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
#26 - ARE YOU SPENDING TOO MUCH MONEY
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Are you spending too much money on your home? Find out with Tim and Michael today!
Hosted by: Michael Dempsey & Tim Somerville
Produced by: Hayden McNamee
Music by: Anthony Trim
Don't spend that much money.
SPEAKER_03You know, if you do take the house and you turn it upside down, that's what you need to do. Want to hear a goat fact about bacteria? How fast is your life moving?
SPEAKER_00Hi, I'm Tim Somerville. And I'm Michael Dempsey, and this is the 26th episode of Off the Market with Team Summerville.
SPEAKER_01Let's get ready to rumble and possibly debate. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So I'm going to let you start.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Well, you know what? We get a lot of times, you know, people ask us, what can I do to my house to make it worth money?
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02I'm going to flip the script. What are you doing to your house that could be potentially devaluing? Yeah, they're hold. That's good. Yeah, you're right on it. Yeah, absolutely. So, number one, of course, is always the um the overimprovement. And what that is is, you know, they invest in a chef's kitchen or a luxury primary suite. You know, they say, oh, you know, not everyone wants a $40,000 chef's kitchen. Don't get me wrong, there's gonna be a buyer for it. Oh, yeah. But if you are in an area where the average price is a $300,000 home, I'm sorry. We're not gonna get you, you know, that $40,000 kitchen back. Well, and we'd like to.
SPEAKER_03We see that. We see that with pools, we see that with other things. You know, the funny thing about a pool is people put a hundred grand into a pool, in-ground pool, and the people buying it say, Well, we'll never use that. We don't see the value. And the day it closes, guess what? Yeah, they're in the bloody pool.
SPEAKER_02Get the sunscreen. That's right, that's right. But go on, yes. Okay, here's a better one. Uh, converting a bedroom into something that they think is a bedroom. So maybe it's uh it's an in-home gym, and uh, you know, a lot of those uh items can be removed. It's still a bedroom, but sometimes they go over and above and they've got things on the walls. Maybe they've got a cool little chin-up bar.
SPEAKER_03Well, you know what my wife did with one of our bedrooms? She wanted it to be a walk-in closet. Um right, so one of our third bedrooms on our main floor is now this big walk-in closet for her.
SPEAKER_02Mama likes to shop. Don't tell her, don't tell her I say that. Gary said, go on. Okay, so this one I I kind of tend to agree with, but also at the same time don't agree with. Okay. So we know that first impressions are very important. Oh, yeah, and uh every home deserves a second look through as well. Okay, but sometimes having too dark or on-trended paint colors can uh kind of set people off and they always see the value that's truly there. And I know it's something so simple as paint. You watch all 26 episodes, you'll see we talk about paint at least five times. You know, it's so simple, but like I said, that first impression, they walk through the doors, yeah, and it just doesn't feel you know, maybe it's too gothy.
SPEAKER_03I don't know. Do you know it's funny because many buyers these days they don't have vision, so they're seeing the walls, the colors they are, and again, that could really deter them coming in and doing you know what what they should be doing, and that is looking at it in their eyes for their home. But you'd be surprised.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, and we do our best. We say, look, you don't like the paint, that's fine. That could be changed, but sometimes a little bit of the damage has already been done. Okay. Um, a big one is replacing the good old faithful bathtub with a luxury walk-in shower, you know, and don't get me wrong, a nice, you know, a huge shower uh that could fit a hundred people nicely tiled. Yeah, that's gorgeous. Don't get me wrong. She still has a tub though. You still yeah, no, a lot of homes are losing the tub. I don't know. In fact, yesterday, uh, we have a uh a wonderful um client care specialist that's kind of new to the team, but she is working oh yes, I call you. She's on top of things, yeah. And so she was sending me a couple listings about some of my great buyers to say, Hey, what do you think about this? Will that work for so and so? And a lot of the homes were um a small little stand-up shower that's not even big enough for you know the woman of the house to shave her legs. No, I know you know you get in, you don't even get wet. That's right. And then maybe they have like this glamorous work little tub. Yeah, and it's like, how do I bend over and be with the little kids? You know, like this particular family has two young boys, sweet boys, but I mean they gotta get cleaned, and that's just not optimal for oh no, it isn't. So we see a lot of bathtubs going up, and again, it works for you. And I would bring up the argument that a lot of people, when they buy their home, maybe they have the mindset this is my forever home. And that's great, but things do change. And you know, the question is are you doing that renovation for you, or will that renovation help everyone?
SPEAKER_03And great point because at the end of the day, we tell most of our clients when you're buying a home, please remember, or even building a home, please remember of the next buyer. So, again, if you're building a home and you're doing one bedroom up and three bedrooms down, well, that's really going to deter the next buyer. And people are like, Well, I'm gonna be in here until I'm pulled out in a pine box. And guess what? Three years later, guess what they're doing? They're selling.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so and yeah, the setup that you described is great if you have older tea children, teenage children, you that a mom and papa suite is upstairs. That's great. Um, again, I have some young families saying young family, not ideal to have the young boys downstairs. No, they like to have them a little closer to them. Yeah, um, okay.
SPEAKER_01Where did I go in here? I don't know. Where did you go? I don't know. Okay, I kind of got excited.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that was the biggest one. And again, I I brought up the question you know, are am I doing this for my lifestyle or am I doing this for well the idea?
SPEAKER_03The idea of devalue devaluing your property in your home happens more and more. And that is because again, just like I said, many of the buyers that are purchasing these homes or the sellers that currently have them are doing things for themselves. And and there's no problem with that. As long as what you do, I call it the absorption value. Whatever you do, make sure you've absorbed the value so that if you do sell, you're not looking for that full ticketed price. So if you do something for 15 grand and you've had it for five years, don't expect another 15 grand on something you did that was good for your family. You may only get three to five grand back on that. Would you agree? I agree.
SPEAKER_02Okay, which brings me to the very last one. And again, there's several other items that we can. Yeah, I found it. We could bring up a couple other items, but again, big ticket items is I've walked into homes where they've converted the garage into another type of room. Yes. So maybe they got a tiki room, maybe they added another bedroom, it's a second living room, it's the man cave or the sheet cave, whatever you call that. You know, that's great for you. Right. But people see the image of that garage door outside, they get excited. All right. You know, it's it's difficult to put, you know, if you were to build your own garage, you know, like there's gonna be, you know, numbers. Uh that that could be a $75,000 garage potentially, right? So people get excited, they say, hey, there's a garage, and they show up and they're like, I have to put money into this to make it make it a you know, yeah, front-of-the-mill garage. I know. Just not right.
SPEAKER_03No. So good good points. Yeah. Okay, I want to stay on market. Let's do it. Uh let's get her right, uh, get right and get it going. Um, I want to talk about I want to talk about items and offers that sometimes get overlooked as whether or not they're staying or going. And inside and outside, you'd be surprised how many items are overlooked or assumed they are staying or going. So uh you and I talked uh about a few of them earlier, but um, let's go outside first, right? They're solar lights now. Solar lights, yes, you just pull them out uh of the ground, but there's a lot of them that are stapled or nailed into, of course, the wood and the house and gazebos and everything else. Right. So so you have to make sure that again, those there are probably supposed to remain because they are attached to something that's probably going to remain as well. Um, security. When we look at the door cams, the door cam, of course, again, if you remove it, again, the holes in the door, but again, if you're going to exclude some of these items, you have to make sure they're excluded. But when you take them, there cannot be damage to the property, right? That's the issue. So when we talk about that as well, there's the shed, um, hot tub, Michael. I sore spot with Michael, but seven years ago. Yeah, seven years, let's see. Seven years, six months, 14 days, 12 sentences. Yeah. So you have to make sure that everything is there. We we believe in the CYA rule, cover your butt. Yep. But also that if we had to go to court, we write our offers as if we were standing in the eyes of a judge. So if there's something there, you may say, why do we have to put that? Because it may not be assumed that it's staying or going unless we do. So we also have say you have a wood stove. Another item we see outside all the time is a bunch of wood. You know, two cords of wood, three cords of wood that's actually now seasoned and ready to go. Those people that own the home may be buying another home with a wood stove and may want to bring that wood. So, what I've done there sometimes, Michael, I don't know if you do, but maybe there's three or four cords of wood that are outside. I may say something like the vendor is to leave an approximate amount of wood in the, you know, in the you know, in the amount of approximately two cord. Maybe you take some, not all. Or you ask for it, all remaining wood to stay on closing. So something again that gets overlooked. Uh the gazebo we mentioned earlier. Listen, you may think just because it's screwed to the deck or or that it's sitting on the ground there, that it's there and it's going to stay. Don't assume. We all know what assume means. That's true. Uh, what's card or with the house?
SPEAKER_02Disclose, disclose, disclose. Yes. Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah. Okay, with chattels. Yeah, chattels, yeah. Or anything. Yeah, you pick up the house, yeah, you turn it upside down. Yeah, everything that falls down and you wanted it, you should ask. Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_03And keep in mind that even then, yes, when you flip the house, there are items that are attached that again you should be asking for. Absolutely. Like inside TV mounts. Again, even though that they'll want to keep their TV, the mounts are screwed into the bloody wall. They take them out. If anybody's ever taken a mount out, I mean, the amount of holes, I mean, it's just crazy. So if it's professionally patched up. Oh, yes. And then you have to look at that. You as a seller, are you going to want to crack fill and paint this wall just to keep that TV mount that you can go to, you know, Princess Auto Wave or if an AD tire pick one up? Um, mirrors, bathroom mirrors. This is a big one. In the purchase and sale agreement, under you know, a condition does state that the bathroom mirrors will remain. So if you're the seller and you have a specific one that's only held on by two nails and you think you can just lift her off, guess what? This is an item that if you want it, make sure it's excluded. Um, and that's important. The listing that you see online, just because it may mention items, yeah. Guess what? If you don't put it in the offer, guess what? You may not get those items. Because just because it's in the listing, when you write the offer, the seller is going to look at your offer and determine whether or not they feel that you may not have put a value on those items. So that's why you're offering what you are. Almost like a little bit of a give and take. We'll let you keep this because I haven't put it in the offer at this price. Now, if you're assuming it's going to remain, write back to we all know what assume means. Um, other items, yeah, right on mower. You may buy a house that has a pretty big yard, the snowblower. Um, tanks outside are not always rented. And if they are, again, you have to assume the lease of those. But sometimes we'll get into a spot that's like a hundred-pound uh probane tank, right? Well, okay, well, guess what? They usually don't stay, you know, because why they're not leased, so they could be an item that you'll have to ask for. Um, curtains. I always write, I think you do all blinds, rods, and window treatments to remain. Um, lights. You could have a Tiffany light, you could have this, you could have that. Whatever it is, the circumstance is that again, if you as a seller, you're going to remove one, we always say do it before the pictures, do it before the listing. But if you don't want to, we make sure, or you you should make sure that again, that's excluded.
SPEAKER_02The buyer can't miss what they never saw.
SPEAKER_03Correct. Correct. Um, and another one is uh simple one, but many people have islands and peninsulas and they have the kitchen and bar stools. Well, they fit there, and so at the end of the day, you'd be surprised that you may say, Oh, yes, I just thought they would stay. Why? Right? Don't assume. Don't assume. So we have that security. We've talked about security in uh just the last one and security systems. The big thing is the fact that not all of them, you know, will remain if they are within a contract and they haven't finished that first initial contract period, they may have to either have it removed, taken with them, even if you want to assume it, because some of those contracts may not be assumable. So, again, uh something else to look at. And other than that, I I guess what I would say is just keep in mind that all those little items that you may take for granted, somebody else may not be. You know, I even said about the hose reel I have on my house. I mean, I couldn't take that. I put holes in the siding, but you'd be surprised how many people say, Well, it wasn't in the offer, it was attached to the house. You pick it up, guess what? That hose reel isn't moving. Sure, you can take your hose, but the actual reel that's attached to the house should stay.
SPEAKER_02Depends on how good of a hose is. Well, I mean, I probably just leave the hose.
SPEAKER_03So, anyway, just keep in mind that again, it's one item that we see in many offers, and that is the fact that there was an assumption that something was going to stay or go, and it wasn't. So, just understand, and you know, again, there are times where sellers will want to leave items that are not even in the listing. And I'll give you the big cardinal one, the big one, and it's big, are pianos. Oh my gosh. I know to move a piano is I I think they built the home around the piano. That's true, you know, and then I mean, just they're just so heavy and never used. They, you know, I shouldn't say never. I mean, some people may use them, but I mean, just don't assume that oh yes, the next purchaser wants that because now they do the final walkthrough. There's an organ or piano in the living room. They're like, We didn't want that.
SPEAKER_02Have you been burned on that?
SPEAKER_03Uh I have. Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, I was. And and what ended up happening on that one was uh quite a few times we'll write it, which is good. But early in my career, there was an old organ that the seller didn't tell me until that night. I called the buyer, they said, We don't want it, we couldn't find anybody. So what ended up happening was we actually had to take a few hundred dollars off of the price to allow the buyer to have a company come in and move it, get rid of it, right? So, so just understand that again, just do your best. Do your best to not assume, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay, once carried, helped carry a box piano.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, oh yes, I yeah, we've all been well. I've been there, so I know a lot. Okay, you want to go on or me?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, I'll go on. We're gonna go, we're gonna switch it up just a little bit. I just uh I was just having a little fun this morning going through some some uh some facts. Uh our good friend Tim here, he loves trivia. Oh, yeah. I thought about doing it. We should do a trivia thing in a future podcast, right? Give you a little bell and you'll be like, ding, you know.
SPEAKER_01I want one of those staples.
SPEAKER_02It's easy. That's all right, that's right. Uh I'll just say the world is a mysterious place, and there's a lot of weird stuff out there. Yes. So I thought I'd share just some things that kind of caught me off guard. Okay. And did you know that there is a thunderstorm called Hector the Convector that comes every day at three o'clock? Really? Yes. So uh the most thunderstorms are very, you know, as you know, unpredictable, but not Hector. Thanks to something called the microclimate over the Tiwi or yeah, Tiwi Islands off the coast of northern Australia. Hector arrives every day at three o'clock. Okay. Uh, from September through to Mars. So we'll call it the the thunderstorm season.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02He's very huge, and he's usually about 19 kilometers uh high.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it sounds like a wrestler.
SPEAKER_02Hector Hector. I know, right? For some reason, he's got a mask, you know. You know, anyways. So, as a young uh child, I'm sure you've at least looked at the map of the solar system. Maybe you've had to build a uh diorama or a model or something, you know. Oh yeah. They say that Mars is not actually round. Really? Yeah, they unlike any other rocky planet, yeah. Mars is actually shaped like a rugby ball. Okay, yeah, but it has different sizes along all three axis. So it's kind of uh, yeah, maybe the uh the sun is melting it. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01It's elliptic. Yeah, we'll leave it up to uh Mr. Tesla Musk when he lands there.
SPEAKER_00Uh so let's talk about bacteria.
SPEAKER_02As you know, all the world's bacteria stacked on top of each other would stretch for 10 billion light years. And what that means is like so Earth's long uh microbes are 0.001 millimeters. Very, very thin microscopic, obviously. But if you stacked them on top of each other, it would wrap around our Milky Way over 20,000 times. Doesn't that not give you the heebie jeebies?
SPEAKER_03I kind of want to scratch. Well, I was gonna say that that's a lot of hand sanitizer, that's all I'm gonna say.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm assuming, oh, don't assume there's gotta be a lot of bacteria in like you know, the the oceans, this of course, yeah. No, they're not all on us. Uh no, you know, um, yeah. So, do you know what the fear of long words is called? No, it's called, and I'm gonna butcher it, so stand by Hippopoctomonstrapidiophobia.
SPEAKER_03It's 36 letters, and you wonder why I did not know that. Yeah, that's weird.
SPEAKER_02Well, there's one person right now listening that heard that and said, But it's funny, it doesn't make word fear of long words is a long word. You know, there's a queen a long time ago that always asked, should the word abbreviation be such a long word? That's true.
SPEAKER_01It's true.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so we're gonna get a little weird here. Okay. And this is a this is a scientific fact. Really? You know that chainsaws were invented for childbirth. I'm just gonna leave it at that. Oh my god. No, so now not your steel, not your top of the line items. There was a type of item invented to be used for that. Oh my god. Yeah. But you know what? I'm gonna leave it y'all on a happy fact. Please do. Please do. Okay, we change the subject. I thought this was cool. You're talking your sleep? Sure. Sure. Well, apparently, so do a majority of deaf people, but they use sign language. What? Yes, they are sound asleep, and like sometimes you and I we wake up from a maybe you wake up and you're like, ah, you know, or maybe you're talking in your sleep. My daughter does it all the time. They literally are in baggone. And no, I'm not making fun of them. Okay, no, no, but I just imagine an amazing thing because I I think so too. That's how they communicate. We communicate with our ugly mouths. It's cuckoo, but they do. That's how they talk in their sleep night. I actually I think it's cute. Well, that's that's good to know. Yeah, that's wild. So that was that was a little fun facts to kind of tickle your brain on this uh this Tuesday.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Well, so I'm gonna stay off market. And um, you know, I had the pleasure uh, you know, recently I FaceTimed a friend of mine who was in Ontario, and he was having breakfast with a couple uh gentlemen that I actually went to high school with, you know, almost 40 years ago. And yes, almost and and first time I see him, right? You know, one guy looks like Paul Banya, and the other guy looks just like he did, and you know, and and you know, two great guys, right? And but haven't seen them. And and I was thinking back, we as realtors, we work more or less seven days a week. And you know, we were going to talk in a previous uh podcast about uh mentors and how important they are to us. And so I had the opportunity not too long ago to be in Ontario, and I did. I took the time out to visit with two people that I felt, you know, uh had an impact on my life growing up, and it was fantastic. It was again almost 40 years from seeing those individuals. The one gentleman uh is now 85, he's an outdoor enthusiast. He still goes out, he canoes and kayaks and camps in the woods and does this, does that. Looks phenomenal. My wife couldn't, couldn't, you know, really uh like looked at him, said, No way, he's not 85. Like, you know, he looks great for it. The other gentleman was my big brother. I was part of the big brother, little brother organization, and he was my big brother, and really again, I mean, just again, just a great guy, got to meet his wife and everything else. But my point is there was a movie, it was Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and there was a famous quote it was uh light moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. And it's true. We as realtors and many people in their busy life and everything else. I mean, again, it's just it's one of those things. And and I've had the ability to look at, you know, I've coached, and and of course, we've dealt with trainers before, and there are different coaches out there and everything else. These mentors and these people that have had an impactful life, any else for impactful moments on your life, you know, it it's important to make sure that they truly appreciate and understand how much you know they meant to you. And sometimes we go too fast. And we go too long without uh appreciating those moments. So you feel that way or what's your story? Absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02My story? Well, I mean, uh, I was never part of like a big brother program or anything like that. And when I was younger, I don't it's it's hard to pinpoint a mentor, but I will say, uh, once in the professional, once I got into the professional world, you know, I certainly had a uh one officer in the military that was a mentor. Um, you know, obviously I I fell under him, but he was a great um great mentor. Yeah. I got into the JD Irving world. We I know I had like two mentors there that were really good. Good. And uh then of course when I got into real estate, I haven't found anybody. I'm criting it's you.
SPEAKER_03Can I ask? So do you still talk to those people from Urban?
SPEAKER_02Uh here and there. Okay. You know, it gets it's tough because you know, sometimes you you drift away. Yeah, and uh I'm really glad to hear that you're able, when you're in Ontario, um take a little bit of leisure, you're able to meet up uh with Santa Claus again.
SPEAKER_03So uh John McIntosh. Uh so John, uh again, phenomenal soul. Um we met for you know brunch and we're sitting there, and you know, I could have sat there for 20 hours. And Richard, we went out for dinner, and same thing, right? Uh, you know, we had places to go, but uh to take that extra time and to make a promise to ourselves that we wouldn't wait another 40 years. And with John being 85, I, you know, yeah, he'd probably be the one guy that could be around in 40 years. Uh, but at the end of the day, I'm definitely not going to. And uh, we just have to remember those moments. We have to remember that those people that are important, and and I look at my mentors and and people. And to be honest, one of my biggest mentors has always been my mom. Growing up, you know, I know how we grew up and and all that she did for and for our family and so forth. And it's just nice to be able to know that yes, you have family, but outside of family, sometimes those relationships are really strong too. So hopefully, again, like I said, you know, that everybody has an opportunity to, you know, rehash some of those import people in your life.
SPEAKER_02Great advice. So pull out the you know, the the photo albums, the the yearbooks, and uh, you know, in all honesty, if they're if if if uh Tim's stories made you think of somebody, I mean, what's stopping you? Reassho shoot him a message.
SPEAKER_03The FaceTime was amazing. Yeah, yeah. We do not realize how easy it is to connect. Whereas in beforehand, of course, I mean, well, I guess I'll put a letter in the mail and see if it goes to the right address, right? So awful lot easier if you ask me to reconnect if you if you really want to. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02But I will say, um, do you like getting real mail?
SPEAKER_03I do, you know what I I do, I do, because again, at the end of the day, it's one of those items that you don't get much. You get your uh advertising and you get your bills. So yeah, the odd time when you get something, you do you you take that extra couple seconds to appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02And you absolutely absolutely I love real mail, and that's why uh here at the team, like we do our best, we get out uh fund those six-month anniversaries, one-year anniversary, just send you a handwritten card that says, Hey, we're thinking of you, yeah, you know, um, sure. You know, if you've been in your home and for 15 years and we're congratulating you, we're probably maybe, you know, saying maybe is it a good time to sell? Yeah, but at the same time, we legitimately are just excited to have clients um to share those milestones with them. And of course, you know, most of them come to our client events. That's right. Um, you know, our roll of page whore even team summer events, and it we yeah, we can't do it without you, and we're really thankful to have you in our great.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so so on that, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think uh we'll pretty much wrap it up for today. Again, thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_03Uh I'm Michael, I'm Tim, and this is me, off the market with Team Summerville.
