Les rénovations les plus payantes

Comme vous pouvez constater, il est possible d’accomplir beaucoup avec des petits moyens! Une professionnelle de home staging saura vous conseiller dans les priorités et les démarches à faire pour bien préparer votre maison à la vente. Cette étape est cruciale avant de compléter le tout avec un home staging pour un effet irrésistible!

Tout le monde souhaite maximiser la vente de sa maison mais est-ce que vous savez par où débuter?

On doit bien se préparer afin de réussir et cela prend un peu de temps, un peu d’argent et, surtout, de l’effort!
Dans cette partie de mon article, je vais discuter de la première étape – les travaux de rénovations qui augmenteront la valeur marchande de votre maison. La deuxième partie de l’article portera sur les astuces au niveau de home staging (ou la valorisation résidentielle) – à ne pas manquer!

Il faut distinguer, bien évidemment, les travaux majeurs des réparations et améliorations cosmétiques. Si vous avez l’intention d’habiter votre chez soi encore pendant quelque temps avant de procéder à la vente de votre maison, allez-y pour des rénovations majeurs mais surtout celles qui sont rentables.

Selon l’Institut canadien des évaluateurs les rénovations les plus payantes sont: [Read more...]

Interesting article: The Reality of Home Renovations

A few weeks ago I came across this interesting article about renovations and building permits. In Montreal we have Notaries instead of Real Estate Lawyers, and it is always useful to have this extra information when buying a property to renovate, or for home owners who want to do major repairs to their homes.

Will you need a building permit before starting renovations? For further information on this topic, contact your notary.

The importance of building permits to those renovating and to those buying renovated homes

Home renovations are taking place in Canadian homes on a daily basis and at a remarkable speed. Reality television may leave homeowners with the impression that a kitchen can be gutted between commercial breaks, a wall insulated in moments and an exterior addition completed within the hour. Adding value to the sale of your home or simply adding to the enjoyment of your own home is not a new phenomenon for Canadians. However, the lightning speed of these “reality” renovations can mislead the average homeowner in their own renovation plans and leave behind costs that exceed the home’s renovated value. [Read more...]

Renovations that generates the best return on investment

Everyone would like to maximize the sale of their house, but do you know where you should be starting?
It’s imperative to prepare well in order to succeed and that requires a bit of time, a bit of money and some effort.

In this article, I would like to cover the PRE home staging steps, namely the renovation work – which projects are more important, when and what will be your return on investment?

The first and foremost question is whether you are planning to live in your house for a while and enjoy the fruits of your labour or are you ready to move out.
If you will be living in the house for a few more years, go ahead and renovate, keeping in mind the projects which will increase the resale value of your home in the future. In 2008, all energy saving and GREEN home improvements were a big hit!

The Appraisal Institute of Canada released the following numbers:
Renovations which generate best return on investment

  • Bathroom renovation: 75 to 100%
  • Kitchen: 75 to 100%
  • Interior and exterior plastering and paint: 50 to 100%

Renovations which generate average return on investment

  • New roof: 50 to 80%
  • Replacing heating system : 50 to 80%
  • Finished basement: 50 to 75%
  • Adding of a family room: 50 to 75%
  • Adding fireplace: 50 to 75%
  • Installing hardwood flooring: 50 to 75%
  • Adding a garage: 50 to 75%
  • Replacing doors and windows (unless energy saving, then higher): 50 to 75%
  • Adding a deck: 50 to 75%
  • Central AC: 25 to 75%

But if you are ready to put your house on the market now, your strategy should be different: you should focus on some cosmetic improvements only which will increase the resale value of your property.

As per www.homegain.com survey of 2 000 real estate agents in the USA in 2009, here are some examples of recommended improvements as well as their return on investment:

  • Decluttering and a major clean up – 874%
  • Improving and updating lighting – 586%
  • Minor Landscaping – 473%
  • Electrical and plumbing repairs – over 300%
  • Interior paint – 250%

As you can tell, it’s possible to accomplish quite a bit on a reasonable budget. A home staging professional will help you decide on the priorities and the budget required to get your house sale ready. This is a crucial step before the home staging per say which is certain to give your house a WOW factor you are looking for!

Tax Credit and Home Renovation

If you are renovating your home this year, you will find this information quite useful. The Federal and Provincial government have recently implemented two Home Renovation Tax Credits.
I found out about it though CIGM TV,  where Pierre Langlois, Manager of Government Affairs at the Québec Federation of Real Estate Boards, explains the details of this new program in a video.

What I could gather from the video, here are the amounts covered by each government:

Federal: 15% of expenses from $1,000 to $10,000. Maximum deduction of $1350

Provincial: 20% of expenses from $7,500 to $20,000. Maximum deduction of $2500

Find out how much you can be entitled to, by using the online calculator at Finances Quebec website.

A New face for the Old Montreal Building: Now displaying

Remember the building in Old Montreal getting a new face lift? Just a few days after the original post, I caught the “aesthetics working crew” doing their update of the new-and improved false front of the run-down building.

Old Montreal building- New Face

A fantastic artwork was done to resemble (what we all imagine to be) the original building. Although here you can only see it half-way done, the final artwork is a well done rendering of the building. There are some very impressive details on the artwork: the reflection on the “lower windows” shows us the building across the street. Absolutely brilliant. You won’t be able to see it on this shot. But wait, there is more to come.

Old Montreal Building Getting a New Face


Photo: Deya Bautista

If you visit old Montreal often you’ve probably seen this building. Near the corner of Notre Dame and St. Laurent, right next to the Starbucks. The building is empty, and has been for well over a decade- according to local merchants. You can see the broken windows, patched with wooden planks and the interior structure deteriorating, it’s now the home of dozens of pigeons in the area.
Just a week ago, I happen to see a crew of workers attaching something on the front, they were not there to renovate the premises but to cover the entire exterior with a big sign.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me that moment, but I noticed the artwork was not an advertisement (like the one here), but simply an identical image of the real building – on it’s glory days, back when it was young and beautiful.

Apparently, they missed on some of their calculations; the sign was to small for the building and the crew had to go back to their workshops. We’ll be seeing them later, with the new and improved face for this structure.

From hotel to apartment building to…condos?

Crescent-1420First it was the Château Royal Hotel, then became (after a much needed renovation) the Château Crescent Apartments, located at 1420 Crescent, right in front of Winston Churchill’s . The word out (via tipster) is that they are planning to do a condo conversion. We haven’t yet checked if the rumors are actually true, since no tenants seem to have a clue about it.

Right now the building is advertised for rent and according to the Montreal Gazette ad, the rental prices are between $785 to $1245/month- we’re not sure what’s included.

They have also a few rental ads on CraigsList:

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