A Limited Time Offer on a Plateau Cottage - 4168 Henri-Julien

Yours for $645,000.

The renovated Plateau cottage was stripped and redone in 2009. The result, a big comfortable family home that combines old-school Plateau cachet and contemporary design.

With more than 2,000 square feet of living space, there's plenty of room to manoeuvre, whatever your lifestyle. The ground floor has high ceilings, a double living room and huge eat-in kitchen with a custom island ideal for cooking, eating or hanging out. There's a four-season sunroom off the kitche with windows onto the intimate backyard, where sunlight pours through for much of the day. The unfinished basement is ideal for storage.

Upstairs you'll find three big bedrooms, one with a door leading to a deck-ready roof. The bathroom is big enough to hold a barn dance, if that's your thing.  There's a huge soaker tub and a walk-in shower.

The vendors have dropped the price to $645,000 but that is a limited time offer. If the property is not sold before summer, the house is coming off the market. Make your move.



http://www.century21.ca/mary.lamey/Property/QC/H2W_2K3/Montreal/4168_Av_Henri-Julien

Do Bother Me, Please!

I'm listening to one side of a phone conversation going on about 15 feet away from me.
My colleague is talking to a professional contact about a new condo that has just been listed. The contact wants to know what my colleague thinks about the location and the price.

If I understand correctly, the person on the other end of the line has just said she's going to go over and have a look at the place and then maybe she'll call back if she's interested in making an offer.

I can hear my colleague explaining politely, but with rising vehemence, that if the person wants to visit the condo she would be most pleased to visit with her,

She isn't just being nice, you know. The agent really, really, really would like to visit that condo with her.

Seriously.

I've heard the story too many times to count. It is the story of people who don't want to bother a real estate agent until they've seen the place they like. Then and only then will they ask an agent to negotiate the purchase on their behalf.

Too late, folks. Too. Freaking. Late!

Here's a little bit of inside baseball type information for you. If you want me to represent you in the purchase of a property, I have to be the one to make the appointment to visit the place. I have to go with you for the visit and I have to be with you for all subsequent visits.

(The exception to this rule is the open house. You can go to an open house without your agent, but you should tell the agent at the door that you are working with your own agent.)

Those are the rules. The Real Estate Brokerage Act, the regulations that govern the industry, are very clear about this. The agent who is the "effective cause of sale" is the one who gets paid at the end of the day. Being the effective cause of sale can mean showing the property, pointing out the pros and cons of the property, gathering supplementary and pertinent information that helps the buyer make up his or her mind and, finally, negotiating the deal.

Being as I sell real estate to feed my family, I am really, really, really interested in getting paid at the end of the day.

Early in my career I negotiated on behalf of a family who had a really hard time buying their first home. I held their hands through the whole process and, when their bank refused to give them a mortgage, helped them find a mortgage broker who could get them good financing.

I worked very hard on that file. And I never got paid. Why? Because they buyers had visited the property once before they met me and had spoken to the agent after their visit. The listing agent had a prior claim on them,

It was a painful and expensive lesson.

So by all means, call me to talk about properties that interest you but please do take with you to visit. You won't be wasting my time. Au contraire, it's how I earn my living.  I like visiting properties with my clients and will visit as many as they need to see before we find the right one.

Honest.

Montreal Heritage Home Tour - We're In!

Tomorrow kicks off Montreal's annual Architectural Heritage campaign celebrating  the best of the city's architecture.
The line of activities includes lectures, museum exhibits, as well as walking and bus tours exploring the city's many way cool neighborhoods. If I could, I'd do the walking tour of the Point tomorrow. Alas, it conflicts with my sprog's soccer practice and soccer practice wins.
The good news is that my listing at 276 May St., Verdun has been selected by the jury for this year's heritage tour. 276 May is one of the oldest homes in Verdun. We have deeds going back to 1891, when the land was sold to a Mr. May. He built his house in 1895.
Too bad that in the late 1950s some urban planning fool decided it would be a good idea to build the elevated approach to the Champlain Bridge about 100 feet from the building's front stoop. Here's the way I look at it, 276 May was  there 70 years before they built the bridge and it will be there 100 years after the bridge is scrapped. It was built to last.
It has also been lovingly restored and updated by my client. I don't feel the least bit self-conscious in proclaiming it one the prettiest houses in Verdun. Hell, it is one of the prettiest houses in Montreal.
We've printed enlarged images of some of the original deeds to show during the open house visit from 1-4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 2 and again on Oct. 9. We're expecting a big turnout. Bring your cheque book in case you want to make an offer. At $339,000 it is verrrry nicely priced.
You can check out the other activities on between October 1 and Oct. 13 here,

You Never Know What You'll See on a Property Visit

The New York Times asked readers to send in their best open-house anecdotes, the oddest and most hilarious of which can be found here.

It's true, you never know what you'll find when you step through the doors of a building for sale.
Earlier this year, I was working with a client who was in the market for a bargain-priced fixer upper in southwest Montreal.  Our search took us to some pretty odd places.
The very first place we saw together was a duplex, where the top floor was vacant and the bottom floor was rented. It smelled a bit like cats as I fiddled with the key in the front door lock. That was nothing compared to the smell that hit us like a freight train once the door swung open.
The apartment was completely empty, except for a thick spackle of cat poop that seemed to cover the floor from front to back. All the windows were closed.
Another buyer would have taken a sniff and fled. To her credit, my client examined the whole place, taking photos in each room before deciding the litter box stench was a deal breaker.
That same buyer and I visited another duplex where we started upstairs, where the tenant had to lock his two pitbulls in the bathroom so that we could get in the door. The bedroom had no ceiling. That was odd. Odder still was the downstairs unit, where a guy with a hoodie obscuring his face let us in and then slouched back to the darkened living room. A thick cloud of hashish smoke enveloped the room and his roomamate, flopped on the sofa with his mouth agape, was so stoned he didn't even know we were there.
"Are those bullet holes in the ceiling?" I asked my client.
Our third odd visit togeher was yet another duplex, where the downstairs apartment had been divided into a rooming-house. There were cheap plywood doors everywhere, with multiple pairs of plastic flip-flops outside each room.  The listing agent had warned us to knock before entering any of the rooms becuase there might be people sleeping.
"How many people live here?" I asked.
She wasn't sure, 15 maybe 18.
We spent as little time as possible in the house. Just long enough to decide it wasn't what she had in mind.
We were careful not to slam the door as we beat a hasty retreat.

Just Listed in TMR

UPDATE: Here's the MLS listing.

Looking for a cute starter home amid the leafy byways of the Town of Mount Royal?

I've just listed this charming two-bedroom bungalow on Trenton Ave. at $543,000.
The 1950 property has 1,253 square feet of living space, including a spacious living room with stone fireplace, adjoining dining room and a cozy sun room overlooking the back garden. It occupies a corner lot facing a neighborhood park with playground.
The house has one bathroom on the main floor and a powder room with shower in the basement. The basement, by the way, is impeccable, with several windows in the combined playroom/home office, as well as a separate laundry room and furnace room. There is loads of storage and ample space to add a third bedroom, if you like.
The house has been well maintained but has not undergone major upgrades in recent years. The bathroom has classic white fixtures and tile. The kitchen is bright and has original cupboards, flexible flooring and melamine counters with a wood grain finish.
There is an attached single-car garage, and a woodworking or storage shed in the back yard.
The house is being sold with fridge, stove, dishwasher, washer and dryer, all under warranty.
At $543,000, this is the least expensive detached house currently for sale in Town of Mount Royal. The price reflects the fact that this property is being sold as part of a succession without legal warranty as to quality.
Interested? Need more information? Give me a call and I'll be glad to schedule a visit.
I'm also planning an open house this Sunday, November 22, between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Open House Sunday 2-4 p.m.

I'll be holding an open house at 5899 David-Lewis in Côte St. Luc tomorrow. It's a pretty spectacular upper condo that was converted from a three-bedroom to a sleek one-bedroom loft with mezzanine.
It features 1,700 square feet of living space, a huge master bedroom with spacious deck, unbelievable gourmet kitchen, fireplace, cathedral ceiling and lots of light through huge windows.
Asking price is $385,000.