One of the biggest advantages I offer my clients is something most real estate agents simply can’t: I don’t just help you buy the house; I can help transform it before you even move in.

Because I’m both a licensed real estate agent and a contractor with over a decade of renovation experience, my clients are often able to buy homes others overlook, then turn them into exactly what they want.

Recently, I finished a project that perfectly shows how this process works.

Step 1: Selling the Existing Home

My clients were ready for a change but, like many homeowners in today’s market, they were nervous about timing and expectations.

We prepared their home for sale, marketed it properly, and listed it.

The result:

• Sold in under a week

• $30,000 over their expectations

Getting strong results on the sale gave us the flexibility and confidence to move forward with the next step.

Step 2: Finding Opportunity Others Miss

Instead of competing for a fully updated home where buyers often overpay, we targeted something different: a dated property with good fundamentals.

These are the homes that scare away most buyers but represent the best opportunity.

We ended up purchasing a house that had been sitting on the market and needed a full cosmetic update.

Because of the condition and negotiation strategy, we secured the property for $135,000 under the asking price.

That kind of discount creates instant equity — but only if you have a plan to unlock the potential.

Step 3: Renovating Before Move-In

This is where my dual background becomes a major advantage.

Instead of my clients moving into an outdated house and living through months of construction, we renovated the property before they moved in.

During the renovation we completed:

• A full interior refresh

• Updated finishes throughout the home

• Modernized spaces to fit the family’s lifestyle

• And even built a cigar smoking shed out back

By the time my clients received the keys, they weren’t moving into a renovation project — they were moving into their finished home.

Why This Approach Works

Many buyers focus only on turnkey homes, but that’s where competition, and prices, are highest.

When you combine smart buying with strategic renovations, you can often:

• Buy for less

• Customize the home to your taste

• Increase the property’s value immediately

• Avoid paying retail for someone else’s renovations

It’s a strategy that requires experience in both real estate and construction, which is why I’ve built my business around offering both.

Thinking About Buying?

If you’re planning to move, there may be opportunities others are overlooking.

Sometimes the best house isn’t the perfect one on day one, it’s the one with the right bones and the right plan.

If you’re curious about how this process works, feel free to reach out. I’m always happy to walk through what’s possible.

In a sellers market, it's pretty easy to sell your house, the real question is how much you can get for it!

What you want is for all of the potential buyers viewing your house to be walking in and saying "WOW! I have to have this place". When a buyer walks through your house and they see a bunch of items that need to be updated or repaired, you can bet they're going to allocate some of their total house budget towards fixing those issues.

Here's my process:

First off, every situation is different, which is why you want to start with an analysis. You'll want to do a comparative market analysis of the houses that recently sold in your area and prepare a report of your own home.  Put together a gam plan of what should be done along with ideas that could be done. Compare those changes with your market analysis to see if the costs in those improvements would be worth it..

Your home report should also include a list of everything that could disappear for the next month. Stagers can help immensely with this portion. They can go through the house to give suggestions on what should go, stay, or be replaced. Don't think it's worth it hiring a stager? A detailed analysis will probably show you otherwise.

So what type of updates are best. In most cases, decluttering, a fresh coat of paint, cleaning, and staging is the quickest way to increase your potential selling price.

It's more than likely not worth it to do a full scale kitchen reno, but every situation is different. If a kitchen or washroom is really beat up, how much would it cost to redecorate and how much more might you get based on you market analysis. What about if it's just a little dated? Could you do a small "lipstick" reno?  It's possible to take a week, put in $5,000 in ready and increase your potential market price by $50,000 or more. Especially in a sellers market, but this can hold true in a buyers market by making your house look the best in the area.

There's many different things you can do to increase your value and sell quickly. If you'd like a free consultation, I'd be happy to talk! 

Brian Guy

REALTOR®

Right at Home Realty Inc., Brokerage 

242 King St E, Ste 1 

Oshawa, Ont. 

L1H 1C7

Are you a fan of the blind bidding in Ontario? The feelings are mixed across the industry, but I will tell you that I am not. 

Whether your buying or selling, I believe having an open bidding system would help protect everyone. 

The main argument for blind bidding is that it would infringe on sellers rights. And let me just say, I bet a few those are the shady agents that lie about offers they have to get more money. Here's the thing, as long as they have an offer, they can say what they want. If a complaint is lodged against them to RECO, RECO can't even verify what the offer was, just of the existence of the offer. I'm not saying all the agent's for blind bidding are shady, but there's an issue in the industry which I will get to in my next post. 

I believe that open bidding would actually help protect sellers too. I spoke with countless lawyers and many are telling me more and more buyers aren't able to close because of financing. People are over extending their budgets. Now say for example you're trying to buy a house and get caught up in a bidding war, are you ok with spending $50,000 more that the next offer. How about $100,000 more than the next highest offer? It happens and one of the worst situations to be in as a seller is the buyer over extending themselves and not being able to close; most of these sellers are in the process of buying their new house which then effects their financing.

I don't think open bidding would slow down the soaring house prices that much. It's all on supply and demand. Most people in the GTA are completely fine offering $20,000 over similar house that just sold just to start and in many cases if there's multiple bids, they're still fine going way over the next closest comp. I believe open bidding would just be an extra layer of protect, and piece of mind, for both buyers and sellers. 

Brian Guy

REALTOR®

Right at Home Realty Inc., Brokerage 

242 King St E, Ste 1 

Oshawa, Ont. 

L1H 1C7