Jessica Prasad

When it comes to showing a home it is highly recommended that the Sellers leave the home BEFORE a buyer is due to arrive. At least walk around the block or something, but don’t under any circumstances be at the home! This is a huge turn-off to buyers. It is also something the other agent really hates. Agents don’t need your help to point out the great features of your home. The buyer’s agent knows what that particular buyer is looking for and will make sure to point out the items they know their buyer wants to see.  

There are a lot of reasons for the seller not to be home when it is shown. Below are the top four that I have found in my business.

• If the seller is home, the buyer can’t fully explore the home. The whole point is for the buyer to picture themselves living in the home and feeling like it could be theirs. If the seller is there, the buyer can’t do that.  The buyer needs to be comfortable opening cabinets, closets, etc. .. They need to picture their furniture in the home and how the home will work in their life.
  
  
• Buyers also need to be able to talk openly with their agent. They need to be able to express their thoughts and concerns. They may be thinking how a room is too small and therefore deciding the home is not for them. If they can express that to the agent, the agent may be able to offer suggestions like knocking out a wall to make the home perfect for them.  Maybe the colors are not what the buyer likes and some buyers need to be reminded that painting is a cheap fix to make the home what they want.
  
  
• When the seller is home the buyer also feels rushed. They may go through the home so fast that they don’t really even see it and remember it later in the day. Buyers are very intimidated by the seller being around and won’t spend the time needed to know if they like the home or not.  Most buyers won’t even go into the room a seller is in.. And even worse if they are playing tour guide, the buyer just wants to leave asap!
  
  
• And last, but certainly not least, is that sellers tend to talk too much. They give out way too much info that may hurt them when it comes to negotiating later. They may talk about how they have to move asap for a job and can’t afford to move until the home is sold. I even had a seller tell a buyer recently that they were moving out the next week. That is so dangerous! Now someone knows that in a week the home will be vacant! TMI is a real problem when the seller is present. I know the seller thinks they can give good reasons why the home is great, but they usually end up giving reasons why the home is not so great!

In the end, let the agents do their job. After all, that is what we are getting paid to do. :-)

Source: http://sheilanewtonteam.realtytimes.com/advicefromagents1/item/30558-four-reasons-to-get-out-of-your-house-mistakes-sellers-make-series

The Coquitlam Crunch Diversity Challenge this year will take place this Saturday September 6th 6:30am start for the Make it or Break it and 10:00am for the Recreational Supporters!

I'll be donating the water for the event again!!!

Hello Friends of i❤homes.ca, Please join our coloring contest!!!

Copy Paste this link in the URL

file:///C:/Users/Jessica%20Prasad/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/IE/P0NOMUQ4/ilovehomes%20caBacktoSchool.html

Draw the outside, add your favorite Back to School characters, and decorate the inside with your own personal style, make it sparkle!!!

wins!  By entering the contest you are giving us permission to display your work on our facebook & twitter page

“Color your way Back to School”

www.ilovehomes.ca Coloring Contest

I love School!!

Email to info@ilovehomes.ca or text pic to 778.241.8946

All entries must be received by September 30, 2014 to be considered.

Port Coquitlam Farmers Market

Open from June 5, 2014 to September 25, 2014 (rain or shine)

Every Thursday: 3:00 - 7:00 pm

A busy and colourful downtown Market with fresh produce picked that morning, fruits when in season, seafood, sausage, pickles, jams, jellies, conserves, eggs, fresh baked bread and cookies, fairtrade coffe, fine art, fibre art, woodworking and so much more. A children's craft and lively entertainment will encourage you to stay and relax awhile.

Canada’s average house price rose five per cent year over year to $401,585 in July, according to Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) figures published August 15.

The association said that removing Vancouver and Toronto from the national equation, because those two large and expensive markets “skew” the findings, takes the average Canadian house price to $327,988, a four per cent year-over-year rise.

In the CREA’s breakdown of local markets, Greater Vancouver posted the third-biggest year-over-year increase in house prices at 4.44 per cent, beaten out by gains in Calgary (up 10.48 per cent) and Greater Toronto (up 7.88 per cent).

The number of home sales processed through the MLS® across Canada rose 0.8 per cent on a month-over-month basis, marking the sixth consecutive monthly increase and the highest level for sales since March 2010.

July sales were up from year-ago levels in about 70 per cent of all Canada’s local markets, with Greater Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and the Okanagan seeing the biggest increases nationwide.

Sales activity across the country was up 7.2 per cent year over year in actual (not seasonally adjusted) figures, and up 1.1 per cent over June 2014.

Activity rose in about 60 per cent of all local housing markets in July, with Victoria leading the gains.

“On the surface, national sales activity in July was similar to what we saw in May and June,” said CREA president Beth Crosbie. “That said, July sales picked up in markets that struggled to gain traction in the spring, while activity eased slightly in some of Canada’s largest urban markets.”

September is around the corner and it's time to figure out to which school we should register our children.

Here is a few websites to help you if you've recently moved to your new home in a different school district.

Tri-cities area:        

http://www.sd43.bc.ca/Schools/Pages/default.aspx

Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows area:       

http://www1.sd42.ca/

Optik TV and Internet for just $30/month for an entire year when signing up for 3 years. 

This is a special offer for my clients, from TELUS!

Any clients in August who are switching from another provider and allow TELUS to cancel their services will get a $100 bill credit. When my clients take the $30 promotion, and switch, they would get over 3 months free of TV and Internet!!

There are two options with the Optik TV and Internet offer for $30/month; 6 months of the promotional price of $30 with no term required or 12 months of the promotional price of $30 when signing a 3 year term. When signing up on a 3 year term clients also get a free rental PVR, 2 wireless HD boxes, and a wireless access point – which enbles them to watch TV anywhere in their home.

With Optik TV™, you can:

• Move your television anywhere in your home, regardless of where the TV outlet is located, with our wireless digital box
• Enjoy the most HD entertainment
• Watch On Demand shows and movies at home or on the go with a smartphone or tablet

With TELUS Internet, you can:

• Video chat, post photos and share videos without the wait with our faster upload speeds
• Get set up without the hassle - TELUS provides dedicated experts to set up your complete home Wi-Fi network, ensure all of your devices are working, activate your email account and import your contacts

Please call 604 310–5323 and quote T1# 23697

The BC Government is partnering with BC Hydro and FortisBC to expand energy-efficiency programs.

The goal is to help low-income residents reduce their electricity and gas bills through:

• updates to existing low-income programs; and
• a new program which provides homeowners with up to $6,000 in rebates for energy-efficiency upgrades.

BC Hydro and FortisBC will offer:

Energy Conservation Assistance Program (ECAP)

• free energy assesments; and
• energy-saving products such as new ENERGY STAR refrigerators to save residents $165 per year, and insulation upgrades saving residents $300 per year.

Energy Saving Kit Program (ESK)

• easy-to-install products such as compact fluorescent light bulbs and weather stripping save residents up to $100 per year.

Home Energy Rebate Offer

• up to $6,000 in rebates for home owners for energy efficiency upgrades to reduce water and space heating costs, including heating and hot water systems and insulation. Home owners completing these upgrades could reduce energy bills by 30% per year.

Learn more about programs for customers with low incomes, visit:

• fortisbc.com/ecap and fortisbc.com/esk

• bchydro.com/esk and bchydro.com/ecap

Learn more about Home Energy Rebate Offer at:

• bchydro.com/homerebates
• fortisbc.com/homerebates

Source: REALTOR LINK  July 25, 2014.

RSS is a technology that is being used by millions of web users around the world to keep track of their favorite websites.

In the ‘old days’ of the web to keep track of updates on a website you had to ‘bookmark’ websites in your browser and manually return to them on a regular basis to see what had been added.

The problems with bookmarking

• You as the web surfer had to do all the work
• It can get complicated when you are trying to track many websites at once
• You miss information when you forget to check your bookmarks
• You end up seeing the same information over and over again on sites that don’t update very often

RSS Changes Everything

What if you could tell a website to let you know every time that they update? In a sense, this is what RSS does for you.

RSS flips things around a little and is a technology that provides you with a method of getting relevant and up to date information sent to you for you to read in your own time. It saves you time and helps you to get the information you want quickly after it was published.

RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’. Many people describe it as a ‘news feed’ that you subscribe to.

I find the ‘subscription’ description helpful. It’s like subscribing to a magazine that is delivered to you periodically but instead of it coming in your physical mail box each month when the magazine is published it is delivered to your ‘RSS Reader’ every time your favorite website updates.

How RSS actually technically works is probably a lesson for another day but the key today is for you to understand why it’s good and how to use it.

How to Use RSS

Get an RSS Reader – The first thing you’ll want to do if you’re getting into reading sites via RSS is to hook yourself up with an RSS Feed Reader.

There are many feed readers going around with a variety of approaches and features – however a good place to start is with a couple of free and easy to use web based ones like Google Reader and Bloglines. Either one will do if you’re starting out  – as I say there are many others to choose from but to get started either of these are fairly easy to use and will help you work out the basics of RSS.

Both of these feed readers work a little like email. As you subscribe to feeds you’ll see that unread entries from the sites you’re tracking will be marked as bold. As you click on them you’ll see the latest update and can read it right there in the feed reader. You are given the option to click through to the actual site or move onto the next unread item – marking the last one as ‘read’.

The best way to learn how to use either Google Reader or Bloglines is to simply subscribe to some feeds and give it a go. Both have helpful help sections to get you up and running.

Note: other options to tracking websites that you might already be familiar with include using pages like MyYahoo, MyGoogle and MyMSN.

Find Some Feeds to Subscribe to – there are two places to look for a site’s feed:

1. On the Site
2. In Your Browser

On Site Subscription
Over the last few years you may have noticed a lot of little buttons and widgets appearing on your favorite sites and blogs. Little orange buttons, ‘counters’ with how many ‘readers a blog has, links called RSS, XML, ATOM and many more.

They come in all shapes and sizes. Here are a few you might have seen:

There are plenty more – but any time you see any of these buttons or anything like them it means that the site you are viewing almost certainly has a feed that you can subscribe to. In most cases it’s as simple as either copying and pasting the link associated with the button into your RSS Reader or clicking the button and following the instructions to subscribe using the feed reader of your choice.

Browser Subscription

Many internet browsers now have the ability to find and subscribe to RSS feeds built right into them.

When you surf to a site you can usually tell if it has an RSS feed by looking in the right hand side of address bar where you type in the site’s URL.

To quickly and easily subscribe by clicking these icons you’ll want to set up your browser to do it with your feed reader of choice as by default they will probably subscribe you using the in-browser reader. You can do this by going to the ‘preferences’ to your browser and choosing ‘Google Reader’ or ‘Bloglines’ etc as your feed reader.

Once you’ve done this and have subscribed to a few feeds you’ll begin to see unread items in your Feed Reader and you can start reading. :-)

Get Ready to Zumba!!!!

Zumba for a cause! Mark calendars everybody!!!

Friday July 11th, come support and have FUN!!!
12460 Harris Rd, Heritage House, Pitt Meadows
$10 for 90 mins of a good party and raise money for a good cause!

I'll be dontaing water for the event! See you there!