Innocuous In Innisfil 🇨🇦Over the last month my wife and I have been considering downsizing, moving from a large house to a condo. It was always the plan, we need our home equity to continue to retire comfortably, but we're now considering it 5 years earlier than anticipated. It's a bit scary jumping back into the real estate market after 15 years on the sidelines. Depending on the market we'll make a move late this summer or early in 2025.
This could be a long drawn out thread...
Some initial observations on our downsizing journey:
- open houses are very busy. Lots of people looking, few are buying.
- always wear slip-on shoes to open house. Tying shoes in a condo hallway in your late 60s is not graceful.
- when looking for info online, never provide an email or phone # to access content. You'll get spammed immediately by agents.
- a room 3.5 ft by 4.5 ft is NOT a bedroom.
- trying not to think about how much stuff we have to get rid of.
#RealEstate #CondoLife
- open houses are very busy. Lots of people looking, few are buying.
- always wear slip-on shoes to open house. Tying shoes in a condo hallway in your late 60s is not graceful.
- when looking for info online, never provide an email or phone # to access content. You'll get spammed immediately by agents.
- a room 3.5 ft by 4.5 ft is NOT a bedroom.
- trying not to think about how much stuff we have to get rid of.
#RealEstate #CondoLife
Wife and I went out for dinner last night (local diner, banquet burgers for both of us) and discussed next steps on our downsizing and new home journey.
1) Create a punch list of things that need to be patched, painted, repaired or completed prior to listing our current home.
2) Start looking for a local real estate agent who will sell the house. It's early but we can get valuable info from them to help us prepare.
3) Agree on location we want to move to.
With regards to that punch list, my wife has created a Google Keep Notes file this morning that already has 50 items in it. That's just inside. We have almost an acre of property and I'm confident she'll find more once the snow melts.
She pointed out that my procrastination is to blame for most of the list. I promised that I would correct my behavior... starting tomorrow...
So I'm painting two doors and about 40 feet of trim today. Somehow when we finished the basement over a year ago we hung 17 doors (7 regular and 10 bifold panels for closets) and they only got a coat of primer. In my defense, I dropped my golf handicap by 4 strokes last summer.
80's playlist is making the work go quicker. Including this classic remix...
#DIY #Painting #MyPlaylist
https://youtu.be/huavJMGUbiI?si=xiYY8wvAlICgb0T8
Bronski beat - Smalltown boy (12 extended)
It's now 3 months later, and despite the completion of dozens of tasks, the punch list is getting longer. I think my wife and I have to start leaving some home ownership excitement for whoever purchases this place.
We have selected an agent to sell our house who is local, very knowledgeable, and highly rated. She also told us that our home is worth less than we expected. The current market doesn't care about our feelings.
We have selected an agent to sell our house who is local, very knowledgeable, and highly rated. She also told us that our home is worth less than we expected. The current market doesn't care about our feelings.
We are also 75% sure that we will end up in #Barrie, although we're not sure if it will be a condo or a small house. For our budget, we will have a choice of hundreds of homes in that city, plus an opportunity to live near Kempenfelt Bay and a GO Station. We also have an agent selected to help us search, and we have a visit scheduled in the next few weeks to look at options and tour the area.
The actual move could still be a year away, but it's starting to feel real.
The actual move could still be a year away, but it's starting to feel real.
We have now visited the Barrie area 3 times in the last month, both to scope out different neighborhoods and to view a few potential homes to buy. We are set on a detached house as the condo lifestyle isn't for us, and the monthly fees can take a bite out of our retirement funds. Innisfil, which is just a few minutes east and south of Barrie, is the focus of our new home search. We like the more rural feel, and there are several beaches within minutes of most Innisfil neighborhoods.
We also met with the home stager who works with our selling realtor and got a huge list of recommendations. We have lots of antiques which she thought were lovely, but they all should be moved out for photos. Apparently, 100+ year old furniture is not what younger families are looking for, and she would prefer to stage our house with something cleaner and cooler. Kinda hurt our feelings a bit, but we also know she's trying to make us more money. I'll get over it.
It's been a crazy week. On Monday we met with our selling agent and planned out next steps to list our house. A sign goes up July 8th..... yikes. Spent all week patching, painting and purging. Also repaired and reseeded our front lawn. Saddest event - taking down my golf net in the garage. Apparently people want to see the entire space and are not cool enough to use half a garage for golf.
It has been an exhausting week. Repairing, repainting, purging and cleaning. Yesterday the staging company came and took away half of our furniture. Today they spent 4 hours putting in new stuff to make our house cooler than us. And a metric ton of pillows. All 5 bedrooms now have between 9 and 11 pillows - all decorative. And no room on a sofa or chair because of pillows. Photos were also taken today and the listing should go live on Monday.
BTW I had an interesting conversation with the owner of the staging company. She has a substantial business with over 50 houses using her inventory for homes for sale, short term rentals or video production. She has over 150 inventory items in our house alone. She mentioned keeping track of stock was a sizeable issue and I told her she needed RFID technology. She had never heard of it so I promised to send her some info.
#RFID
#RFID
Cassie is rubbing herself all over this chair from the staging company. Thankfully they are both the same color.
Our real estate agent has signs all over our house and it feels like we're living in a public building. I'm breaking lots of rules.
The listing went live on Monday and the HouseSigma app shows that it's popular with a ranking of 91 out of 100 (listing clicks plus marked as favourite). We had an agent open house today, which was well attended apparently, and there are two showings scheduled for later this week. In a slow market, that's encouraging.
We had a house showing today, so Harley and I went for a 7.5 km hike on our favourite trail across the road, which connects to the Bruce Trail.
The market is very slow here in Caledon, and we've only had 4 families look at our house in just over 2 weeks, including an open house. And our agent has warned us that August will be slower. Although we're priced right in line with the market, we might lower our price in September to spark more activity.
Another open house for us today, which means a busy morning cleaning and reconstructing the staging. We have a photo archive so we know where the 482 pillows are supposed to go. We're still working on the correct application of the "dent" in the top of designated pillows. Practice makes perfect.
Five open houses, including ours, in the surrounding rural area today. Three are more expensive and the other is very close to our market price. Totally useless comparison but I feel better.
Five open houses, including ours, in the surrounding rural area today. Three are more expensive and the other is very close to our market price. Totally useless comparison but I feel better.
I haven't added to this thread in a few weeks because not much is happening. Our listing expires today and in the past 60 days we have had 4 open houses which combined with scheduled showings has resulted in 10 groups actually viewing our home. Everyone loves the house but not enough to make an offer.
That amount of activity is apparently very positive in this slow market. Our agent and other contacts all said that was excellent based on where our home sits in the market - in our rural area there are only 14 houses that are 5 bedrooms, 3 full baths with 3,000+ square feet. None of which have sold since July 1st. In all of our area, across the hundreds of detached house of all sizes, only 10% of the inventory sold in August.
The market, in terms of low sales, is worse in our preferred location for a new home. There are hundreds of homes availabe in South Barrie/Innisfil, and prices seem to drop weekly. We've viewed several online that we think look perfect, but we're resisting the urge to view them in person. The time to buy is excellent but we don't want to think about a new home until we have a firm offer on our existing house.
So we are relisting tomorrow for another 60 days with a small price decrease. Our agent is confident that buyer activity will pick up and the recent bank rate reduction will help peak interest. Could be a busy fall with a moving date before Christmas. If we don't get any offers then we'll take it off the market and restart our efforts early in 2025. Thankfully we are not desperate and can take our time to do this right.
We had an open house yesterday, our 1st since relisting a week ago. Eight groups visited which almost equalled the total amount of viewings we had in our first 60 days. Three were very interested, one of those was here for the 2nd time. The repeat visitors are selling a house in Brampton and are waiting for that to be complete before making any offers on a new home. Only 1 day of data, but market appears to be less sluggish going into the fall.
Another scheduled showing today which means a hike with Harley on one of our favourite autumn trails. Gorgeous weather today.
So we have now had 18 views in the past 6 weeks, far more activity than our first 60 days. One semi-serious verbal offer came our way 4 days ago. The prospective buyer offered us an amount that was approximately 20% below market value because that was the mortgage amount they were pre-approved for. Can't hurt to ask...
One of the projects we completed to prepare for a house sale was an overhaul of our front lawn, including eliminating a firepit and pea stone sitting area. Here's the before ( mid-May) and after (today after a fresh cut). Grew in nicely.
Trying something new this week - a Friday wine & cheese open house, from 5pm to 7pm. Our agent has had some success with the tactic this summer, and tipsy buyers might be a good thing.
Today, we took our house off the market for the winter. November through January is typically a period of little to no activity in real estate markets, so we're taking a break and will relist in March. We expected an offer last week, but the couple have decided to wait until next spring to make a decision. Everyone is waiting for more help from government programs and additional interest rate drops. My wife says she's not vacuuming for a month.
Our house is not officially for sale but our agent contacted us yesterday to request a showing for Saturday. Apparently, one of the very interested potential buyers from last fall want to revisit before they make an offer. They're likely worried our house will sell quickly in the spring.
So today, we're vacuuming, dusting, and polishing all day after several weeks of more "relaxed" house cleaning. Got my C&W playlist to help me git-r-done...
#RealEstate ##MyPlaylist
https://youtu.be/7yw8O2mdrxs?si=Cp0YvwErr7osvFJc
Townes Van Zandt - Big Country Blues
We have started preparations to relist our way-too-big-for-us house. Staging expert arrives tomorrow to try and make our lifestyle look cooler than we are. Real estate agent will meet with us next Tuesday to sign a new listing agreement, and a sign will be up early March.
Back to daily vacuuming and cleaning, and being ready to vacate our house on a few hours' notice.
Silver lining: a metre of snow on the property means no extra yard work for a least a month.
We signed our listing agreement yesterday, and the house officially goes on the market March 3rd. Looking forward to strangers going through my drawers...
Currently deep cleaning our bathrooms, removing all water spots and scrubbing grout. Got some upbeat tunes in the background for motivation.
#HouseCleaning #MyPlaylist ##RandomTune
https://youtu.be/0Pg2lt8PmTA?si=HIWqp-gsyFWlNDOm
Rhiannon Giddens - Black Is the Color [Official Music Video]
Staging company has arrived with a trailer carrying several metric tons of pillows. We will struggle to live up to the cool and chic image they are crafting in our home.
Our house listing went live at noon yesterday and we already have a showing booked at 4:30 this afternoon. So naturally, the most difficult to reach light fixture needs 2 replacement bulbs, and I'm not comfortable with hanging out in open space.
The death-defying light bulb replacement has paid dividends. After a house showing late yesterday afternoon, we received an offer last night. Our agent will be here in a few minutes to discuss, but our initial response is to counter on the price and get something closer to our list price. Otherwise, the offer is clean with nothing wonky. Stay tuned....
We signed the offer back, asking for another 5%. I'm not religious, but I'll pray for a successful deal by listening to some favourite blues.
"Preachin Blues" by Larkin Poe
#MyPlaylist #RandomTune
https://youtu.be/cEWiJR9qeoc?si=cUPbcpeeSa2Ns45k
Larkin Poe | Preachin' Blues (Official Video)
Lots of activity over the past 24 hours but the short story is we signed a conditional offer that gives us 95% of our asking price. With an uncertain economic climate for the next few months, it seemed to be the prudent decision. The buyer has 5 days to complete inspections (house, well & septic) and mortgage/insurance appraisal. If all proceeds as planned, we will have a firm deal on March 14th.
Harley is handling it well since we've allowed her bed and toys to be out in the open.
Big day today. The potential buyers are taking over the house for 5 hours for scheduled inspections - house, septic system, and well/water testing. Their mortgage and insurance companies are also doing an appraisal on the property. If everything goes well, and conditions related to inspections and appraisals are satisfied, then the deal will be firm.
My wife and I are spending the day doing drive-bys of potential home purchases in Barrie/Innisfil.
Yesterday we completed the deal for our house - it closes on Friday, June 20th. Overall, we're happy, and now we start looking for our new smaller home in the Barrie area. In a few days, when I've had a mental break, I'll summarize what we did right and wrong in case someone else can learn from our selling process.
Pharrell Williams - Happy (Video)
The "Sold" sticker is now applied to the real estate sign out front. And today the house staging company took away all the cool furniture and several hundred pillows. We are now living a minimalist lifestyle for the next few months.
We're starting our process of what we keep versus what we move to a new house. We're #Downsizing, which means we have extra couches, beds, dressers, etc. Once we actually put an offer on a new house, ideally, in the next 2 weeks, we'll have a better idea of what has to go. Currently, we are cleaning out cupboards and building inventory for a garage sale in May, a month before our closing. We've got a few puzzles to sell.
Wife and I out touring our front garden on this beautiful day - 15°C and sunny. There was 2+ feet of snow here just 5 days ago.
This will be a bittersweet gardening season since we have sold the house, and it will be peaking around the closing date of June 20th. I will be moving some plants and dividing some that we want to take with us. And lots of weeding so it looks great for the new owners.
We're about to embark on an extended house search, spending several days in the Barrie/Innisfil area and looking at 10+ houses recommended to us by our agent there. More on that as it develops, but today I'll pass on the top 3 tips, from our experience and situation, that were helpful in selling our house. Hopefully, some of them are helpful.
#1 Choosing your agent. It's important to have an agent who knows your local market, particularly for us, being in a rural area. Our agent and her team live in our community and know it intimately and are knowledgeable on rural properties that have wells and septic systems. We went to an open house in Innisfil, and the agent was from Mississauga. She couldn't answer any questions about local attractions, services, or shopping.
Ask for 3+ references from any potential agents you meet with, and call them. All agents will have reviews on their website but use them as a guide because they ain't posting any dissatisfied customer reviews. Be suspicious of websites that claim to provide top agents in your area, like RankMyAgent, because they promote agents who advertise with them or they exist to collect your data.
#2 Listen to your agent, and stager if relevant, about making your house ready to sell. They're not in love with your property, and their critical eye is important in making your house presentable. They'll tell you if you should remove the stripper pole, your knife and sword collection, or blown-up photo of grandma's open casket. All real examples. They will also recommend what not to worry about, saving you time and money.
Be respectful of the commission you pay your agent. if you insist on a lower commission, a lot of good agents will turn you down. Less commission means fewer services and fewer dollars going into the marketing budget. Buying agents, representing buyers, get half of the commission, and they will direct their clients to houses that compensate them for their efforts. So, a low commission rate reduces your buyer pool.
#3 Know your market. Ideally, before you select your agent, you've done your homework on the market in your area. If so, then you can be more comfortable when they tell you what your house is worth. Realtor.ca is a great site for finding prices for homes in your area, but list prices are meaningless. Data on what houses have sold for is your market price.
HouseSigma.com provides info on the local market, what houses with similar features are selling for, and sales/listing history for individual houses. It's a great resource for selling your current house and looking for your new home. You can also get monthly updates on the market by googling "real estate market report" for your community. They will tell how much inventory is available, how quickly it's selling, and if houses are selling above or below list.
Lastly, be patient and expect to be insulted. It's a buyer's market, and they are taking their time and looking at a lot of houses that are on the market for weeks or months. Feedback from your Open House or agent showing will be blunt. Don't take it personally. And you'll likely get a few offers that are well below market price because buyers don't care about your feelings. Have an honest conversation with your agent about what you'll accept, and be prepared to go lower.
Looked at 4 houses today in the Innisfil area and we have one solid option with the other 3 eliminated. One broke my heart - spectacular garage perfect for a golf simulator attached to a house with too many issues.
Another 4 house viewings scheduled for tomorrow, one of which coincidentally is two streets away from my brother's cottage.
All About That Bass - Postmodern Jukebox European Tour Version
J.L.1285 
@paulbusch Congratulations! Can’t wait to see BarrieMoneypit show up in my feed!😂
@CAWguy
Hopefully, it won't be a money pit :-)
I'll have to come up with a new alias. Something else to add to my action items.
Brian Eno’s Music for Armpits@paulbusch Congratulations! All your collective time and effort paid off. Good luck with your search.
CindyCongrats. So, Harley is now part of the "home staging"? 😉 haha, genius! 🐕
DB SchweinI'm late to this adventure, but wow!
Fingers crossed for your 5% 😁
Have you started re-looking seriously for your next place, because things are going to speed up soon!!
@deirdrebeth
We're well prepared for the next part of the adventure. We know where we want to relocate, Barrie Innisfil area, and we have an agent there waiting for us to start looking. We visited the area several times last summer to help us understand the good and bad sections, and we've been looking online since last July. We have a "favourites" list that we will physically visit once we have a firm offer. Something will screw us up, but we'll roll with it.
We're well prepared for the next part of the adventure. We know where we want to relocate, Barrie Innisfil area, and we have an agent there waiting for us to start looking. We visited the area several times last summer to help us understand the good and bad sections, and we've been looking online since last July. We have a "favourites" list that we will physically visit once we have a firm offer. Something will screw us up, but we'll roll with it.
No plan survives contact with the enemy 😝
Happy to hear your ready to roll with the punches!
That's fab (maybe not for the sellers!) that some of your favourites are still on the market. We had more of a "You've got a month, maybe less, before it's gone." time of finding ours. We did find the perfect one though 💜
Reay@paulbusch Well done.
Hope it pans out!
@paulbusch Hope it goes better for you this time!
We finally closed on the sale of our Toronto property last week. Buyer wanted 6 months.
Had to carry two properties for last 4 months. Glad that’s over.