Selling Your Home

Ethics. Truth. Experience. Service. Results.

3 Common Goals of Home Sellers

Meeting Your Needs is the Centre of our Service

Maximize Your Sale Price

Whether you want to list your home as-is, take some time to prepare your home, or even if you want to renovate it, we use a Proven System, tailored to you, to get you the most money for your home. We will assess the market, your goals, budget, and skills, to determine which strategy will maximize your profits. We put all of your options on the table, not just the one that is the easiest route to a commission cheque. All decisions are always yours to make, and we work with you from day 1 to closing day to achieve your Top Dollar Sale.

Avoid Bad Decisions

Real Estate is always a hot topic and everyone has an opinion, but there is nothing equal to years of experience in the trenches. Yet experience alone is not enough. The key is to find a real estate professional who also has the ethics to be able to advise you properly. An agent with both of these qualities is able to foresee all likely outcomes of any decision, and has no hesitation sharing this information with you. The only way to avoid making bad decisions is to hire a professional whose advise you truly value, so that they can properly steer you around the common pitfalls that too many home sellers fall into.

Reduce Stressful Worry

Worry is caused from uncertainty about how the process will work and what the outcome will be. A lack of communication with your agent only makes these feelings worse. With The Village Guru, we talk to you on a regular basis to build a strong & open relationship. We will call you so that we can stay ahead of any worries or concerns. We include you in our procedures and checklists so that you are aware of each step as it happens. You will never be left to wonder “What on earth has my agent done for me?”. You will see all of the work we do from start to finish.

Our System is Designed to Achieve your Goals

2 Phases: Pre-Listing & Post-Listing

Phase 1: Pre-Listing

Working With You to Prepare Your Home for Sale

Step 1 - Assessment

Success Starts with Us Getting to Know Each Other. Half-Truths & High Pressure Sales is Not the Foundation for a Successful Relationship.

See the Difference: We first request that you read over our website, learn about our values, our business model, our services and our sales system. We aim to be transparent and open so that you can clearly see the difference between The Village Guru and the other agents and teams out there.
Phone Consult: The first step in the process is a phone consult, where we want to learn about your situation, your goals, what experience you want and what help you need when selling your home. We ask a lot of questions because we need to clearly understand what is most important to you.
20-Minute Meeting: Instead of pressure, scripts and contracts, lets meet and talk. Let’s see if you even like me, if we communicate well, and if our values and approach are in sync. Often this ability to form a strong & trusting relationship is entirely overlooked as part of the hiring decision. A good relationship is essential to being able to trust the advice I provide, and your ability to make the best decisions for you. It may be rare, but there ARE good professionals out there, those with integrity, so don’t settle for “just any agent” until you can find one you can actually trust. Only then should we start building a marketing plan for your home.
In Home Consultation: This is often referred to as the ‘listing appointment’ by many agents for one simple reason: they’re there to get you to sign a listing agreement. If you can smell the intense pressure, sales scripts, or fear tactics, be warned, you’re in a listing meeting. Our In-Home Consultation is about building rapport, trust and a strong strategy. If you want home staging as part of your services – which is completely optional – I can bring our Home Stager to the Consultation, so that you can be sure you like how she works and communicates as well. Yes, we want you to hire us, but not because we feared or pressured you, but because we’ve demonstrated that our services will get you the experiences and results you want.
Working Together: This is when we decide to work together and sign an exclusive agreement. This is not the paperwork to advertise on Realtor.ca, its a simple contract that allows us to start working for you before the home gets listed for sale; whether that’s 2 weeks or 2 months, we work on your timeline. We work with you to complete any home preparation and staging plans for you home.

Go To The Next Tab – Step 2: Design The Plan

Step 2 - Design a Plan

We Make a Plan Tailored to You. No Job is Too Big, No Job is Too Small

We cannot emphasize enough that your plan will be tailored to your goals and abilities. The recommendations for you might be some minor decluttering and furniture arrangement, or a kitchen update, or anything in between. Our goal here is to save you time, make the process as easy as possible and to make you the most money on the sale of your home. Our plans are tied to real numbers, the real opportunity for adding/protecting equity, and the expectations of your target buyer. We will never recommend anything that doesn’t provide a real return on investment, and you are always in full control over what you want to do.

The Consultation: Our Home Stager/Designer will meet you to review your home’s potential. She will ask you what you want to do, what you can do, what help you need, and what your budget is. Based on these factors, she will summarize her recommendations for how to make the home as BIG, BRIGHT and UPDATED as possible.
Written Report & Guidance: If you decide to hire us for home staging services, which costs you nothing out of pocket, she will then provide a written report that outlines, step by step, how to prepare your home. This can include floor plans, paint colours, material samples, contractor and store recommendations, inspirational photos, all with clear instructions.
We work WITH you: If you decide to hire us for a kitchen, bath or other construction updates, our designer will design cabinet layouts, go shopping with you or for you, source actual products, and address all the little questions that naturally come up along the way.
We Problem Solve: We don’t leave you high and dry to get stressed out, trying to figure out things on your own. Our Home Stager/Designer will work with you to ensure that the final vision is achieved.
It’s Not A Spending Free-For-All. Most important, Our Home Stager/Designer will tell you where NOT to spend money, because we are very focused on maximum results for minimum dollars. This is not a HGTV design-free-for-all. If it doesn’t add value and make you more money, we don’t recommend it.
The Typical Investment from Our Clients: For most of our selling clients, the average investment is between $300-$1500, for items like minor repairs, painting and lighting upgrades. For more substantial upgrades like a kitchen refresh or new floors, we adhere the cost/benefit analysis of these tasks. We often budget between $6-12k, depending on the size and calibre of the home.

If you decide to hire us for our service package, the hours spent working with you can range anywhere between 10 hours and 40 hours, for meetings, planning and product sourcing. This is truly unique to the industry. When you see billboards offering “free staging” this is not the level of service you will receive from them. We always offer more value through quality service.

Go To The Next Tab – Step 3: Home Preparation

Step 3 - Home Preparation

The Best Phrase We Can Put on Any Listing is This: “Pride of Ownership Throughout”. Ensuring your home feels well maintained is the single most effective thing you can do to sell your home.

What Buyers REALLY want: When buyers walk into a well maintained home, you create a positive emotional reaction. A sense of relief. No one likes working on a leaky faucet in their spare time and no buyer wants to buy your honey-do list.
We Have the People: If it’s a simple matter of not knowing who to call, we can connect you with handyman who can address any repair. You’ll have wished you did this long ago.
Most Common Repairs: Broken Transition Strips, Cracked Tiles, Rusted Sinks, Holes in Walls, Missing Baseboards, Missing Electrical Plates, Loose Wires, Cracked Caulking, Heaving Patio Stones, Cracked Deck Boards, Replacing Old Toilets, Broken Screen Doors. It all adds up to a negative buyer impression that will hurt your sale.
The Extra Mile: The 3 most beneficial fixes to your home that always provide 100+% Return:
1. A Fresh Coat of Neutral Paint on Walls & Trim
2. Upgraded, Stylish Electrical Light Fixtures in Key Areas
3. Upgraded Stone Backsplash in Kitchen

Our design & decor services are included in our service plans; you pay no cash out of hand, so we urge you to call us before doing this work on your own. You have nothing to lose and a lot of money to gain.

Go To The Next Tab – Step 4: Home Staging

Step 4 - Home Staging

This is the Art. The Sole Purpose of Staging is to Create an Emotional Reaction from Your Potential Buyers.

As humans, we make most of our decisions based on emotion. Anything that isn’t tied to basic survival is a choice, and emotions play a big part in making those decisions. Said another way, most people buy with their heart and justify their decision with logic. If you get buyers to feel good about your home, they’ll find facts that confirm why your home is the right home for them.

There is a System and Strategy: Our Home Stager runs her own business, and always creates a plan that ensures your home looks as big, bright and stylish as possible. She spends hours at the warehouse curating the decor specifically for your home.
Highlights & Camouflage: The final plan for staging depends on all the fixed elements of your home that we need to work with. Hopefully, we were able to neutralize your home’s finishes when preparing your home, but if you still have blue carpet or green tile, this cannot be ignored away. We will choose a colour scheme of items that highlights your good features & camouflages – as best we can – any negatives of your home.
Colour Flow: Staging needs to make a strong impact quickly, in a way that is universally appealing. You will see we accent with shades of greens and blues whenever possible, because it is calming and captures well on camera. The trick is to carry the same colours throughout the house for a feeling of spaciousness and flow.
Staging is How We Invest Money in Your Home: Selling a home successfully is a collaborative process between us and the home owner, and we put our 200% effort into it. Together, we get the best results.

When you choose to hire use for Home Staging, we place an average of $2000 worth of props in the homes we list, plus the cost of moving, warehousing & labour hours spent to set up your home, which is an average total of $3000 for each home. Let there be no doubt we are highly committed to selling your home for the highest possible price, and we do invest in your home to get the best sale.

We also have a package for sellers who do not require our assistance with home preparation, where you still get all of our marketing, sales and negotiating expertise. The choice is always yours to make.

Go To The Next Tab – Step 5: Visual Marketing

Step 5 - Visual Marketing

Buyers are Discerning and Have High Expectations. Excite them with exceptional media engagement.

After staging, this is the second area where The Village Guru invests in your home. Buyers make their initial decisions online. They love to see images and other media of the properties…and they do make judgements about your home based on the visual presentation online. You must put you best face forward if you want to attract the most possible buyers. We will custom build a media package that meets your needs and budget.

Photos: There are hundreds of photography companies that can produce high definition DSLR photos that absolutely destroy any smart-phone photo. There is no excuse for anything less than the best, and if you’ve staged your home well, the camera has a lot of beautiful rooms and vignettes to capture.
Video Tour: This is not a photo slideshow set to music, this is actual video footage of the home. It provides more angles, a better sense of flow, and ignites that emotional connection in buyers that creates more demand. For larger or specialty properties, this can include aerial footage or neighbourhood footage as well. Videos are well worth the investment if the home is attractively staged and presented.
Dedicated Web Page: Yes that’s right, it only costs $10 to have a dedicated web page for your home that includes everything a buyer wants to know in one place. It’s more visually attractive than realtor.ca and so we use this page for social media marketing. There is no reason NOT to have one.
Floor Plans: We love floor plans. They leave no question about the flow of the home, where the powder room is, or what’s on the other side of the kitchen wall. They are well worth the investment to set your listing apart from the competition online.
Feature Sheets & Flyers: Feature sheets have less impact for the buyer, since they’ve already viewed the home online and in person before they can pick one up. But after a viewing, they do serve as an elegant reminder to the buyer if they did really like the home. Flyers are an old-school marketing tool to notify your neighbours about your listing. Unlike modern techniques, there’s little data behind their effectiveness. If we are tight on budget, this is what I often suggest omitting.

The Village Guru invests in your home before it is even listed for sale. We are committed to your success, because your success is our success as well.

Go To The Next Section Below – Phase 2: Working for You to Sell for Top Dollar

Phase 2: Post-Listing

Working For You to Sell for Top Dollar

Step 1 - A Strong Relationship is Key

The added benefit of working with you before you list, is that you can see our integrity, passion and commitment long before you have to make pricing or sales decisions. When you can trust us to advise you properly, we can get you to your goal of a Top Dollar sale much more successfully.

Up to this point, we’ve worked side by side with you, usually for several weeks, and have invested several hundred to several thousands of dollars in your home, even if you choose our most basic staging services. You have also invested your time effort into preparing your home, and together, we’ve maximized your home’s value. At this point, we are already 90% to your goal of a Top Dollar sale.

By the time you are ready to list, you will have seen me and my team many, many times. Whether you anticipated it or not, we are now in a relationship. Lucky for you, it’s always a good one. Through our process of working together for an extended period of time, you will gain the confidence of working with a team whom you know is putting your interests first.

Phase 2 is all about strategy, advice, and hitting the market full force from day 1. The better relationship we have, and the more we have earned your trust, the better advice and strategy we can deliver to you. The next 4 tabs above outline the major areas where having a strong working relationship with you will ensure we implement the best strategy for your home sale.

Go To The Next Tab – Step 2: Pricing Your Home

Step 2 - Pricing Your Home

The Most Accurate Price for your Home can Only be Obtained the Day Before you List it for Sale.

Prices Always Change: When I meet you for a 20 minute chat, I’m happy to give you a price range, just so that I know we are in the same ballpark of expectation. But given the demand of the GTA, and the penchant of the government to implement new taxes and policies, prices can literally change overnight. You cannot get an accurate price until you have the most updated sales information, but we like to start working with you weeks or months before you list for sale. This is why you should never hire an agent for the price they give you, hire the agent who shows they have the best plan.
Stay Local: I have a pet peeve when agents list homes outside of their normal area; an agent from Scarborough does not know Mississauga as well as I do. When buying for clients, I talk to listing agents who defend their seller’s asking price with houses that aren’t even comparable in location. Just 1 or 2 houses included or omitted from the research can ruin the pricing results. Working with a local agent is a true advantage to setting the right price for your home and avoiding going stale on market.
Everyone Wants More: Most home sellers want to push for the highest price possible, and it is totally understandable; you just have to know for sure, for yourself, if that price was possible. I am happy to try for an aggressive price. But unlike other real estate agents, you will also hear me advise you that if it is an aggressive price, I will be discussing a price adjustment within 2 weeks if we don’t get showings. You always make the decisions, but you hire me to advise you of the most likely outcome of the decisions you make. Giving you the full truth ensure no surprises down the road.
How I Can Tell if You’re Over-Priced: This is actually the easiest part of the process; there aren’t 100 different mysterious factors. In the GTA, even in a more balanced market, even with government intervention policies, there are more people moving to the area than there are homes available for sale. Rarely should a seller worry about lack of buyer demand. When you hire The Village Guru, we have ensured your home presents it’s best. Finally, given that 95% of buyers use realtor.ca, the Internet and Facebook, The Village Guru ensures your home has been exposed to every possible potential buyer, and we can prove it with viewing data. There IS only one variable left: PRICE. If you are not getting offers, it is because buyers think you are priced too high for what your home is.

If after 10-15 showings, you don’t have an offer, your home is slightly overpriced. If you haven’t had 10-15 showings in the first 2 weeks, your home is significantly overpriced.

Go To The Next Tab – Step 3: Attracting More Buyers

Step 3 - Attracting More Buyers

Don’t Rely on “Secret Buyers”, “Special Flyers”, or “Drive-By Buyers”

Do homes get sold to a client of the listing agent, a Just-Listed flyer or an Open House? Yes. Occasionally. About 10% of time. We want you to focus on the the 90% of time that homes get sold by buyer agents who are representing buyers. If an agent is putting too much emphasis on the 10% opportunity, and brushes past the tasks necessary to attract the 90%, sound the alarm bells.

Giving Buyers the Info they Want: In real estate, MORE is MORE. More photos, more angles, more content, more web links, better descriptions, more measurements, more neighbourhood info. Buyers always want to know more, not less. Its a shame to lose a potential buyer because you failed to communicate basic information they wanted to know. It’s pure laziness not to fill realtor.ca with media and details that are valuable to your buyer.
Getting Buyer Agents to Work for Us: When we present your home properly, with the right information, the 45,000 agents in the GTA will all start working for us and showing your home to any buyer client who is looking for a house like yours in your area. That is the true power of MLS. Even the most famous listing agent cannot match the impact of 45,000 buyer agents. Fame doesn’t sell home, marketing does.
Facebook: We pay to advertise your listing to our identified target market. For example, we will advertise our listings in Clarkson to Mississauga, but also to Etobicoke and Toronto to catch buyers who might be considering moving west and commuting. We will advertise gated community condos to young home buyers and also older home owners who might be considering downsizing. This targeted advertising often results in higher showing activity, because your listing might not have otherwise been on those buyers’ radar.
Open Houses: We do conduct open houses, because there are buyers who sometimes don’t want to hire a buying agent. They often believe they can get a better price by dealing with the listing agent directly. We don’t believe in “double-ending” because it’s a conflict of interest if The Village Guru serves both sides. But we can have another agent provide them customer service to write up an offer to make sure they understand the process. So in a small percentage of cases, you might get a buyer from an open house.
Luxury & Specialty Homes: Luxury Homes are nothing like other homes, and the systems and processes are completely different. Email blasts and Facebook posts are not where you find luxury buyers. In this world, local elite networks and accessing the international market is key. This is why we work with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, for the global exposure and networks available to us to market your home. We specialize our services to the expectations of the market and our clients to get the best results.

Go To The Next Tab – Step 4: Negotiating Your Sale

Step 4 - Negotiating Your Sale

Hungry Agents Make for Bad Negotiators

It Can’t be About the $$$: Whether it’s desperation for a commission cheque, or a never-ending addiction to notch off another transaction, an agent who is focused on their money cannot put you as their priority. Sometimes the first offer is the best, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes its a good idea to keep a negotiation alive, sometimes it’s better to cut it off completely. You need an agent who is willing to slow things down if that’s what will be in your best interest and that can only happen if they truly care about your success before their own.
You Gotta Know When to Hold ’em: Following on the first point, most agents I do negotiations with must have NO idea how to play poker. They give information about their clients that they really shouldn’t, but then nitpick and argue over little things that could risk the entire deal. They don’t have the confidence to read the other agent and figure out a strategy that puts their clients in the strongest possible position. Ask an agent if they play poker and their answer might tell you whether or not they know how work a negotiation.
Aggressive and Assertive are Not the Same: A good negotiation keeps the lines of communication willing and open, even when the 2 parties are far apart in reaching a sale. Aggression simply offends and upsets and doesn’t help anything. It’s important to be assertive and hold position without needlessly upsetting the buyers.
Finding a Serious Buyer: It’s not all about the money. They buyer’s terms are a good sign as to whether they are going to become a headache or even a downright nightmare down the road. If you are positioned well and demand is strong, you might not need to consider an offer with a measly $10,000 deposit or home inspection. These are the deals that often risk falling apart down the road. But, if you are not in a strong position, you might have to work with these deals. You need strong advice to tell you what your best option is.

The Ability to Negotiate Absolutely Impacts the Final Sale Price. Never Assume Any Agent Can Negotiate a Deal Successfully. Ask Enough Questions to Feel Confident in their Skills.

Go To The Next Tab – Step 5: After-Sale Buyer Issues

Step 5 - After Sale Buyer Issues

Most of the time, home sales goes smoothly. But sometimes, the buyer with throw you the nastiest of curveballs that could turn into a legal nightmare. This is not the time to find out your agent didn’t cost these extra hours into their price, and leaves you high and dry.

Allow me to take a minute to tell you about my lawyer, as his industry is very relevant to the value of any true professional. I always suggest the same excellent lawyer to all of my clients, because like me, he is service oriented, he takes the time to answer questions, and cares about your experience. If you ask him what his price is, it’s reasonable, but not the cheapest. So not all of my clients choose him, they go with a discount lawyer. After all, in most situations, all the lawyer does is do some research and print out the documents, right?

Except for when something goes wrong. And in real estate law, just like in sales, things can go VERY wrong. Buyers can lose their mortgage approval at the last minute, they can need new appraisals, or extension dates. Sellers can leave the house a total mess, lie about the working order of their appliances, or need to arrange a lease-back due to closing date complications. The threat of a house not closing for any reason can send everyone into a panic, with fear of lawsuits and lost deposits. Sometimes a transaction is simple, but sometimes it explodes in your face.

When you are paying for a reasonably priced professional, it’s like getting insurance that if it is your transaction that goes wrong – because of the incompetence of the other party – that you will have the expertise of a true professional working those extra hours for you to solve any problem.

These issues aren’t rampant, but about 1 in every 25 listings have some level of buyer fallout. About 1 in every 10 buys I do has some level of seller misrepresentation. One of my buyers found a dead cat in the garage……literally ANYTHING can happen. It can take an extra week’s worth of work to sort it out. But rest assured, I won’t drop the ball or go MIA on you just because the deal is signed. This is the peace of mind that you deserve.

Want to Know More About Our Service Packages?

We offer the MOST value, the BEST service, for FAIR prices.

See Our Service Plans

VIP Sellers Program

We don’t even ask for your phone number, so you can be sure we won’t start calling you un-invited.

You will be sent a market activity report so that you know what’s been going on in your neighbourhood with homes similar to yours
You will receive ongoing notification of any new activity in your neighbourhood
You will receive emails about how to sell for Top Dollar and the advantages of hiring The Village Guru
You can ask us a question ANYTIME without fear of harassment or pestering. We want you to choose us willingly and happily.

Sell With Confidence

With Our VIP Seller Program and Guides to Sell for Top Dollar, you will be prepared to ask the right questions and hire the best broker for you.

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Selling Your Home

3 Common Goals of Home Sellers

Our System is Designed to Achieve your Goals

Working With You to Prepare Your Home for Sale

Working For You to Sell for Top Dollar

Want to Know More About Our Service Packages?

VIP Sellers Program

Sell With Confidence

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