initial large amount of the chemical.  

After this initial shock, chlorine tablets are all that are required to keep your pool water sanitized.  Always remember to read all owner’s manuals and pay close attention to any warnings on the labels. Keep in mind not to add two chemicals simultaneously. Rather, add each chemical separately and keep all chemicals out of reach of children and pets.

With proper maintenance you should be able to enjoy a clean and healthy pool all summer long. Owning a pool can be an exciting and very rewarding experience. If you are interested in seeing real estate listings in Burnaby that offer this amenity, be sure to contact us today!

Spring has sprung. The blooming of Vancouver’s famous cherry blossoms is a true sign that spring has come early to the lower mainland. Unfortunately, it is not warm enough to get out and enjoy a quick dip in the pool.

Nevertheless, it is never too early to get started on pool maintenance. This way when those hot summer days are upon us, your pool will be ready and oh-so-inviting for a quick cool down. In the first part of this blog, we will discuss some tips for keeping your pool clean in the winter.

Skimming the Pool

Skimming your pool is probably the quickest and fastest way to keep your pool clean. Skimming helps to increase the pool’s circulation system and can drastically reduce the amount of chlorine you need to add to your pool. A simple long-handled skimmer with a fine mesh net on the end will help to keep unwanted debris out of the pool and keep your pool water crystal clear.

Deep Cleaning

In addition to skimming your pool, it is highly recommended to vacuum and scrub down your walls. Vacuuming your pool will reduce the amount of chemicals you need to keep your pool water clean. When vacuuming, remember to check your filter to make sure it remains unclogged and clean while you are potentially kicking up debris.

Scrubbing your walls will greatly reduce any algae growth or calcium buildup in your pool. The material of your pool will dictate what type of scrub brush you need to use. A stiffer brush is good for any type of tile or concrete type pool, and a softer bristle is recommended for a vinyl or softer pool material.

Check your Systems

The final piece of proper pool maintenance is a good check of your pool’s filtration system and heating system. There are three types of pool filters: cartridge, sand and dichotomous earth. Although each type requires different maintenance techniques, all of them require cleaning from time to time. The regularity of maintenance will depend upon how often your pool is used and the type of filter your pool has.

Your pool’s heating system will require the least amount of maintenance of all of your pool’s equipment. Refer to your owner’s manual for proper care and maintenance.  

A pool can add a whole new dimension to your house, and with a little early maintenance, you can more readily enjoy that pool all summer long. If you are in the market for a home with a pool, there are many real estate listings in Burnaby that meet these criteria. We would love to help you find your dream home. Contact us today to get started!

Recent advancements in the bamboo manufacturing industry have made it a worthy competitor to traditional hardwood flooring. Research shows that home owners prefer hard surface flooring to carpet. In fact, 90 percent of these homes sell faster than carpeted homes. Buyers are also willing to pay more for hard flooring, with 54 percent of respondents indicating this fact in a recent US National Association of Realtors study.

However, most people tend to associate these preferences with hardwood alone. Bamboo does not have the established reputation that materials like oak, maple and birch do. But it should. Materials suppliers have developed technology to make bamboo highly comparable to other flooring materials, beating out many of them in their own game.

Durability

Bamboo can exude the character of wood, but it is not wood in the traditional sense. It is technically a large grass considering the way it grows.

Yet, depending on the species bamboo is just as hard as most trees you will find. Using the Janka Hardness Scale — a scientific way of measuring density and scratch-resistance — most bamboo lies between 1,200 to 1,400 psi. This number equals 12 percent higher than North American maple and 25 percent higher than red oak.

Bamboo becomes even harder when it is peeled into strands and recompressed with resin, creating an engineered floor material that is 3,000 psi on the Janka Scale. This flooring is one of the hardest possible surfaces without importing costly woods like ibe.

This strength means that the material will not only stand up to wear and pressure, but it will also not deform. When it comes to flooring that will not expand, buckle or warp, bamboo has the clear advantage.

Appearance

Hardwood has always been regarded as beautiful, but bamboo can achieve stunning looks because of its unique appearance. There are also many new techniques of staining the bamboo or adding a veneer.

These processes mean that you can find bamboo in any color, texture or effect you could imagine. Scraped bamboo can even mimic the appearance of traditional woods.

Sustainable

Bamboo’s best feature is that it is environmentally friendly. A single bamboo chute can grow as much as three feet in a day. While many trees take 60 to 70 years to reach harvesting age, bamboo can reach maturity in as little as four years.

As we move into the future and gain new standards in green building, materials like bamboo will be preferred over hardwoods. More and more home buyers are finding appeal in bamboo as a result.

Because of all these advantages, one can see why bamboo has begun to earn its place alongside hardwoods as a flooring choice. There are still many reasons to choose hardwoods, but bamboo flooring is at least worth considering.

For more advice on the latest renovation trends that can help sell your Burnaby real estate home, take a look at our selling page.