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@olive.and.ash.interiors

Sat down with Esther, the owner and founder of @olive.and.ash.interiors to go through the 3 key benefits to staging your home while we took a tour through her warehouse here in Orangeville🙌🏼

Staging SELLS & it's super important to work with a realtor who understands the value in staging your home to sell👏🏼

Are you thinking of upsizing your first home?🏡

Whether you're a first time buyer or first time seller the process can be overwhelming! Selling and buying now has with it it's own set of inherent challenges such as having to line closings up on two properties, not knowing whether to sell or buy first, conditions & navigating offers on two properties now

Your first home allowed you the opportunity to get into the market & build some equity up - your second home is where you *finally* get to be a little more picky with what you want as you're working with a larger budget now.

HOUSE HACKING - ever heard of it?🤷🏻‍♀️

This is when vou purchase a property & rent out of a portion of it.

There are 2 key benefits to this

👉🏼you have someone to help pay your mortgage while you build the equity & appreciation

👉🏼you can utilize a portion of the rental income to get added onto your income and help qualify

Looking for a new book to read? 📚

Everyone who knows me, knows I love a good book 🤓 I often get asked for book recommendations so l've put together my top 3! While there are sooo many l've enioved reading over the years, here are my fav 3 that I've recently read and re read

1.Working with the law: breaks down the universal laws and how they impact ALL of us and our daily life & how working within these can help you reach your goals

2.Think & Grow Rich: goes over the 13 habits of successful people and all these things they have in common. Think of this one as your playbook for success💫

3.Untethered Soul: I was expecting to love this one as much as I did and I now understand all the hype around this book 👏🏼this book helps us look inwards on our limiting beliefs and how they play out into our day to day lives and how we can navigate thoughts and feelings

The infamous question: pre construction or resale 😉

Although there's no right or wrong & its case by case - with the current uncertainty of the market we are experiencing there are a few reasons why resale is the way to go right now

1.You can start gaining equity & appreciation immediately

2.Minimizing risk - with the way the market is today, there are lots of people who had bought pre construction and are having difficulty closing due to the increase in rates & homes not being worth the same amount they paid

3.Tying up your deposit for an indefinite period of time because realistically vou have no idea when the property will really close and when you will be moved in

IS STAGING WORTH IT?

Sat down with Esther, the owner & founder of @olive.and.ash.interiors while she shed some light on some interesting stats

A staged home can sell anywhere from 5-23% MORE then an unstaged home

I've been working with Esther & her team for years and I've seen the transformation they do to every property is incredible 👏🏼🔥

When I walk through properties with my own buyers, I see how much stages homes really impact the buyers perspective on how they view the home & how much they're willing to offer

Staging really does make all the difference, it's important to work with an agent who sees the value in this as well.🫶🏻

🚨Bank of Canada Announcement🚨

Bank of Canada increased its overnight lending rate last week & here's what it means for you 👇🏼

✨this will affect people in variable rate products (ie. mortgage, home equity lines of credit, lines of credit etc)

✨for every $100K of mortgage money you owe, you'll see approx a $15 increase in your monthly mortgage payment

✨fixed rate mortgages your payments stay the same

Need to increase your down payment as a first time home buyer?

Utilizing the RRSP program you can👏🏼

This works one of two ways

1. If you are making frequent contributions to your RRSP you can use that. If have contributed but aren't at the $35k you can also apply for the difference so you can be topped up to reach that $35K amount.

2. If you are not making contributions to RRSP you can apply for the full $35K loan & the money is put into RRSP which you can then use towards your down payment or closing costs

This is to be paid back within 15 years or when you took out the loan. When you sell the home you can also use a portion of your equit appreciation from the home to pay it back

Send me a msg if you have any questions about how this program works & if it makes sense for you 🏡

CHALLENGES WITH BUYERS

One of the biggest challenges a lot of people are experiencing is the lack of urgency with home buyers which is resulting in a lot of missed opportunity in the market right now

Last year with the market being as hot as it was, buyers knew they had to act quick. Fast forward to this year buyers can take their time a bit more & be a little more picky. However, it's important to keep in mind and remember that there will ALWAYS be another home, the more homes you view as a buver the harder it is to make a decision and the home buying process can get dragged out as a result🏡

If you're a home buyer it's important to go into the process with the following:

✨an open mind

✨realistic expectations about what your budget can get you

✨a reminder that this isn't your forever home

✨clear location vou want to live in & general timeline you are wanting to purchase for

✨DO YOU NEED A SIGN✨

It's easy to get lost in the headlines of the media & the fear of the interest rates increasing stops you but I think it's important to keep an overall bigger perspective in mind here 🏡🏡

👉🏼interest rates have increased 4.25% since last year

👉🏼prices have dropped anywhere from 20-30% some areas even closer to 40%

So regardless of the 4.25% increase in rates it still isn't nearly as much as the DROP in home prices so even though you're qualifying higher now you're also purchasing WAY lower then you wound have been last year at a lower interest rate

Video

Grow your business through social media

If you're an agent wanting to grow your business through social media here are the 3 things I personally focus on 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

1.Posting videos more then photos- this allows the chance for new people to find your page and more eyes on your content

2.Engaging - engaging with people who follow you and also post content that other people are going to want to engage with! The engagement is NOT one sided.

3.Authenticity - if you've been following me for a while you know I let people in with a lot of my life, personal and professional. This allows people to fee connected to each other and build relationships with others easier and more natural.

It doesn't matter if you're posting consistently or engaging with your audience, you need to show up on video and stories so people see YOU & be authentic so people get to know who you are 💫

Is it a good time to buy???

The question isn't about "is it a good time to buy?" The question you should be asking yourself are these 2 things👇🏻

1.Can I afford to buy right now?

2.What's my plan with this property?

If you're in a position where you want to buy, you can afford to buy and your plan is to be in the property for a minimum of 3 years then you have your answer. The question isn't about timing the market it's figuring out when the right time for YOU is 🏡

Personal Growth Journey

Last year was an incredibly transformative year for me. If you've been following me on social for a while you've been following along my own personal growth journey. From the @5am_wakeupcall to changing brokerages, to starting my journey with practicing gratitude & everything in between 💫

All the work I was doing on myself personally translated into the energy I was putting out into my work which opened up different opportunities, relationships, friendships etc to have one of my personally best years so far & the exciting part is I feel like I'm just getting started ♥️🙌🏻

Tip for buyers & especially first time home buyers 👇🏻

There's always that parent who comes to one showing saying that they bought their first home for $125K and that this $625K townhouse isn't worth it😅

Bringing everyone along the process the entire time is super important for everyone to be on the same page to understand what's available in CURRENT market🏡

Tip for buyers & especially first time home buyers 👇🏻

⚡️Make sure all decision makers such as parents are involved in the whole process from the start ⚡️

I've worked with many buyers who have parents come and go throughout the process, come to some showings then aren't there for others and I've found that it becomes extremely difficult for buyers to make a decision on which property to offer on.

The best thing to do is to have all decision makers involved in the process from start to finish to make the home buying process as seamless as possible! 🏡

When projects start off small & end up in a full home gut😅

🖤winner will be announced in TWO days!

GOOD LUCK🎁

WIN A CHANCE

Day 8 of Christmas Giveaways!!!🎄

DAY 8!🎉

Today’s giveaway is brought to you by @tantations here in Orangeville and this basket is valued over $180 and includes a $50 gift card and so many goodies for all your self care needs. PLUS a Venus freeze facial valued at $159 dollars

DAY ONE IS HERE🖤

Small biz feature with the incredibleeee @marketcandlecompany and this basket has so many amazing goodies valued at over $100 (!!!) that includes the following:

⚡️Log Cabin Candle

⚡️Log Cabin Reed Diffuser

⚡️Tree Farm Candle

⚡️Tree Farm Fine Fragrance Oil

⚡️Apothecary matches

RULES TO ENTER (ONLY ON INSTAGRAM)

🖤like this post

🖤follow myself & @marketcandlecompany

🖤each tag is 1 entry

🖤sharing to your story and tag myself and @marketcandlecompany is 5 extra entries

🖤winner will be announced in TWO days!

GOOD LUCK🎁

win a chance

Anna's 12 Days of Christmas Giveaways!!!

We are officially ONE week away from my 12 days of Christmas giveaways🎉

Stay tuned... 👀

Buyers Going Into 2022!

For all you buyers looking to buy in 2022, please keep this in mind!

Coffee Chats with Anna & Mortgage Broker, Chloe Colella

Our goal is to provide you guys with monthly updates on what’s going on in the Real Estate & Mortgage industries to keep you all up to speed & informed. So grab your coffee & enjoy ☕️

Recap of 2021 and predictions for 2022

Home Buyer Mistakes!

There’s a lot that goes into buying a home so let’s break down some major things to avoid👇🏼

1. Before you start looking at homes, get clear about exactly what you’re looking for! Of course we’re humans and sometimes our minds change throughout the process of home searching. Our criteria may change but it’s important to get clear about certain non negotiable things that you must have and what’s important to you so you and your Realtor can look at homes that are the most relevant to what you’re looking for.

2. Please remember you chose your Realtor for a REASON. Sure anyone can look online at listings & get a sense of general prices in an area but your agent is the professional who STUDIES the markets; this is not something we occasionally look at online for fun (although maybe sometimes🙊) we study the local numbers & trends, have negotiation tactics etc. Trust them.

3. Stretching yourself too thin is this market has become very common since home buyers now have to basically bid for a home. Keep in mind that there is still LIFE after this purchase. You don’t want to stretch yourself too thin and be house poor & not be able to still enjoy your life. There is way more then just the monthly mortgage to take into consideration, utility cost, insurance, groceries, furnishing the home etc all go into the bucket of owning a home.

Buyers vs. Expectations

Buyers! One of the most important things we as realtors have to do with buyers is make sure budget & expectations line up. Now more than ever before this has been extremely challenging with how quickly the market has shifted & getting buyers to line their expectations up with the market. If you had hoped for a detached, 3 bathrooms, big back yard, finished basement, ETC, maybe your budget allowed for that last year but unfortunately with the way the market is now it’s super important to have realistic expectations with yourselves and your realtor. Maybe something on your list needs to compromise and that’s okay!! 🙏🏼 the most important thing is to just get in and buy & the best time to buy is now🏡