Real Estate Blog - Ken Richter

Pre-Sale Inspection or Not?

Before a serious buyer makes an offer on your home, he may want to have a professional home inspector check your house from top to bottom.

The option of hiring a professional home inspector is open to you, the seller, as well. An inspection in advance of putting your home on the market is a good idea. It will allow you ample time to fix the things that you may not have known about, ultimately allowing you to ask for and receive a better price for your home. Providing a pre-inspection may also reassure prospective buyers that no major surprises are in store. Better you find them and take care of them before an inspector hired by a potential buyer discovers them!

If you need a referral to a quality inspector, contact us!

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Monthly Renovation Tip: Painting 6

Choosing to make the right upgrades to your home can improve its resale value. Most realtors recommend a fresh coat of paint before putting up the for sale sign. Since paint colour can have such a dramatic effect on a room, using a neutral-coloured palette will help to de-personalize the space. This allows potential buyers to envision how their personal taste will work in their new environment. Overall, choosing the right shade of paint can not only improve your return on investment, but can increase the appeal of your home and help you sell it!

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Monthly Household Tip: Furnaces 7

Clean or change the filter on your furnace regularly so that it will run more efficiently. Dirty filters can increase operating costs and affect the life and efficiency of heating and air conditioning equipment. If the filter is reusable, remove it, wash down with a hose and then re-insert. Otherwise, you’ll want to replace it with a new one.

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Consider Being a RE/MAX Franchisee

RE/MAX has become one of the best-known names in the world – and one of the most respected. The RE/MAX name is synonymous with quality, integrity, professionalism and experience.

As a RE/MAX franchisee, you too, can take advantage of the RE/MAX reputation. RE/MAX offers you the chance to build your own business in your own community. The chance to become an entrepreneur in business for yourself, but not by yourself.

The RE/MAX system provides its franchisee’s and their agents with a highly robust and complete platform of business solutions including the opportunity to network and consult with some of the top broker/owners and the services and support you need to be successful in the Real Estate industry.

Did you know that RE/MAX has been named…

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Selling In The New Year

Selling or Looking to Sell in the New Year? If you’re looking to sell your home in 2013, it’s a great opportunity to make improvements and better position yourself for a successful outcome.

One of the key things a homeowner can do if they’re planning to sell is clear out the clutter. De-cluttering helps to open up the space so the potential buyer can imagine themselves living there and not focusing on stepping around or tripping over the extraneous stuff! De-cluttering and donating will make for a more organized, less stressful move.

Staging your home before you put it on the market is another proven technique for selling a home. Whether you hire a professional home stager or do it yourself, staging a home for sale is a great way to reduce the time…

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Gift For Dad: Power Tools?

Whether it’s home improvement, home renovation or home repair, the desired outcome is to add value to your home. Many do-it-yourself dads have great intentions, but end up inadvertently causing structural problems and other defects. These amateur power tool users often get into trouble by cutting before thinking. What’s the good old rule of thumb: measure twice, cut once? Many ambitious do-it-yourselfers do just the opposite and have cut or nailed through pipes in a wall leading to water damage and major repair issues.

Kathleen Kuhn, President and CEO of HouseMaster, the most experienced name in home inspections says,”it’s easy for homeowners to get in over their heads with home improvement projects… collateral damage caused by such mishaps often show…

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Christmas Lights Safety Advice

Christmas lights are beautiful and add to the magic of the season, but all that electricity can cause problems if not used properly. The Ken Richter Team wishes you a safe and wonderful holiday season and reminds everyone of the top safety tips and special precautions to make sure they’re safe as you go about decorating your home with lights:

• Before you string up a single strand of lights, carefully check them for cracked cords, frayed ends or loose connections. Frayed cords can lead to a short.

• Replace burned out bulbs promptly with bulbs of the same wattage.

• Modern lights have fused plugs, preventing sparks in case of a short circuit. Ditch old strands of lights that don’t have fuses and get a set of newer, safer lights.

• Use…

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The RE/MAX Network

Team Ken Richter is proud to be a key player within the RE/MAX Network for many reasons, but specifically because as a company, RE/MAX has the philosophy that the spirit of generosity directly translates into being successful in business.

RE/MAX was founded in 1973 by Dave and Gail Liniger, real estate industry visionaries who still lead the Denver-based global franchisor today.RE/MAX is recognized as a leading real estate franchisor with the most productive sales force in the industry and a global reach of more than 85 countries. As a powerful world recognized brand whose network of people are constantly sharing ideas and information, they are not only the number 1 real estate company in North America, but the largest contributing sponsor of the…

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Condo Gardening

Even if you live in a condo doesn’t mean you have to give up gardening. But it does mean you have some unique considerations when it comes to exercising your green thumb.

For starters, be sure to read the governing documents to see what restrictions you might face: there may be limits as to how much weight you can have on your balcony, certain kinds of plantings that may be prohibited (due to their attractiveness to pests), and/or you might not be allowed to affix anything to your balcony, such as hanging baskets and planter boxes.

You’ll have to carefully consider your choice of plants given your unit’s location. If you have a north-facing balcony, or one that’s simply steeped in shade due to a large overhang, you aren’t likely to have much success…

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Why Good Homes Stay On The Market

A property that doesn’t generate as much interest and sell as quickly as expected isn’t necessarily one that’s flawed. There are several reasons why perfectly good homes linger on the market. Below are some of the most common.

•It’s overpriced. This is the top reason why quality properties don’t sell more quickly. Buyers tend to assume, rightly or wrongly, that a seller whose home is priced above fair market value isn’t serious about selling or open to negotiating. As such, buyers may feel they’d be wasting their time by even making an offer.

•It doesn’t show well. A home may have excellent “bone structure”, be fairly priced, and boast a great location, but if it doesn’t perform well at showings, it won’t sell quickly. What makes for a poor…

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