Merry Christmas from All of us at The Bettina Reid Group! 

We hope the Holidays are filled with LOVE and JOY and many happy memories are made with family and friends!  

One of the many questions we get asked is whether or not it is a good idea to sell your home during the Holiday season? 

I would argue that it is...People looking for homes during this time of year are usually the very serious, qualified buyers. They have either sold their home already or need to buy. 

Selling during the Christmas season and having your home decorated can actually make your home more warm and inviting. Although, you have to be careful not to decorate as you normally would. Less is always more....Which we usually say when staging your home by asking you to pack away as much as possible and setting the stage to showcase your home well. The last thing we want is to clutter it up with more stuff. Minimizing the space instead of maximizing it. Try to choose tasteful decorations sparingly. Leave presents hidden away until just before Christmas if you can. Otherwise, only have out a few. Try not to have too many religious things out. The reason is that you want people to be able to envision themselves in your home, but to see it as their home. Removing these things and photos etc., also helps to protect your own privacy.

Another great reason to consider selling - a lot of people will take their home off the market or consider not putting it up on the market until the new year. But there are always buyers out there and when this happens the inventory shrinks giving Buyers much less to choose from. Which helps keep prices strong and helps get your home sold faster. This might not happen for everybody, but if you have a good property that shows well and is priced well....then there should be no reason why you shouldn't take advantage of a slower holiday season.

We just listed a beautiful home in South Surrey and in only 4 days on the market we had an offer, much to the surprise of our skeptical clients. :) They kept asking if they should just wait until the new year and pleasantly surprised by the activity we have had so far with it being less than a week away from Christmas.

It has become a tradition in our house to pile into the car on Christmas eve and head out for a drive around the city to see Christmas City Lights . We love to go through our own neighbourhoods, even though we drive through them everyday...when you are heading one place or another you seem to miss out on the beauty around you. Which is why we venture out specifically to check them out.

But we don't just stay aorund our house, we will travel throughout the city and surrounding communities in search of the biggest displays. There are some hidden gems and we thank the local papers each year for putting out a list of some of the best light displays not to be missed. Some even have their lights set to a radio station playing Christmas music.

For a list of some of the best light displays to visit this year check out the following link: Christmas City Lights thanks to the NOW paper for publishing this for all of us to enjoy! I can't wait for Christmas Eve to make the trek around the city with my family!

Here's another list from the Province: Christmas City Lights

Might be a little late to share this from last year: Twas the lights before Christmas ...as I was going through old blogs I came across this one and forgot how great an idea this is....last year I blogged about a company that takes care of putting up your Christmas lights for a fee of course!

 

If you own an iPhone or iPad you will want to check out the following link for some great tips and tricks to help you better use them.

iPhone/ iPad tips and tricks 

The offline Google Maps would have come in handy for us this past summer as we were travelling throughout Europe. Especially in Ireland where we rented a car. It was bad enough we were driving on the wrong side of the road...let alone not have a clue where we were going. :)

Love the guided access feature, how great is that for parents with little ones.

Then my daughter and I had to laugh as we shared the camera function with her Dad, so that he didn't have to unlock his phone every time he wanted to take a picture. Now he loves it!

What is your favourite iPhone/ iPad tips and tricks  ?

I recently made a trip to Guildford Town Centre to do some Christmas shopping. As foolish as that sounds, we had yet to visit since it's launch of their new phases. We didn't want to go all the way to Metrotown when we now have so many great shops much closer to home. Somehow we managed to find a spot close to a mall entrance and we even managed to come out with a few purchases and smiles on our faces. Which can be very hard to do this time of year with all the craziness that Christmas seems to bring to malls.

But the reason for my blog about Guildford Town Centre today was how impressed I was at their re-design. While visiting the washrooms during our visit I couldn't believe how innovative one of the stalls was. They had made a stall a little bigger than your average stall to encompass 2 toilets - a regular toilet and a smaller toilet close to the ground perfect for toddlers. As I was leaving a little girl knew exactly where to go so that she could manage independently without her grandmother. That left an impression on not only myself but the grandmother who hadn't seen this before either. 

Any parent will tell you taking your child to the washroom is no simple feat...especially when as children it seems once they have learned how to go by themselves, every washroom you pass induces them to have to go right then and there. Some sort of instinct I think to see if this washroom is any different than the last or perhaps it is our children marking their territory. (I am just kidding about that last one, but if you are a parent you know exactly what I mean, I am just thankful my girls are teens and can manage all that on their own now. :)

Big shout out to Guildford Town Centre for helping parents out and making stalls for Parents and Tots. Whoever thought of this design was certainly a parent or at some point has had to take a child into a public washroom. Even though I no longer have little ones....On behalf of all parents out there. WE THANK YOU!!!

A great man passed away last week and I have been wanting to blog about him for a few days now. I thought after his impressive memorial today that it would be good to finally sit down and pay my respects.

Learning about Nelson Mandela and Apartheid was a defining moment in my childhood. I was in grade 8 and I don't think I ever truly thought about the world around me before then. My family didn't really talk about current events, that was left for social studies in school. When I left school i didn't really give the world around me a second thought. Certainly not because I wasn't brought up well, I came from a poor family and our own day to day lives always seemed more important....

Then in grade 8 my french immersion class went through a number of teachers for one reason or another until finally Mme. Monti came along and introduced us to the world around us. She was a short, birkenstock wearing, laid back funny kind of teacher. But she taught us more in the few months after she took over, than any one teacher ever taught me in my entire childhood.

We learnt a lot in those few months from topics like AIDS, which at the time people feared could be caught just by kissing or touching. To Apartheid and of course Nelson Mandela and his plight.

Despite having spent 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela lived a LONG and amazing life. He became the first black president and with his anti-apartheid efforts helped to build a better South Africa for his people. He was a leader like no other leader that we have ever had in our world. Watching the dignitaries and heads of state from around the world peacefully come together to mourn the death of Nelson Mandela. Watching the people of South Africa celebrate his life through song and dance....even though it cannot take away the pain of his loss, it's heart warming to see how much he was loved. How much he affected change in not only South Africa but the world around him.

“People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite... Man's goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never explained.”

― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

Farewell Madiba (as his people so dearly called him), Farewell.

Fraser Valley's housing market cools in November

December, 03 2013 10:39:10 am, by FVREB 
Categories: Statistics

SURREY, BC – The Fraser Valley Real Estate Board’s Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) recorded 986 property sales in November, an increase of 9 per cent compared to the 905 sales during the same month last year, however a decrease of 21 per cent compared to October’s 1,249 sales.

Month-over-month, the Board also received 24 per cent fewer new listings – 1,774 compared to 2,336 in October – but still an improvement over the 1,723 new listings received during November of 2012.

Ron Todson, president of the Board says, “We typically see a slowdown just before the holidays and this year it started a little sooner reflecting what we’re seeing in our overall economy.

“Similar to last November, sales are hovering at about 14 per cent off normal levels, but so are new listings. They’re down about 7 per cent compared to the 10-year average, so what we’re seeing is a slower but steady market keeping home prices in check and the average number of days to sale stable.”

For a detached home in the Fraser Valley, the average number of days to sell in November was 57, compared to last year’s 59 days. For townhomes, it was 58 days and apartments 78 compared to 70 and 74 in November 2012.

Prices for benchmark homes also remain steady showing nominal year-over-year increases or single-digit decreases. For single family detached homes, the benchmark price increased by 1.0 per cent in one year, going from $544,700 in November 2012 to $550,300 last month.

For townhouses, the benchmark price in November was $292,400, a decrease of 2.2 per cent compared to $298,900 during the same month last year. The benchmark price of apartments in the Fraser Valley in November was $196,200, a decrease of 3.3 per cent compared to $202,800 in November 2012.

Todson notes, “Those thinking of buying or selling may notice in our monthly statistics package that average prices in November are up or down substantially compared to the benchmark price.

“Talk to your REALTOR® who will explain that the volume of sales and the calibre of homes sold can dramatically skew average prices, which doesn’t happen with the benchmark price the most reliable of all pricing measurements.”

Since November 2012, the benchmark price in the Fraser Valley for all three residential property types combined is flat, having decreased by 0.4 per cent and over the last six months the price has decreased by 0.9 per cent.

If you want to know what’s happening with your local market and how it would affect the selling price of your home, give us a call.