Off The Market with Team Somerville
Break down the week with Tim and Michael, as they talk about the market, tell stories, or just banter about anything and everything
Hosted by : Michael Dempsey & Tim Somerville
Produced by : Hayden McNamee
Music by : Anthony Trim
Off The Market with Team Somerville
#18 - Light Bulbs & Education
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What even is a lumen, and how much do people pay for schooling today?
Hosted by: Michael Dempsey & Tim Somerville
Produced by: Hayden McNamee
Music by: Anthony Trim
This is gonna sound a little geeky, but we were growing up we used to have land parties. More affordable ones are Quebec and Newfoundland. And and the problem is they last forever, so I I think I have 300. Hi, I'm Tim Somerville.
SPEAKER_02And I'm Michael Dempsey, thanking you for joining us again for another episode of Off the Market with Team Somerville.
SPEAKER_00You know, I always think that while we're doing these, you know, we're gonna run out of topics. You just can't. I mean, there's so many things that we can talk about, you know, needlepoint.
SPEAKER_02Okay, maybe not needlepoint. Okay. To be honest, I'm always worried about uh trying to keep it within a uh time frame. Sure. You know, we don't want to ramble on and okay, you know, because we could talk forever.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for joining us on Team Summer. Well, uh yeah, you're welcome. Okay, so let's get right into it. Uh you want to start?
SPEAKER_02Sure. Okay. So I I'd like to start with uh a great topic uh that uh I think people would uh enjoy is I want to challenge you. It's called the death of the Sunday drive. Okay, and what I mean by that is in some areas we're seeing, again, not in some areas we're seeing Sunday drives are less and less. So it gets us thinking, you know, what are some of those characteristics or aspects that are causing people to not go out for that nice Sunday drive? So when you were growing up, oh, would you ever hop in the car? And Saturdays, yeah.
SPEAKER_00We Saturdays we usually did it on Saturdays.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00One of the reasons is where I was in Ontario, we had Minnonites in an area called St. Jacob's. Okay, and again, so we would go out on Saturday and do the stockade, and then actually, if we did go out on Sunday, we'd watch them horse and buggy go to the church. So Saturday was always good because it just seemed like there was more going on. Sunday, of course, yes, again, don't get me wrong, yeah, we still had those as well. How about you?
SPEAKER_02Yes, well, I remember, you know, if we had a good week, and what I mean by good week is we uh we did our chores, we behaved, all that good stuff. We'd go for nice Sunday drives, and a lot of times we would end up at your typical soft serve, ice cream, dear place. Yeah, we'd go for Jerry Queen and Grand Bay. That was kind of the the oh bob the most uh yeah uh visited place for us. Uh but yeah, I remember that all the time, you know, we're all over Sunday drives. Now, I we joke, we jest, we get stuck behind a lot of the slower drivers, and it just happens to be on a Sunday. So of course we throw it out there, you know, silly Sunday drivers, you know. But again, some of the things people are faced with every day is, you know, gas prices. And I know that recently there's been a little bit of uh, you know, they're trying to uh the government's stepping in, cutting some some excise tanks, things like that. But our gas prices are still higher than let's say the 80s. Yeah. When we were growing, you know, we were growing up in the 80s, right? A little bit of 70s for you. All in the 70s. But anyway, you know, vehicle maintenance. Okay. You know, back in the day we'd uh we we put the hot rod up, you know what I mean? We changed stone oil, all that good stuff. Um we still do that, but a lot of people who have transitioned to, you know, uh a nicer or newer vehicle, some vehicles have to be dealer maintained, um, or you know, you need scrutinized paperwork of every oil change and lubrication that you've done. So I say maintenance is another issue that you know uh in our line of work. We're we're always trying to schedule an oil change once a month.
SPEAKER_00Sure, but but one of the other reasons we may not see the Sunday drive as often is because while I was growing up, nothing was open on Sundays, right? It was church and restaurants, yeah, right? So now that everything is more or less open, right, it it changes the dynamic on okay, I guess we're going to Costco today. Well, you couldn't do that while I was growing up. Uh the other thing I would say about a Sunday drive as well is again, when we look at our weather, a lot of times we're playing into the weather. So when I mention Saturday or Sunday, a lot of times it's like, oh my goodness, Sunday, Saturday, another weekend of rain. So, you know, if we have the right weather, yes, I I I I do understand.
SPEAKER_02Sharing good point. When I was getting prepped to talk, I didn't even take in consideration uh I've been alive long enough for things to start to be open on Sundays. That's right. So that is a thank you. I appreciate that. Listen, you know, we all we all know who the brains are. So anyway. So with the death of the Sunday drive, we used to get a lot of foot traffic at open houses. And what uh I'd like to say is we would leave out our our our breadcrumbs. Yes, our our size is our breadcrumbs. We would say, you know, follow the breadcrumbs, come right to the open house. People would pop in, they would say, Look, we own a house and we're not looking to buy whatever, but this looks like a lovely home. We thought we'd pay you a visit. Oh, yeah. It's definitely plants the seed. Oh, good. You know, gets that conversation started. Maybe they're not happy with their current home. Okay, maybe they love this neighborhood, that's why they're taking a drop in minutes. So I challenge everyone out there. I know that open houses are working for our team. We are still seeing foot traffic. I would say we're seeing a lot of traffic that come in that I've already represented by another professional, which again is fantastic. We're glad that to hear that you've got a professional on your side. Um, if we have a larger home, we tend to double up, have two agents there, just so that we're giving you the attention and detail that you need. Um, it can be tricky if it's just one sole person and it's a busy house.
SPEAKER_00So especially if you have multi multiple levels. You have your basement, main floor, upper floor. Maybe it's a larger home. It's sometimes difficult when you have a handful of people coming in, like you said, to give the proper service. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I was very interested in reading a an article that came out, you know, nationally, and we're starting, you know, in a lot of provinces, they're starting to dial it back quite a bit. Wow. And it was kind of shocking to someone like us because we're, you know, every Sunday or every even Saturday, you know, I remember the days we would hold four on a weekend. Just me, I would do four. Yes. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, and it was just boom, boom, boom. It was Saturday, Sunday, one to two thirty, three to four thirty on each day. Absolutely. You know, yeah, we had caravans that we would do 45 minute to an hour open houses, and it would be just bang, bang, bang, bang. And so, yeah, things have changed.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So to the sellers out there, or even anyone who's thinking about selling, yes, I still firmly believe that an open house is a great tool in the realtor's uh arsenal to utilize. And if if it's not being suggested, I I think it's a missed opportunity. I agree 100%.
SPEAKER_00So, yeah, so the the lost drive on Sundays.
SPEAKER_02Sundays, yeah. So yeah, okay. And I throw it out there. What is your professional and professional uh you know, personal opinion as well, on if a client shows up and they bring their realtor? So Albow I I don't mind it so much. Um, we run into issues where sometimes a house is so popular that maybe the realtor schedule and the client schedule doesn't mash up and they're not able to get in fast enough.
SPEAKER_00The schedule of the home itself could be fully booked. And so having the open house allows anybody, including licensed realtors with their clients, to have an opportunity. Yeah. Just before we started this, uh, we talk about professionalism. So as long as the realtor is professional, I don't mind them coming through the open house. We received an offer today on a property from a realtor and they hadn't even seen the property. So again, when we talk about professionalism, Michael and I and the team, when there are other realtors and we know that that realtor is holding themselves at a high level of professionalism, we love it. We love it. Those are the realtors that again that understand the importance of making sure that not only the consumer, the buyer, the seller, but of course the realtors that they work with understand that hey, guess what? This is the type of business that we're proud to be in. And guess what? We'd love to work with an offer with that realtor. So absolutely I'm all for it.
SPEAKER_02And when they come in, I say, hey, look, I've got some some paperwork here, some sheets to go through. Here you go. Let your realtor take you around. Any questions, just come on back.
SPEAKER_00So well, let me take that and go into a segue. So more or less, that whole liability is very important. So, so you and I actually, every year, realtors have to do mandatory education. Uh, this year it's coming up, and again, it'll be two days of Michael and I listening to, of course, uh professionals and instructors discuss with us different items that are, of course, uh integral to to being good realtors and providing the right service ethically and professionally to our clients. So, saying that, I'll go off topic first and I'll say education. My daughter's graduating, well, graduating, sorry, finishing up her first year in university. So I thought it'd be kind of cool with us having to do our education and everything, just to try to take a look at the costs, the annual cost for tuition in Canada. And there were a couple things that I thought was quite unique. So the average cost per year is just over seven thousand dollars. So like a typical job tuition, yes. Wow. Now an international student is over forty thousand. So major difference there. Quite the job. Yes, quite the job. And we can understand that there are different reasons why you know there would be a variation. Now, here's the funny thing. So that's the average. When I look per province, the most expensive provinces per year for a domestic student, so somebody from Canada was New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Okay, they were hovering right over $9,000. Yeah, I know, I know. So the the more affordable ones are Quebec and Newfoundland. And I was a little surprised with Newfoundland, and even more surprised with Quebec because Quebec over the last couple years, they've changed the dynamics on how they charge you know students. And they no longer consider a Canadian student a domestic student at this rate. If you are from the province of Quebec, yes. But if you're outside of the province and you come in, you're actually charged more now. So they're looking at ways, of course, on increasing the tuition. And again, so one of those things to keep in mind, if your son or daughter is looking at Quebec, it could be more expensive than you think, especially if you're from you know somewhere other than Quebec. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah. So now what what I thought was really neat though was when I looked at the average on the international, yes, that's that 40,000 isn't including everything else. When you include everything else, even for you know, just a domestic student, so somebody from Canada, you're probably looking 25 to 35,000, and that's food and lodging, right? Residence and everything else, and books, you've got it, everything. So so you're probably looking 25,000 to 30,000. International would be the 40 plus, right? So I wanted to see what the averages were on just international students. The provinces, the majority of them are about half of that. So almost every province is approximately $20,000 for international, other than one province. Only one province in what I was looking at, where where I was obtaining my information was above the average, and that was Ontario at approximately $48,000. So you imagine how many international students must be going to school, you know, a higher post-secondary in Ontario to make it so that the even you know the average is even higher. So yeah, all of the provinces I saw were less than the average, other than Ontario.
SPEAKER_02So it's a deploy supply and demand. So they have a large amount of students that want to study there. More schools. You would argue they had to, yeah, more schools. They'd have to change, you know, they had to up the price a bit to maybe true. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I think when we run into the fact that Ontario is so multicultural, yeah, that many students feel more comfortable knowing that again, that their cultures, their beliefs, and and everything else will be looked at probably in a manner that they aren't comfortable with in Ontario now. Between us and you, I look at some of the other areas and the schools and the campuses, and you know, Halifax may have some, but outside of Halifax and other parts of Nova Scotia, you you know, it's just amazing, right? You look here in New Brunswick, you know, UMB Fred, and we can go on some beautiful campuses. And then you go somewhere like UBC and and I mean, you know, University of British Columbia is it's like a little city. And I mean, the largest university for uh I guess you could say for students, I believe, is York. York University, I believe, is the highest enrolled university in I think Canada. But yeah, so so anyway, so education. So off the market for a moment, just talking about that, just thought it'd be kind of cool to bring in where we're doing our thing. These are great points.
SPEAKER_02I know if you know, if we were to school overseas, it would help to be part of a smaller community that you know uh was spoke English. Right. You know, maybe you study in German. Well, it's nice to have a little bit of an English community to, you know. Oh, I know. So no, great point. Or, you know, their religious beliefs, they try the uh the mosques and oh the the different, you know, yeah, fantastic.
SPEAKER_00But human nature is that again, you want to flock towards uh a culture or community that you're used to. So I mean, I go as far as you know, we've been to Disney a few times, my wife and my family and I. And when we go, Apcot is our favorite park. So we go into Apcot, and of course, Epcot is made up of all these low countries, and Canada is one of them. And the people that work in that country of Canada, or sorry, in that area of Epcot, they're all Canadian. So when I go in, I'm always looking at their name tag to see is there anybody from New Brunswick, anybody from here, right? And so forth. And you get excited just to see if somebody from oh, you're from Nova Scotia, I'm from New Brunswick. It's two different provinces, but again, you feel like there's a connection just because you're maritimers. So no, it's true. So I think that uh again, before we put you know, uh any concern in that, I think that we as humans just like to again uh gravitate towards you know communities that we know.
SPEAKER_02No, it it it reminds me of um when we first got married, we saved up for a couple years and we took our real honeymoon. Okay, good. And so when we went to the all-inclusive resort, and like I'm I'm sure they still do this, different countries have different color wristbands. Right. And so we knew that our color was Canadian. They told us that, so you see the other interviews, you're like, and uh, you know, you're you also get treated, you know, fairly bad. Uh yeah, but anyways, you would think so. Yeah, yeah. You would think so. Okay, yeah, that's a great point.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, let me go off the market. Uh oh, sorry, on the market. No, that was more or less off the market. Uh, I'll go on the market. Um, so I usually try to bring up something, as you know. Uh, you know, we've talked everything from, of course, windows to again, we've talked about roofs and everything. So today, I want to mention about lighting. Okay. Many times when you're looking at improving, of course, maybe your power bill, or maybe you're getting ready to sell, or maybe you just bought. There are different ways to make your home more efficient. And lighting is, of course, uh just another, you know, option that you have to look at when doing so. So I thought it was unique. Of course, we go into lighting and and LED lights, right? LED lights will save you up to 75% on your power bill compared to your normal incandescent lighting, right? So, so uh when you look at that, that's one thing, but but the biggest thing about lighting as well is the fact that those LED lights will last like 25 times as long. Yeah, right. You know that chandelier that you almost have to put scaffolding up, you know, to get to right, you know, or they're they're always, you know, in in a spot that uh may not be as safe, right? So there's that, but the one thing I will tell you is that when you're choosing your lighting, I always thought you had to look at the watts. Oh, it's a 40 watt, I'll save instead of using a 60 watt. And that's not the case, right? No, the case is you have to do it by lumens. And again, so when you're looking at your lighting that you're choosing, make sure you look at the lumens that the light offers. And what did you call it? Uh uh candle power. Candle light power. Yeah, candlelight power. So so just like speed, there's horsepower, okay. You go in and say, What's the candlelight tower on this one here?
SPEAKER_02Right? Here we go. Well, if you can get, like you said, get the high lumens and a low wattage. Well, now you've got a bright house and you're saving money. You've got it.
SPEAKER_00Now, the other thing they do mention, of course, is of course utilize your natural light. So, again, a lot of times we may or may not really appreciate the amount of natural light that a home can offer. And so it's something else that you'd have to really just you know take a look and and make sure that you do what you do. And what you do is you make sure that uh again, when you're looking at saving, um, you know, again, watch for those LED lights to go on special. I've seen them a lot of times through MB Power. You can get, you know, get them for about a buck a buck bulb.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So they used to have to restrict how many you could buy. That's right. There's just only so many to go around.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And and the problem is they last forever. So I I think I have 300, you know, of these bulbs just sitting in my house because we're not changing them as often, right? That's a fair point. Yeah, well, I mean, beforehand, I mean, I don't think a week would go by that I wasn't changing a bulb somewhere, and you you'd oh you'd always pull it out while it's still hot. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I I still don't have you know anything on my fingers from replacing light bulbs. So anyway. Give me the uh the fingerprints. That's right, no fingerprints here. Yeah. So anyway.
SPEAKER_02Well, you mentioned the natural light, and I know uh we go into a lot of homes and I pull out the compass on my phone all the time because really yeah, they're like, well, where's the sunset? Where's the relevant, all that good stuff? So, you know, uh having a south-facing feature is very important to a lot of buyers. I agree.
SPEAKER_00We actually have had buyers that will actually not buy homes because of the way that the house or the yard phases, so yeah, all right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a shame if you have a beautiful backyard and it's costly in the shade. It happens, it happens, it happens, yeah. Yeah, it's there's no LED lights for the backyard. No, you can get some floodlights. Nail some floodlights.
SPEAKER_00Well, LED flood lines?
SPEAKER_02It is, yeah, they don't give off the heat. I was showing a home the other day, and um, as most of you know, uh you know, in our area, all the snow is gone. You go up northern New Brunswick, different story. That's right. But we're in the backyard, and there's a huge pile of snow. And the first thing I tell the potential buyer is I say, Okay, we look at this pile of snow, what does that tell us? It tells us this area does not get the sun. That's right. You know, that's right. Great for shade. Oh put the lawn chairs out, relax in the shade on a hot summer day. But to keep in mind, like I said, no sunshine is sitting.
SPEAKER_00I agree. I remember selling a home actually in one of my first few years in real estate, and almost the same thing. There was a ton of snow in this one area. Never thought anything more about it. They bought the home, and after the snow had melted, there was a rock. I mean, it was a crater. I don't know what planet it came from or what solar system it came from, but I'll tell you right now, it was massive. It was big enough that it should have been on the disclosure because we didn't see it because of all the snow.
SPEAKER_02But anyway, what if a kid jumped into it? You know, hey, a snow pile. Oh, that'd be true. That's right. Oh, yeah. Okay, so what do you have for me? Well, we were talking earlier about the potential death of the Sunday drive. Yep. And I was reading this article called the Death of the Third Place. Okay. And what that means is so our first place you more of it today. I mean, death of the thing. I know. You think it was October? It was Halloween. I don't know. I think my algorithm's messed up. So far. Yeah. So death of the third place. So our first place for the most people is our home. We spent a you know a good quality amount of time at home. I hope. Home or work? Well, the second is work. There we go. So growing up, you you know, we we discussed the third place where everyone kind of hung out. Yeah. And so I mentioned to you, like in you know, the good old Archie comics, we talked about the malt shop. Yes. In the the series Friends, it was the coffee shop. Yeah. One of your favorite shows. And cheers. It went right out at the local bar. Norm. You know, the whole show is about that third place. Yes. And so our question is: do people still have a third place? Okay. Now I know you yourself, you you volunteer a lot, you referee, you you play hockey, uh, you do weekly volleyball with your with your wife. Yes. You have all kinds of great places. Is there anything that's you would consider your third place?
SPEAKER_00Uh, you know what? And you know what, bringing it up, the hard part is that that third place, and the way that you uh, of course, describe this is still very important to you. It it acts as, if you ask me, um, I guess you could say an escape. Uh, it gives you that time to, you know, re-energize, or or at least just just you know, you know, get ready for, of course, going home or getting ready for the the next day of work. So third on, you know what, the only place I can think of is driving through Tim Hortons. I mean, that would be about you, you know, and but again, you know, it's it's it's no, I I don't know. How about you?
SPEAKER_02I I I'm kind of stuck in the same, you know. Well uh I think we we we dabble into smaller things, okay, but we don't always have that third place. Now, uh this is gonna sound a little geeky, but when we were growing up, we used to have land parties, and I think a lot of uh uh listeners would understand that, where we bring the Xboxes over to the buddy's house. We have pizza, Doritos, you know, the Mountain Dew, everything that you stereotypically would think of. Okay. We'd plug in and we're just playing games together. Yeah. And that was kind of like our third place. Um, I have, you know, uh again, you know, my best friend growing up, uh To this day, like his house was my third place. Oh, yeah. I think I spend more time at his house than my own. Okay. Um, so again, I think it's beneficial if you have something like that because it can help separate, you know, the work and in in the home life. And if it's, you know, let's say you've got a neighbor, and every Sunday in the summer you switch, you know, on Saturdays we barbecue. This family comes over. Next Saturday, it's your turn.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, we talked about earlier, but but when we look at different things, so you know, church for many people, I would assume that church is probably that third place. It's it's another family for them, and and and and I think that that's great. For me, summertime, you know where I am. Hopefully on the boat. On the boat. Like if I can get on the boat, that would definitely be, you know, my happy place. So I'd probably say that's that that's where I'd want to be.
SPEAKER_02A lot of evening boat rides, you know, because summer's a good time for business.
SPEAKER_00But I do remember there was this bar slash restaurant growing up, and growing up in, you know, my my early 20s. And when I was growing up and was in sports and everything else, the great thing about this place was the fact that if by any chance you were on a sport team, they actually sent somebody out with the old cancord, so the your big old camcorders, and they would film your game. So whether or not it was hockey, football, baseball, rugby, soccer, didn't matter. They filmed it, and then you went back to this place and you had, you know, a couple pops and wings and everything else. And on the TV screen was you playing, and it was awesome. Yeah, you'd get up there and you'd start laughing that hey, I fell on the way to second base or this or that. But again, it was one of those things that again it really brought the teams together, but it was a great idea on on having that third place to go.
SPEAKER_01So I'd be screaming at the TV. I'd be like, he called me out on that play, clearly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, we never brought the roster of the umpire. We're going to New York for this one. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yes, yes. I get it. So I I guess what I would say is is that you know, the most important part I find about what you're saying, though, is the fact we have changed. We've now become very focused on work, very fro focused on home, and I get that. And most of us, if you ask people who their third place is, it's sitting on their couch or chair with their tablet. Yeah. Sweep, sorry, swipe, swipe, swipe, right, and scrolling.
SPEAKER_02And and again, so it'd be great to, you know, if we can swap out that, you know, uh iPad for a Kindle or a book or something, you know, can I get it and relax and you know, leisure feed the brain.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And and here's the other thing, uh, you know, we'll we'll bring everything back here. The greatest thing about you know what we do is when we go into homes, we see some beautiful homes. Absolutely. We also see some that are well, not so beautiful. Let's just say that right. But what we also do is we get to build relationships with a lot of these people. And so for Tracy and I, if you really ask me, what was really coming in my head was that I have some great friends that actually were clients of mine. And the big thing is the fact that we get together, we'll play cards, we do this, we do that, uh, you know, we'll make dinners. And so a lot of times I would say if I truly thought about my third place, it would be when I'm with friends at somebody's home. So I find we're doing that an awful lot more too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, just again, it's safe, uh, it's fun, you know. And at the end of the day, for my wife and I, we just enjoy, of course, you know, just the friendship, you know, that that we have. So so it's something as well that I'm assuming some of some of you do, but uh, but if you do have a place, it'd be nice to know what it is.
SPEAKER_02But yes, yeah, drop, drop, drop a comment while you're clicking the subscribe button.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. So as we know, spring is coming around. Team Somerville would like you to know that we are available. We'd love to be able to provide to you the level of service that you should have, the ability to have the relationship that you should have with with your realtor. Um, you know, but at the end of the day, what's most important is that you feel good about the whole process. And with Michael and I, the biggest thing that we always say, it's not about us, it's about you. And so, again, so if by any chance buying or selling is coming up, with Team Somerville, we'd love to help you out.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Again, thank you for your time and lending us your ear. Uh, from all of us at Team Somerville, I'm Michael.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Tim, and you've been on off the market with Team Somerville.
SPEAKER_01Now the
