Today, mice cause millions of dollars in damage to farmers’ harvests and food in restaurants, stores and personal residences. These creatures contaminate much more food than they actually consume. Part of this contamination is the spread of serious diseases. When people walk on floors that are contaminated with rodent urine, they can contract leptospirosis, an infectious bacteria that imbeds itself in vital organs. Mice can also carry the hantavirus, which is spread through contact with rodents or their droppings. The hantavirus can lead to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, an often-fatal lung infection in humans.

All year round, your home is a comfortable haven for mice where they are safe from birds, and racoons and other predators. Your home is even more attractive during the colder months when mice seek shelter from the elements. Chilly nights are often the time that homeowners hear mice scurrying within the walls or across the attic floor.

If you see the signs of an infestation in your home, take these precautions when cleaning:
Since hantavirus can become airborne, wear a dust mask when cleaning up mouse droppings.
In high-risk areas such as a mouse nest, wear a particulate respirator available at most hardware stores or hire a pest control company.
Ideally, clean up contaminated areas using a wet method (to avoid airborne dust) and add bleach or other strong disinfectants to the water.
Wear latex gloves when disposing of dead mice.
Preventing an infestation requires a dual approach. Begin by removing easy food sources. Although grain and seeds are staple foods for mice, they are adventurous eaters who will devour almost anything. They especially enjoy foods that are high in fat and/or sugar such as cookies, nuts, chocolate and, of course, cheese! While cheese and other refrigerated food will be fine, items in cupboards and on shelves and countertops should be in sealed containers. Metal, glass and even hard plastic containers with tight-fitting lids are the best ways to store food since mice cannot gnaw through them.

If you and your family make bulk purchases then store them in the basement or garage, be especially careful. During the weeks in storage, mice can leisurely nibble their way through the packages to enjoy a bulk-sized meal! A large box of cereal can feed an entire mouse family for the winter, ensuring that they all survive to breed. With this in mind, it is wise to store anything edible in durable containers.

Did I mention mice also have a good sense of smell? Mice can smell crumbs on the floor and dirty dishes in the sink so reduce the temptation by cleaning up quickly after meals. Pet food also makes a tasty meal so, when possible, remove leftover food once your pet has finished eating. Also, be sure to keep garbage, recyclables and compost items in containers with tight-fitting lids.

The second step in preventing an infestation is to seal up any potential entrance to your home. Mice can squeeze through an opening as small in diameter as a quarter. Make a careful inspection of your home then use chalking to seal up any crevices and cracks that mice may use as entry points. Steel wool is useful for sealing larger gaps.

Outdoors, mice will create natural nesting sites in almost any dry crevice such as the hollows of trees and under large stones. They will also take advantage of any human-made shelters including piles of newspaper, dense landscaping and stacks of firewood next to the home, especially if the areas are protected by your roof’s overhang. Trim bushes and keep your yard free of clutter and piles of leaves. Ideally, keep your firewood off the ground by using an elevated frame and leave a gap of several centimetres between the wood and your home. This will make the log home less welcoming for mice and other pests such as termites and carpenter ants.

Mice are cute characters in cartoons but are less so in real life! These steps can help to protect your home and your family from the nuisance and danger of rodents. If all else fails, try adopting a cat from the SPCA to help to keep your home mouse-free.

Even though your taste may be impeccable, a home can be too full of ‘stuff’, even too well decorated. It is difficult for people to mentally imagine placing their own furniture into a home when it is cluttered, or filled with lots of fine collectibles.

So what can you do as a seller? Remove things. Pack some things up and put them in the attic, basement or into storage – make the house look more spacious. Every area in your home will look better half-full – even your closets. Take out half the clothes in your closet and remove half the small appliances littering your kitchen counters, you’ll be surprised how much better your house will look. Even a fridge full of magnets can be distracting. Granted many people can see beyond your treasures, but some can not. Another good reason to ‘de-clutter’ is for the realtors. Real estate agents really enjoy ‘showing’ homes that are bright and spacious – the more showings you have, the more likely you’ll sell your home. Remember, what you want to show is your home, not your family’s treasures!

Thanks to Shaun Brown, RBC Mortgage Specialist for sharing this 2011 Market Update. Lots of details to digest.

We expect that widespread moderation will be sustained in 2012. Our latest projections published in November call for minimal growth in both home resales (0.4%) and prices (0.5%) overall in Canada, with strength in markets such as Alberta and Saskatchewan more than offsetting some softening in British Columbia.

Posted by OREA President, Barb Sukkau here.

Keep in mind that your garage should reflect the style and quality of your home.  Start by considering your home’s curb appeal, specifically the garage door.  Is the style complementary to your home?  If your home falls into the high-end to luxury range, consider a new custom-designed wooden door made from durable mahogany, red wood, cedar or teak.  These can be designed to look like an old-fashioned carriage house door but they operate the same way as a standard sectional door that slides up and down on a track.  For moderately-priced homes, spending thousands on a new garage door may not be the best investment.  Check for peeling paint, cracks or dents and repaint, repair or replace as needed.  Clean the track and ensure that the motor is tuned and oiled, if required.

Imagine you are a buyer who has just stepped into your garage.  What will they see?  If your garage is typical, it is probably rather dark and cluttered.  Consider upgrading the lighting with brighter bulbs or additional fixtures.  Many types of incandescent bulbs can be replaced with energy-efficient florescent bulbs that are now available in a variety of shapes and equivalent wattages.  Task lighting will be appealing to anyone who likes to tinker in the garage.  Be sure to maximize natural illumination by cleaning the windows and clearing away any objects that are blocking the light.

Clutter seems to gravitate to garages.  When we don’t know where to store something, it gets tossed into the garage ‘just in case’.  A garage sale or donations to a local charity are a good start.  For all the items you wish to keep, ensure they are neatly stored in cabinets and on shelves.  Depending on the price of your home, people may be expecting something that looks like a car show room rather than a grease-stained place to store and fix bicycles, lawnmowers and vehicles.  A luxury garage boasts a spotless, gleaming floor and storage solutions that conceal tools and equipment behind custom cabinets attractive enough to grace a living room.  For most sellers, their garage falls somewhere between the two extremes.  In all cases, the garage should free of clutter with belongings neatly arranged in the storage system you choose.

Every garage floor can benefit from maintenance and repairs.  Begin by cleaning out the garage to access the floor or work in sections.  Sweep or vacuum up dust and dirt before washing.  Use a grease-cutting soap solution such as dish soap and a cup of vinegar in each bucketful.  You may need to repeat with fresh solution a few times.  Rinse well, especially if you plan to paint or seal the floor.  If there are cracks, now is an ideal time to fill them.

One method of filling cracks involves a combination of ‘crack weld resin’ and sand.  After cleaning the floor, add a thin layer of resin to the crack.  Push in silica sand then saturate it with more resin.  The resin and sand mixture should slightly overflow the surface.  Let it set for 10 minutes, then using a putty knife, press on the surface to compact and smooth out the mixture.  At this point it should be flush with the surface of the floor; if necessary, scrape off any excess and smooth it out again.  Once it has completely dried, you can use sand paper to create a perfectly seamless surface.  Use a concrete sealer or concrete paint over your entire floor to refresh its appearance while hiding stains.

Although the main function of a garage is to protect vehicles from the elements, it can have many other uses. You may use your garage for hobbies that are too messy or loud to do in the house or you may want a personal oasis where you can kick back and watch a hockey game.  Buyers will generally appreciate the multiple functions of the space as long as it looks tidy.

In some cities, homeowners are allowed to convert their garages to self-contained living spaces.  Check with your municipal government to see if they allow ‘carriage houses’.  Their building codes can help you to determine if the cost is feasible in your circumstance.  Although the small square footage requires some interior design expertise, this type of renovation can be a relatively affordable way to add additional room for family, guests or renters.  Major costs will be plumbing, electrical, insulation and flooring upgrades.

Whether your garage is showroom quality, a basic one-car garage, a yoga studio, or a source of rental income, a little TLC can ensure you maximize its value for buyers.

It’s hard to believe that in this day and age anyone who is in business for themselves, as REALTORs are, wouldn’t have an online profile with the major social media sites.  Believe it or not, there are still a LOT of people not taking advantage of these mostly free tools.

I’m surprised by the number of successful REALTORs I speak with that don’t use these systems.  Notice I said ‘successful’ – these are people who already enjoy a high level of success in their businesses using tried and true methods of prospecting, marketing and follow up and get great results for their clients.  But if you could add another team member to your team without adding any real cost beyond some set up time, why wouldn’t you?

There are some great online tools that will now allow you to cross post to various sites at once so you aren’t duplicating efforts…but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Where to set up profiles and why.

Where: Even if you’re not using them, you have surely heard the names: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Profiles, Posterous, etc.  Set up with these sites takes a few minutes each and once done, you shouldn’t have to duplicate your efforts.

Why: NAR says, and the Canadian statistic is likely similar, that upward of 90% of real estate buyers look online for property before they ever speak to a REALTOR.  So let’s say you meet a prospect at a hockey game and have a great conversation about the market. You discover that the prospect would like some additional information so you give them your card and suggest they call you to set up an appointment. And then they lose your card. This has happened to me – but there’s a solution: take 20 seconds and look it up on Google. But if you don’t have an online presence, how will they ever find you?

I know that this example is extreme as most people carry smartphones now and an appointment is just a click away while speaking with the prospect in the moment. But the application of the idea goes so much further.  What if a buyer or seller has never met you or another REALTOR and still goes online to find someone.  If you’re not online, they won’t find you.  Simple as that.

Creating and cultivating a professional online presence is one of the easiest ways to extend your reach. And it doesn’t cost a penny!

Once you’ve created your online profiles, start creating content and generating conversations with your target market – you’ll be amazed at the conversations you’ll start online.

In a later article, I’ll talk about what you should be writing about and the logistics of making time for this new vehicle – including some tools for painless cross-posting. Until then, any online presence is better than none! Get online now and start reaping the rewards.

Was it something you said? Probably not.  More likely, it was something you didn’t say.

In order for customers to become clients, and clients to buy or sell through you, they need to know they can trust you.  By the same token, people hate (me included) being ‘sold’.  So how can you start to build trust with your would-be clients? One of the best and easiest ways I know of is to become a trusted resource by providing timely and valuable information that will help them make informed and wise decisions.

See a great article on housing in your target market – post a link and a little note on why you believe it’s valuable to your target audience.  Notice a new case in the RECO reports or the Edge Newsletter – post a review of the case (being careful to delete ANY identifying information!) and why you think your target audience should be paying attention.  The secret here is to post information, but also add your input – be a resource but also a source of opinion.

Become the resource that your clients go to first and you’ll have won their trust.  Win their trust, show how you provide value for your services and you’ll be on your way to the next sale!

Here’s a hint: it’s none of these.

Your would-be clients don’t really care if you have the newest whiz-bang website, nor do they care how many #1 Sales Awards you have.  They’re willing to pay you for results.  Do you really care how your car gets fixed (I do, but I think I’m in the minority)?  Not usually – you just want it fixed.  Do you want to know about fixing electrical problems? No, you just want an electrician to fix them.

It’s the results that count.

Find out what your customers expect and are willing to pay for and, drum roll please, give them what they want!  Don’t know what it is they expect from you? Ask them.  You’d be surprised at the honest and forthright answers you get when you ask with sincerity.

Focus your marketing efforts on the specific problems your service solves and the benefits you can uniquely provide and you’ll be head and shoulders above most of your competition.

What’s your unique benefit? How do you provide a unique solution to your clients’ problems? Love to hear some great examples!

Choose a Target Market

compare traditional advertising to using a shotgun to hunt ducks on the wing.  You fire the shotgun and the ‘shot’ propels out of the gun in a spray and hopefully some of it hits the mark.  If you’re lucky, enough of it hits the ducks in question and you get to eat tonight.  If you’re not so lucky, you’re off to your favourite ammunition supplier to resupply your shooting habit. Or, in the case of advertising, you get to spend yet more money advertising to an unqualified and unmotivated (generally) crowd.

What to do about this ineffective method of prospecting? Indeed – there is one very simple option – Target Marketing.

Identify your target market and spend more time and money prospecting within that group.  This does a couple of things:

1. It forces you to really focus on the kind of business you want to work on which will in turn make the business more enjoyable.  If you get a charge out of working with first time buyers, why in the world are you trying to lease commercial space in an office tower downtown or driving an hour out into the countryside trying to sell working farms?
2. Identifying your target market will tell you where to spend your time and money most effectively.  If, as mentioned before, you like working with first time buyers, is it really a good use of your efforts to attend yet another uneventful cottage show? Really?

Be specific in identifying your target market:

• What age group do they belong to?
• What income bracket are they in?
• What area do they like to live in?
• What kind of property do they buy?
• How do users of your service generally find their agents?
• Would they find you by referral, and if so, who would they ask?
• Etc.

Once you’ve clearly identified your target market, ask yourself, “How do I go about making connections with this group of people? Where can I go to involve myself in conversations with this target market? How can I create a sense of community within this target market?”

Answer these questions, then – most importantly – act on your answers.

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