Mortgage 101 – Love Your Home | Feb 20, 2023

Buying or selling a home involves lots of practical work. But who’s to say you can’t enjoy the work you do? Clinton Wilkins and Todd Veinotte chat with realtor James Dwyer all about how to approach home improvements if you’re looking to sell, and the state of the current market for buyers and sellers.

Todd Veinotte 00:04
Welcome back to Mortgage 101 your guide to homeownership with Clinton Wilkins and myself, Todd Veinotte and we are talking about, it’s the month of love, of course. And because it’s the month of love, that means that we’re going to get into how you can love your home. And how do you love your home, you can invest in your home, obviously. And that’s, that’s something that we’re going to discuss right Clinton?

Clinton Wilkins 00:24
Oh, yeah, we’re going to talk about investing. And we are going to talk about improving our home. And we’re going to talk to a realtor friend of mine.

Todd Veinotte 00:34
He’s been on my show as well.

Clinton Wilkins 00:35
Yeah, he’s been on your show, and he’s been on our show Mortgage 101. We’re going to talk to him about improving property. Does that make sense? And I really want to hear of like what’s going on with the real estate market from a realtors perspective. So we should have James here on the line. James, are you with us?

James Dwyer 00:53
Yes, I am.

Todd Veinotte 00:54
James Dwyer always love to hear your voice what’s going on in your world?

James Dwyer 00:58
Not a whole lot. We’re just plugging away gearing up now for the spring market and just you know, following closely as what’s been happening.

Todd Veinotte 01:07
Clinton got some questions for you. He’s all, he’s chomping at the bit he wants to talk to you.

The Value In Home Renovations

Clinton Wilkins 01:10
Well, February is the month of love as you as you know, James and you know, one thing that we talk about at least in our business is Love Your Home. And you know, some people love their home. Some people really dislike their home, some people want to buy a new home, some people want to buy their first home. But if you own a home already, does it make sense to improve your property? And like really, what do you see for improvements that are really adding kind of the most market value?

James Dwyer 01:37
Well, I think with any homeowner, you know, everyone wants to kind of put their own mark on the property you know, we see it a lot where at least in the real estate side of things that when you do very modern or very up to date renovations in a home it does add a certain level of value to that home. So you know the big ticket items will always be you know, your kitchen senior bathrooms you know, what you do with say, you know, the the landscaping, the outdoor space that extension of living that you can have in the summertime and what you do with things and say the the basement area, you know, whether it’s you know, it’s always been considered a flexible area where you can do a lot of different things. So you know, value adds would be say if you were looking at you know, maybe one of your parents wanted to move in or or you want to really kind of amp that up to make it a really kid friendly zone or whatever is happening within within the parameters of that family dynamic. You know, renovations are always going to be a strong positive thing to obviously add value and also great curb appeal for when it comes time to sell.

Todd Veinotte 02:45
James I’m sure that, I’ve gone through this personally where I’ve had a home at least a few times, and I’ve wanted to do upgrades and renovations to them and I put them off until I wanted to sell the home and then you finally put the work into it. And then you’re like man oh man I wish I were staying because this looks so good. Does that happen from time to time?

Don’t just renovate to sell, enjoy it

James Dwyer 03:06
Yes, it does quite a bit a lot of my clients will come to me you know prior to to say listing a home and they’re always a little, like a kid with money if you will to say you know what should we do what what do we do with the space? And so yeah, we do we do see that fairly regularly. But you know, it’s also to keep in mind that if you’re in that process of say doing home renovations prior to listing, it’s really important to you know, to have those conversations because you know, don’t do something the way you necessarily would it’s more something that will be reflective of you know what the general public is looking for? Because I’ve seen it where someone had renovated the kitchen and put it on the market and that house sold and three weeks after closing that kitchen was in a dumpster because they renovated a lot of it.

Clinton Wilkins 03:54
What a huge waste of money but also what a what a huge waste for the environment.

Todd Veinotte 03:58
Yeah it is but but a good lesson too right? A good lesson. I would think the same with paint colors right people need to – hear neutral colors don’t go all bold.

Clinton Wilkins 04:07
We’ve all seen the bold ones. I’ve done it myself.

James Dwyer 04:11
Yeah, no colors. I mean, we can add colors, you know, paint the hands down the you know the cheapest and that’s a single improvement you can do that any home to change the complexion, the vibe, the energy of a space. And you know it is the best bang for your buck when it comes to home renovations.

Clinton Wilkins 04:26
So am I really picking up what you’re laying down here? Are you saying renovate the property for you and enjoy it and don’t so much renovate if you’re just renovating it to sell? Is that kind of what you’re getting at?

James Dwyer 04:36
Correct 100% I mean, the last thing you know, you’d never want to be in a situation where you’re living in a house and you’re always thinking about that thing, you know, oh I gotta get that done. I gotta get that done. I gotta get that done. Live in the now. You know, get the house prepped, do it the way you want to do it and enjoy it. You know, enjoy that space. I mean God we spend so much time here in Canada in our homes as it is, you know, you really want to make that your your home base and it’s more important, I think for the psyche, the mindset, you know, the motivation to get those things done the way you like them.

Address Structural Issues First

Todd Veinotte 05:06
James, often people want to do renovations to their interior, to the kitchen to the bathroom and all of that stuff. And I get it, like you said, we spend our time in the house. But it doesn’t make any sense if you’ve got a roof that needs done, you got siding that needs to be taken care of, you got a foundation that’s got a crack in it, the envelope, but it’s expensive, it’s not sexy to do that work. But from what from your job as a realtor, you would much rather say, look, the envelope of this house is tight. There’s a brand new chimney, then look at this wonderful, grand new kitchen. However, we got problems with the roof, right?

James Dwyer 05:46
Yeah, 100%. I mean, like, you know, you always look at the envelope of a property, you know, it’s you, let’s say you put a new roof on it, and you live in the house for 18 or 20 years, and you’ve worn out that roof. You know, it’s essentially you have put on a new roof, I mean, you can’t kind of pass that on to the next buyer. Because guess what, you know that next buyer is going to do a home inspection that is going to come up and that will become a negotiation piece, whether it’s through price or through any other factors. And it’s nothing gets done about it while they’re probably going to move on to the next property. So, you know, it is to take care of the structural components first without a doubt, which will, you know, ultimately protect things. But I get where it’s coming from, I mean, you never like put a new roof on your house and have all your buddies come over in the backyard and, you know, stare at the roof and be like damn nice roof.

Clinton Wilkins 06:31
I don’t know, I’ve seen some nice looking roofs in my day.

James Dwyer 06:33
But for the most part, it’s not, you know, it’s not an instant gratification component, you know, is the necessary evil and fundamentally too you’ve got to really look at it and say well, you know, there’s, you know, it’s a homeowner responsibility, you know, to take care of –

Clinton Wilkins 06:49
Well that’s kind of the minimum expectation.

James Dwyer 06:51
Yeah, exactly.

The current market for buyers and sellers

Clinton Wilkins 06:52
Yeah, I totally agree. Now, you know, talking about the month of love, not everyone loves her existing home, you know, James, it doesn’t matter if you’re renting, or if you’re owning another property, not everyone loves their home. So tell us what’s going on with the market if you’re in the market to buy a new home. You know, I’ve heard some rumblings that January was one of the slowest January’s in history, give us a little rundown on what’s happening here, in Halifax and across the province.

James Dwyer 07:19
So what we’re situated what we’re dealing with right now, you know, we’re in that second phase of the environment that we’re in, so we had the rate hike last year, we’re kind of in into a plateauing position right now. And, you know, there has been a quite a buildup of pent up demand on the buying side, as well as on the listing side. So, you know, the real, I guess, test to the market will be this spring, we’re gonna see an influx of, you know, the traditional spring market, but on top of that, we’re gonna see the, you know, half the fall market that didn’t bother to list also come on during that time. And then on the buying side, you know, a lot of buyers kind of took a step back in the last six months or last year to kind of see where things go, where do prices go, and everyone’s kind of looking for that opportunity. What we see right now happening in the market, you know, there’s many different strategies in place when it comes to pricing right now. And I think it’s really important to really give long thought and deep dive, you know, the listings that are out there when it comes to price points, because some are listed, you know, with with the mindset of the market, or the anticipation of what’s to come. Some are listed as if they were priced at a price as if this was, you know, nine months ago. So it’s really important to take the time now to really break down those those analytics. I suspect that we will see some activity or traditional activity come through on the spring, but the January data, in my opinion, you know, it’s a precursor.

Todd Veinotte 08:49
James, we’re just tight on time. But thank you so much for doing this. Always great, my friend.

James Dwyer 08:54
All right. Take care for now.

Todd Veinotte 08:55
All right, take care. Thats James Dwyer, a local realtor and somebody who knows the market well, and obviously, is on the ball. So what do you want to talk about in the next segment, Clinton?

Clinton Wilkins 09:05
Well, we’re certainly going to talk about when maybe love doesn’t go right. But I’d like to even dig a little bit deeper into if you own a home, refinancem how does that work? And we’ll talk about maybe getting some people into some new homes.

Todd Veinotte 09:15
Mortgage 101 we’ll be right back