OK, I know this has nothing to do with Real Estate or Staging but it was such a good tip that I picked up that I had to share it. I have always found it a challenge to prevent food from sticking to the BBQ grill. I have tried commercial sprays but found that I would still get "stuck" if I ran out. 

Somewhere I picked up the tip to dip half an onion in your choice of oil and then rub it on the BBQ grill. It does a great job of evenly greasing the grill with excess oil that can cause flair ups. As a double bonus it also flavours your grill.

I hope this helps you the next time you BBQ...happy grilling!

After making the decision back in April to relocate to the Halifax region...we are finally here! I have been an "east coast girl" for only a couple of weeks but I have to admit that I have completely fallen in love with this area. 

We are located in a sub-division that over looks St. Margaret's Bay, the view is absolutely gorgeous!

It's going to take me a little while to get my barrings but so far we have taken a trip up to Peggy's Cove and spent an afternoon at Queensland Beach. This weekend we are off on a Pirate Adventure at Oak Island.

Our moving day is set for July 18th although our actual closing day isn't until August 3rd (a Friday of a long weekend). The other day I came home to find a message from the people that have purchased our home. They were asking if we could make arrangements for them to get the keys on the Thursday evening as they are having movers (they are coming from Manitoba) and would like to start unloading first thing Friday morning.

"Huh...was I hearing this right? They actually wanted the keys to the house before it closed?" They even went as far as to say that they didn't want to go to the hassle of getting the lawyers involve to change to change the closing date.

Don't worry, about a million alarm bells went off. There was no way that I would hand over the keys to the house before the lawyers and done their thing and the money was in my account. I am no real estate guru but I know enough that to do such a thing could potentially cause some huge liability issues if anything was to go wrong.

Got me thinking, how many people HAVE handed over the keys before the lawyer's OK? What nightmares have been created when someone harmlessly thought they were helping the new owners out?

If you have a story I would love to hear it.

Well, with the final countdown to our big moving date and a 17 hour drive looming in-front of me, I have to start thinking of putting together my official "Driving Tunes CD". Trouble is, I am the type of person that when I hear a song I love it, know all the words and sing along but 10 seconds later I have no idea what the name of the song was.

There are just some songs that are perfect for those long summer drives, you know the ones that you have to turn up, ditch the A/C to have the wind whip through your hair and cruise with the open road ahead of you. Help me build my list and create the perfect CD for my really long drive.

This is my list so far (keep in mind it might not be the actual song name, just some of the lyrics):

Sweet Home Alabama, Copperhead Road, Big league, I Drove all Night, Where the Streets have No Name, Signs, Pour Some Sugar on Me, Sweet Child O'Mine.

What is your favourite driving tune?

Last night Toronto city council voted in a 1.5% land transfer tax on the sale of residential and commercial property. So what does this mean to home buyers? Starting in January the purchaser of an average Toronto home, priced at a little more than $380,000, would pay $8,488 in total land transfer fees, up from $4,244.

I am not a Realtor nor am I a tax guru but come on! How can this NOT have a negative effect on the Toronto real estate market?

Your thoughts...

My little digging wonder has lost the sparkle in her eye and the wag in her tail, and the poor look on her face is so sad.

It started a couple of days ago, when I first noticed that she wasn't keeping up with me on our walk. She just moped about most of the day and her normally empty dish remained full. The next day she was no better.

I think she might be stressed with the sight of all the moving boxes piling up in th house (as we are going to moe in one month). I spoke to the vet and since she has no other real symptoms there is no urgency to her situation.

Any suggestions?

UPDATED: I found a new walking route for Sandy where she has lots of new smells to explore and bribed her to eat by mixing in can dog food with her kibble. I also invested in a new "baby", a fake lamb fur stuffed lobster...she's back to her old self again!

This is Sandy...she likes to dig.    

   Sandy likes to dig, in fact she dug up this flower bed over 6 times!

                                             Bad Sandy!

Although with a face like that who can get mad. What took me hours to create, a beautiful lawn and lush flower beds, Sandy destroyed in no time at all. Needless to say that while the house was for sale (and ever since then) Sandy is not allow in the yard without being on her leash.

...said Mimi to the camera while sitting in her cluttered, shocking green living room. I nearly fell off my chair. "You've got to be kidding me, right?" was all I could think of.

No, this wasn't a client of mine but rather an episode of "Buy Me" on HGTV. The tag line for the show is "If these walls could talk" (I think I heard Mimi's walls crying from neglect, but anyway!) The show chronicles the history of a home from the perspective of each the owner, real estate agent, including recommendations, home staging and all the stress that goes along with selling a home.

This episode tackled a common problem, selling a home while going through a messy divorce. Mimi stayed in her home while her soon-to-be-ex-husband moved to an apartment.

When the episode begins the home had been on the market with an experienced Realtor, they'd had 4 Open Houses and no offers. Despite their Realtors recommendations, the 20 year old home was still severely cluttered, painted in shocking colours, dated and in need of repair. They had already reduced the price twice.

The homeowners blamed the Realtor, indicating that he simply was not doing his job. They felt that they had hired a reputable Realtor and it was his responsibility to fulfill his contract by selling their home.

This is when I caught myself yelling at the TV "But it is your job to make sure the house is worth selling!"

Their realtor tried desperately to get the homeowners to remove the clutter, clear the garbage from the carport and address basic repairs. Needless to say they felt their home was just right the way it was and anyone moving in would have very little to do.

The story goes from bad to worse with a low-ball offer that was refused, the homeowners threatening to fire the Realtor and an out and out stand-off. In the end, the Realtor releases them from the contract and feels that he had a lucky escape (although he is out-of-pocket for the advertising costs and his time).

So many homeowners feel that the responsibility of selling their home lies solely in the hands of their Realtors with little to no regard as to the overall condition of their home. If your home is your largest investment then why not do whatever is necessary to protect that investment?

The homeowners could have had a much more positive result if they had taken time to de-clutter, dispose of the garbage and spend a few dollars on a fresh coat of paint. How much time, stress and energy would they have saved?

Selling a home takes a team. The agent job is to attract the potential buyers (amongst many other things) and it is the homeowner's job to make sure that the home is top notch.

For more infomration on Buy Me! please visit:

http://www.hgtv.ca/ontv/episodearchive.aspx?titleid=75701

Buying a home in another city isn't as hard as you think, with MLS you can view properties, find an agent and create a shortlist. Come on how hard can it be?

Trouble began four days before we were due in Halifax; most of the homes we had short listed had been conditionally sold virtually overnight. Nuts!

Our journey began with dropping the kids off at my parent's home in Ottawa; we hadn't been away together in nearly 2 years so even though we were house hunting it was still a "mini-vacation".

Boy did we think we lucked in when our flight from Ottawa was actually the VIP Air Canada plane that had just recently brought the Ottawa Sens home but our luck was short lived. We arrived in Halifax 3 hours later but mysteriously our luggage did not! We finally received it about 12 hours later.

House hunting was slow and gruelling as most of what was left on the market was left for a reason. Most homes needed some serious home staging CPR. That is when the panic set in. Where were we going to live?

On the plan "B", look into renting a home. Talk about going from bad to worse! We looked at 3 properties and not one of them would I ever imagine living in. So back to plan "A" and we lined up more properties with our agent to view to next day.

The homes the next day were no better. Homes that looked so good on the MLS just didn't live up to our expectations. This is when we really started to panic. At the 11^th hour we got a couple of really good leads on homes to rent, giving us the time to familiarize ourselves with the area and allowing the market to re-coup.

Now all we have to do is move...rent a truck, load it, drive across three different provinces with 2 kids, a dog and a cat, and unpack...all in four days. Piece of cake, right?

After reading Karen Reynolds blog posting about ABC'c 20/20 re-broadcasting their segment on home staging I decided to do a little poking around on the Internet.

To my surprise I managed to find the clip on-line on the stagedhomes.com. Here is the link if anyone is interested: http://www.stagedhomes.com/public/092705_2020.php

Now, I don't want to step on any toes, if someone has already provided this link but I came across it and wanted to share it with everyone.

I does give a more realistic view on home staging (Oprah's got a little bashing with high price tag of her home staging segment) however they did have an army of ASP professionals to work on the home. They did point out that typically no more than size people work on the average home. The fees quoted around $1500 was also helpful information to the viewer.

The cheering, singing and dancing came across as somewhat unprofessional (just my opinion folks!) but aside from that the segment did provide a decent overview of home staging.

And as any good story should have, it does have a happy ending!