Home Staging Tips

Home Staging

 

home staging

Pack Away Collectibles

If you’re selling your home, home staging is a great way to supplement your realtor’s efforts and speed up the process of securing an offer. Ultimately helping to find a buyer. Home staging involves making your home look as attractive as possible to as many buyers as possible. In many ways, successful home staging is about making it as easiest for people to envision themselves in your home, with little work on their part. Some buyers are simply not interested in painting, or they can’t see past your treasured collectibles. That’s why it’s so important to take the guesswork out of the buying process.

 

 

Make Sure Your Home Is Spotless

home staging

Make It Sparkle!

This goes without saying, and your home is probably already very clean, but make sure every nook and cranny is spic & span. This is particularly important for high-traffic areas such as the kitchen and bathrooms. Home staging means you would put fresh, clean linens out: bath towels, tea towels, bedding. This creates a favorable impression, and give a room (perhaps a teenager’s bedroom?) a hint of fresh-laundry smell. Make sure your garden and the land surrounding your property is well-tended and orderly. This has two benefits, as it will help create a good first impression, and will also give the idea that the garden is easy to look after.

 

Leave a Great Impression Through Smell

Setting the stage by baking bread or cookies is a little extreme, you don’t need to go to any great lengths for this. Just give your home a friendly pleasant smell that most people tend to enjoy. Perhaps a nice room fragrance (don’t go overboard!) or even just the smell of fresh laundry.

 

Make it All About Them (The Buyer)

home staging

Welcome Potential Buyers!

One of the main reasons for home staging is the power to make someone visualize living in your home before they have even made an offer. This can be achieved by removing personal, individual touches from your home and giving potential buyers the freedom to imagine their own belongings in your space. Think of high-end hotels or showhomes, try to give your home that same sort of feel!

 

If you have questions about home staging or selling your home, or need advice, please contact us; we’re happy to help!

Nest Thermostats, Home Automation & Energy Efficiency

The latest sensation in real estate is home automation, and that doesn’t surprise us. What with the soaring popularity of productivity apps, it makes plenty of sense that these are steadily becoming integrated into our houses.

energy efficiencyOne of the most exciting new technologies in home automation is actually a thermostat called “Nest.” Nest is a smart device that continually learns from the ways in which your family controls your home’s temperature. Each time you adjust it, it remembers, and within a couple of days of use it begins to calculate what is termed your “home occupancy” pattern, so that it can ensure your family is focused on energy efficiency. With 50% of energy costs fully reliant on a house’s thermostat, this means those costs can be cut down for you by as much as 20% simply by making use of the Nest thermostat.

Let me be clear about what “making use” truly means for this device; we are talking about home automation after all. Nest requires minimal work on your part for energy efficiency. Its Auto-Away feature detects when your house is empty and adjusts the heating or cooling to your pre-set choices of minimum and maximum temperature. This means that during the winter, Auto-Away might sense that you’ve gone out for the evening and allow the temperature to fall down to 15 degrees Celsius, but no lower; or that during the summer it might allow conditions to reach 30 degrees Celsius, but not to rise any higher. Also, if your home is always empty during certain hours – say, when you and your spouse are at work and the kids are at school – Nest will learn this, and during those hours you can be certain it will be set for energy efficiency.

So what if you’ve gone out, but your plans have changed and you’re suddenly coming home early? Will Auto-Away mean that you’ll return to an uncomfortable home? By no means. Nest includes an app that you can use from any device, including your phone, to adjust the temperature of your home remotely. If you’re hopping into your car after work at 12 noon, because it’s unexpectedly been just a half day, and you know you’re feeling like a breezy 20 degrees to go with an iced tea and an episode of your favourite TV show on Netflix – no problem. Your house will be ready by the time you arrive.

These are just a few of the many perks that come with the Nest home thermostat system. Others, like the leaf symbol that shows up when you’re on track for reducing consumption and improving energy efficiency, or the program that offers a breakdown of the way your home runs, make a sweet development in home automation even sweeter. You can learn more on the Nest website, or stop in at Kelowna’s Home Depot to pick up your system today!

If you have any questions about other trends in the Kelowna real estate market, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Waterfront Developments in Kelowna

Now is a fantastic time to buy waterfront property in the Okanagan Valley. Recent developments in Kelowna’s downtown, including the Bernard Avenue Revitalization, Downtown Marina and public pier, and a new yacht club are making Kelowna a more desirable place to live and work. Waterfront property in Kelowna will never be as inexpensive as it is right now, and there are several prime waterfront communities in development right now, in addition to many individual lakefront properties.

First, there’s the West Harbour Lakeside Waterfront Community just off of Westside Road. Each home in this spectacular new neighborhood comes complete with a remarkable view of downtown Kelowna, as well as a private boat slip. The houses are Mediterranean-inspired for a “little Italy” feel that is unique within Canada to the Okanagan Waterfront. These affordably-priced prime opportunities are selling now, with the show homes just waiting for you to take a look.

waterfront

Kelowna Sails ~ Kerry Park

Next, there’s the 18-acre site across from the popular Rotary Beach just down Lakeshore in Kelowna’s South Pandosy area. South Pandosy is a sought-after waterfront location, with unique boutiques and opportunities for wining and dining at nearly every corner. Westcorp just recently received approval of its development proposal for what was the Hiawatha Mobile Home Park, and its plan includes 19 buildings, expansive areas of designated green space, and a hotel.

Finally, The Water’s Edge is a 64-unit townhouse project situated for access to both the peaceful Mission Creek Greenway trail and the exciting shores of Okanagan Lake. MKS Design will be endowing each home with luxurious features fit for exclusive tastes, and the open-concept floor plans will range from 1,072 square-foot one-bedroom designs to 3000+ square-feet penthouses

With all of these waterfront properties just waiting to be completed to your specifications here in the stunning Okanagan Valley, there never was a better time to place yourself right on the waterfront – just where you’ve always wanted to be!

For more luxury waterfront property listings, you can view Quincy Vrecko’s portfolio. If you are looking to buy a luxury home and have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Quincy Vrecko Named Top Sales Agent

Press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kelowna’s Quincy Vrecko Named Top Sales Agent for October by RE/MAX Kelowna

Top Sales Agent

Quincy Vrecko ~ Kelowna Luxury Real Estate

Kelowna’s Quincy Vrecko has been named the top sales agent for the month of October by RE/MAX Kelowna. He is also in the RE/MAX top 100 for Western Canada for September. Quincy specializes in luxury waterfront homes for Kelowna. He sold 20% of the entire single family residential waterfront market for the period Jan 1, 2012 to Oct 31, 2012. Within that number 37.5% of the Mission area waterfront homes were sold by Quincy Vrecko.
305 Sales for the month of October for the Central Okanagan are softer than last year’s 392, but year to date totals are higher with 3,447 sales vs. last year’s 3,164 sales. New listings for the month of October are down to 734 vs. last October’s 835 listings.

Of particular interest for Quincy, are the home sales over $1 Million. The luxury properties are down from 40 sales year-to-date to only 30 for this year-to-date. His focus will be moving those numbers up to lasts year’s target.
About Quincy Vrecko BC born and raised, Quincy got his drive from competing as a national level gymnast for 12 years, winning awards for the province. After retiring from gymnastics, his passion to succeed continued on in his sales career. Quincy spent some time in Calgary where he met his wife, and had 2 children before returning to BC. Now back home, he is focused on establishing a reliable business focused on customer satisfaction and honest hard work.

Quincy Vrecko is available for comment by contacting him at 250 863 8810 or by emailing quincy@quincyvrecko.com. The website is located at QuincyVrecko.com.

 

The Vrecko Family SHARE’s Christmas

Press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Vrecko Family SHARE’s Christmas

The holidays are a time for reflection and giving, and Quincy and Tracey Vrecko are making sure to do both this Christmas season. They have decided to share their success from this past year with those who have not seen as much good fortune by donating $4,000 worth of food and gifts to a dozen local families through the Kelowna and District S.H.A.R.E Society’s “Adopt A Family” Program.

Speaking of their decision, Tracey Vrecko said, “With the success of our year we are so very fortunate to be able to give back. We chose to support the SHARE society and the “Adopt a Family” program with a donation that will give 12 families a Christmas.”

“With all of the incredible charities it was difficult to decide where the donation should go. Our eldest son is now 5, and we want him to learn the importance of giving back. On the 19th of December, our family will be delivering food and gifts to these families who otherwise would not have a Christmas,” said Tracey.

The Adopt A Family program helps match families in need with those looking to sponsor during the holidays. Sponsors can choose families and select a family dynamic that mirrors their own if they wish. The program sees sponsors provide all of the ingredients required for a complete Christmas dinner, as well as one gift per member of the family. Thanks in large part to Quincy and Tracey Vrecko, the Kelowna and District S.H.A.R.E Society has been successful in matching all registered families with sponsors this year.

Tracey Vrecko commented, “We are truly blessed and look forward to doing it again next year.”

Vrecko Family

Quincy & Tracey Vrecko