By Linda Fennessy / 06 Sep 2018

If you’re seeking to sell your home in the near future, updating your kitchen can increase the value of your home and attract buyers. But it can seem nearly impossible to design a kitchen for someone whom you’ve never even met.

It can be difficult to know what kitchen style will appeal to the largest number of potential buyers, We have 5 design tips for you to use when remodeling your kitchen for resale.

1. Keep it simple

When designing a kitchen for someone else’s taste, keeping the overall scheme simple is the way to go. Don’t stress your budget with additional, over-the-top accessories or storage solutions. Expensive crown molding or drawer knobs can be easily customized once the home is purchased and are usually not a major selling point. The same advice goes for cabinet door styles and drawer sizes. Stick with Vintage and Plain style cabinets and standard size drawers. A simple design will not only appeal to the masses, but also leave decorating accents to the homeowner’s imagination.

2. Use a neutral palate

There’s good reason neutral beiges, browns and whites are the most popular kitchen colors—they truly stand the test of time. Antique White Cabinets with a Walnut Glaze pair well with just about any countertop color and can give even the smallest kitchens an open, inviting look. Classic colors are always a better choice over the more trendy design options, because they will appeal to buyers of all ages.

3. Think about function

While they might be attracted to your kitchen, it’s the kitchen’s function that can really sell your home. Style can be changed or updated over time, but the buyer wants to make sure that this is a space she can see herself spending time in for a long time. If you have the space, add an island or breakfast nook, and speak to your craftsman about work triangles to help make your kitchen more functional.

4. Consider Laminate or Solid Surface Countertops

Depending upon the material, countertops can be the largest expense in your kitchen update. Laminate and Solid surface countertops are much more affordable option to stone countertops and come in hundreds of colors that imitate the unique designs in stone countertops.

5. Reface with Maintenance Free Cabinets

“Because cabinets take up 80% of the visible space in your kitchen, updating your cabinets can make a huge difference”, says Jill Moskowitz, Kitchen Design Consultant at Kitchen Magic. But installing all-new custom wooden cabinetry can be a time consuming and expensive project.

Additionally, a maintenance-free cabinet door material is just as beautiful as wood, more durable and less expensive than traditional wood cabinet doors. Refacing your existing cabinets will make a dramatic transformation, and get your kitchen ready for resale in days, rather than weeks.”

By Ephraim Vecina / 05 Dec 2018

Would-be investors who remain wary of the Canadian real estate market’s price growth should take a measure of comfort in the results of a new study conducted by Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (CPA Canada).

The research found that the market’s fundamentals have robustness as their main feature, precluding any U.S.-style meltdown in the near future.

“Beyond prices and debt levels, Canada shares far fewer similarities with the U.S. than you might think. This becomes very apparent when you look at just one measure: credit quality,” CPA Canada chief economist Francis Fong stated.

Fong emphasized that seeing the U.S. crisis as a reference point for the possibility of a Canadian collapse would be futile due to the pre-eminence of different factors in the two markets.

The sheer volume of subprime mortgages issued to borrowers with low credit quality, who cannot afford to repay debt, is frequently cited as one of the leading causes of the U.S. breakdown.

In comparison, Canada’s share of high-credit-quality clients increased from 66% in 2002 to 88% in 2017, according to the CMHC. During the same time frame, the proportion of low-credit-quality borrowers fell from 17% to just 3%.

“The situation in Canada is likely not a bubble in imminent danger of deflation; in fact, housing prices may reflect the true value of living space in Canada and in some markets increased household debt may be the new price for real estate,” Fong explained.

“Our cities frequently are listed among the best places to live and work in the world and, compared to their peer cities abroad, they are not among the most expensive. We may simply be dealing with the law of supply and demand, so affordability could continue to be a challenge for the foreseeable future,” he added.