It seems to be more common than not that people do not invest in buying a headboard these days. What to do...what to do? My fallback solution is to hang artwork over the bed. One piece for a single, two for a double or queen and four for a king. This gives the potential buyer a reason to  remember how big the bedroom is.  (Try not to think about four people in the King size bed!) This achieves the look of a headboard and gives the proper scale and proportion to the bed in the room. Advantage Staging will market your property to stand out from the competition every time. This property in Barrie is now SOLD! Investment, minimal. Impact, priceless.   06/23/2008

When you are Staging and have a large bathroom to photograph, consider breaking it down to smaller parts to create an inviting feel to the room. This bathroom was large at 15 x 12 and no matter what angle we protographed at it just didn't show well. By zooming in on the feature faucets in the room it created a look that invited you to try the tub. Advantage Staging will always market your  property to stand out from the competition every time. Professional photography will market your home on line in the same way by creating desire and creating action on the part of your buyer to put your listing on their must see list. This property in Barrie is now SOLD! Investment, minimal. Impact, priceless.   06/23/2008

When Staging, bathrooms are the hardest room in the house to photograph and show well. I am taking a class from a photographer so that I can learn how to do it right.  These photos are examples of a property I Staged and the bathrooms were made to look inviting by the photographer. Advantage Staging will market your property to stand out from the competition every time. Professional photography will market you listing on line in the same way- creating desire and initiating action on the part of the buyer to put your property on their must see list. This property in Barrie is now SOLD! Investment, minimal. Impact, priceless. 06/23/2008

When Staging a property with high ceilings remember to use props and accessories to scale. In this case I suggested that the client install a very large mirror over the fireplace and have overly large props and accessories to keep the look of the fireplace in proportion.  The mirror was only $ 50.00 but it was not the right colour so it was painted Black Bean Soup by Benjamin Moore.  Over size cushions are  placed on the floor to show how inviting this fireplace is.  Now when potential buyers walk through the Realtor says the first words after entering the front door are WOW!!!  And that's from the men! Advantage Staging will market your home to stand out from the competition every time. Professional photography will market your listing to stand out on line in the same way. This propert... 06/23/2008

My cup is half full viewpoint... With all the recent talk of the BOC holding interest rates steady, and more importantly the insinuations that inflation is creeping into our economy, I couldn't help but think of how that will affect real estate, and especially what this blog is about, investment properties. Inflation is not all bad. Yes interest rates "may" go up. Yes our utility bills ( not to mention gas...) will go up. But here is my optimistic side kicking in again. Inflation slows down first time buyers from purchasing new homes. Which affects vacancy rates ( they go down because they stay renting), which affects rental rates ( they go up, because these first time buyers are remaining as renters). Now here is one last far fetched positive inflation  tid bit. Investment property val... 06/19/2008

Canadian Real estate Investing Fundamental #2 With all the talk of a declining market, or "we are in a down cycle" i.e. sub-prime mess, I thought it would be best to discuss an investing fundamental that makes you money in any cycle, up or down. And let me be clear on what a fundamental really is....a real estate investing fundamental is true for all markets whether you are in Canada, the U.S., or Asian real estate. It is a basic principle of all real estate investing. It is a foundational principle of real estate investing. Investing Fundamental #2- Mortgage Paydown No matter what happens in the market. If all you do is pay your mortgage on time ( or have your tenants pay it for you), the mortgage principle will decrease every month, thus increasing your equity in the property. I like ... 06/15/2008

We all enjoyed the beautiful growth of the city of Barrie for quite a few years now. We’ve witnessed the development of new neighborhoods, the steady increase in house values and many of us, homeowners made some good money in this great market. This year things are a bit different… Real Estate Market in Barrie is slowing down faster than anyone anticipated and this fact is making a lot of people very anxious. What are the reasons for such negative developments? When you look back to 1996, when the Barrie Real Estate Market was just starting to rebuild itself after 6 years of steady downward spiral, you will notice that it was possible to purchase a brand new 2000 sq.ft. Bungalow on 50’x 200’ lot in desirable area of the city for $155,000. At that time similar properties in Mississauga w... 06/13/2008

A "Thankful" license plateI could not help but notice a license plate on a car that I was following recently that spelled the word "Thankful". I had to ask.... thankful for what? Normally I see "Rich" or "Success"....or even "Bitch" or some other arrogant promotion. But some one who displays to the world that he is thankful...wowSo at the next lights I quickly ran up and asked ..."thankful for what?" He simply responded "Thankful for life!!"Man that says it all!Mark Vosyliuswww.sixstepstosuccess.comwww.manainvestments.com 03/27/2008

Picture Examples of what Outlook can do...I had so many people interested in how I set up my Outlook forms to run my real estate business, I thought I would expand on my first blog ( "Outlook can run your whole business in 5 minutes") and show what the outcome "could be" with a little effort. The following pictures best illustrate how I took the first "Outlook in 5 minutes" set up lesson and totally revamped my Outlook forms and reports. And to be honest, what you see here took me about 3 weeks of fairly hard work. But if I can do it...so can you!! I designed 3 basic forms. Prospects, Properties, Tenants (I am also an investor, so I have set up Outlook to manage my tenants/properties as well). I also figured out how to take my custom form information and create a custom report in the vi... 03/25/2008

Past week presents Real Estate Opportunities.This past week we saw Bear Stearns take a dive, the Fed step in and prop up whatever was left and reduce interest rates. I heard some forecasters talk about the foundation of our whole ( the world!) economic system as having a crack. Its not as solid as we thought. I was sipping my morning coffee when I heard this. I must admit that sounds like scary stuff. The talk is that this will turn into the Crash of 1929 and the following Depression of the early 1930's. However on the drive into work I turned my thoughts from negative to positive. There are real estate opportunities in good times a s well as bad. If "bad times" are truly upon us, then there are deals to be found.  Especially in real estate. If anything, these times are an opportunity o... 03/22/2008

  After listeining to Carole Martin on the Diva in the House Radio show I was inspired to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. Habitat for Humanity is the Certified Staging Professionals charity of choice and I want to do what I can to help make a family's dream of home ownership come true. I will be Staging 3 houses in Barrie and 3 house in the Alliston area later this spring. The MacLaren Art Gallery, Georgian College art students and the Gibson Centre in Alliston are providing artists to place artwork throughout the homes. The artists will donate one piece of artwork which will be auctioned off in a silent auction to raise funds for Habitat. The day of the open house art tour the Realtor, the artist, a rep from Habitat and a mortgage broker will be at each individual house. I am hop... 03/20/2008

Housing Affordability-Two Papers, Two storiesThe Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail both ran articles on RBC's housing affordability index report. From the exact same data however two different interpretations were derived. The Star focused on how poor 2008 and will be in Ontario ( stressing the negative), and the Globe focused on Vancouver's unusually high ( 74%) affordability, and Canada as a whole, with Ontario fairing well in 2008. Proof again that we should not believe the media, but rather focus on the fundamentals of the economy. The writers of these articles show bias and are obviously writing with an agenda (most prominently the Star). We need to focus on the data ourselves and not rely on "interpretations". And more importantly we need to study what is happening in our local ... 03/18/2008

Barrie Ontario Downtown Convention CenterThe buzz around Barrie council meetings is all about the new Convention center that "may" happen in the downtown Barrie ( waterfront) area. It seems the focus was on the negative.Will it be good for Business in Barrie? - Yes ( I will help you with the hard questions).Will it increase real estate values in Barrie? - YesWill it increase traffic in Barrie? - YesWill we ever see it? - doubt it.Growth, whether its business or personal costs something. If we are to see a convention center in Downtown Barrie, and see the benefits of strong real estate growth and improved Business conditions especially in the hurting downtown core, then its going to cost somebody somewhere. In this case the cost will be like what Toronto pays to grow and be the number on... 03/11/2008

Find an old tired house with multiple layers of separating and peeling wallpaper, simulated wood paneling in the basement, some rusty orange coloured carpeting with a relief pattern in it and a burn mark in the shape of an iron just for character. Throw in a few cracked window panes a matching turquoise tub toilet and sink, peeling roofing shingles, a leaning wood fence and a driveway that has worn itself into two parallel trenches separated by a long stretch of crabgrass and you have what many emerging investor/house flippers would call “opportunity for profit”. This home is the star of dozens of cable TV shows. The ones where in the first scene some slick entrepreneur in Ray Bans and a pair of unscathed designer work boots struts up from his scotch guarded SUV, Blackberry permanently ... 03/07/2008

Smaller Cities in Canada (like Orillia, Midland, and Barrie) still best for real estate The Report on Business in The Globe and Mail Tuesday really emphasizes housing affordability as the prime indices for what is happening in the real estate investment market. The smaller cities will fare best if average home prices in the area are below 300k. Although there are exceptions to that rule, (Windsor) the housing market in Canada, according to the Scotiabank, will remain on solid ground for the rest of 2008. That means that we can expect to see steady growth in all real estate sectors and that puts for sale by owner clients in a good position to sell in towns like Orillia, Owen Sound, Parry Sound and Barrie. The opportunity to sell or buy, using the ever growing do it yourself way at homes ... 02/27/2008

 Barrie has an incredible opportunity over the next few years to position itself as one of - if not the top waterfront/boater friendly community in all of Ontario and at the same time create an as yet untapped revenue stream and boost tourism numbers beyond what we have seen before. With a proposed Hotel and convention center providing the perfect catalyst, Barrie could begin to evolve its downtown into a thriving lakeside entertainment and shopping district and become a magnate for unique and stylish boutiques, galleries, craft and antique shops, great markets, cafes and fashionable restaurants where for lease signs, tattoo parlours and pawn shops currently dot its landscape.  There is opportunity for revenue growth that will encourage new cutting edge architecture in hand with the rev... 02/24/2008

Oh the news is so scary....I know that I have a lot to learn and that at 47 I may sound ignorant by this comment, but why do the media LOVE negative press?  I know we all can say "well it sells papers or makes the headlines"...but I want to say is that it also scares people into thinking negatively. I know you can say "He is so naïve..."  but I have to say it ...Barrie Ontario is NOT in a recession. I know... call me an idiot because all the headlines are saying it...I means it's everywhere right?  Journalist are not wrong....are they? I mean when we read that Canada may be heading into "rough waters" i.e. a recession ( Thanks Jim Flaherty), well I guess Barrie is in Canada so batten down the hatches right? But let's talk fundamentals for a moment.  For those that read my blog know that... 02/19/2008

Just Sold on Homes by Owner Barrie Ontario For many people who are considering selling on a for sale by owner site, take heart. You can do it! I did,so can you. In many ways that is the reason for this blog. I have entered into the world of fsbo and I like it. It was not that difficult at all to sell. The frustrating part was all the calls I kept getting from real estate agents who "assumed" that I did not know what I was doing. The odd part is that 7 out of 10 said the same thing to me in the same order. I can only assume they were trained by the same guy ( Mike Ferry??) and are reading from the same script. The problem I had with that script was the underlying assumption that; 1- I did NOT do a proper market evaluation to determine the my asking price; 2-I have not advertised properly... 02/19/2008

House for sale by owner, Charlbrook Ave in Barrie Ontario. This new real estate listing is an fsbo and it has it all, price, location, close to schools, shopping etc. The closests intersection is Cundles and Bayfield. Need we say more? Walk to all amenities. This is a semi-detach home being sold as a for sale by owner. It has 3 large bedrooms upstairs and a separate 2 bed apartment in the basement. Large deck in back is accessed by from the back bedroom walk-out.  There is a large storage shed to keep your lawnmower and keep your tools locked up. Long paved driveway can park up to 5 cars. As a buyer you can save thousands by dealing direct with the home owner. Homes by owner.com is Barrie and Georgian Bay areas real estate choice when it comes to saving money on buying or selling a home... 02/15/2008

Micro EconomicsThere is a great article in the Orillia Today Friday February 15 2008. On Page 15 there is a piece on Georgian College trying to raise funds to accommodate the growth in the region. The part that I found interesting for real estate investors is the statistic that states "Since 2004 Georgian has the second highest growth in college enrollment percentage wise among the 24 colleges in Ontario".  What does this tells us? Well the students have to be coming from somewhere. Although Georgian College does have a strong automotive education department which draws students from beyond the local region, it tells us that the region which includes Muskoka, Parry Sound, Midland and Collingwood areas has the young people already here. Which is a micro economic fundamental needed in rea... 02/15/2008