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Sellers need to make closets look like a department store’s display of towels, beautiful and colour coordinated with neat folds. Make no mistake, the buyers are checking out all areas and considering them for their use. First impressions are key in every area of the home: furnace rooms, cupboards, laundry, closets, garages, decks and underneath them. Tell your sellers to leave no area un-staged and keep all their equity. Full de-cluttering services are available through Staging Services.

A viable storage option is the newly developed PODS® site in west Edmonton (online at www.pods.com). This is a great option for a couple of reasons. The POD is delivered to the site and the seller loads it. The seller locks it and then the POD is removed by the company and taken to heated storage. Once the seller moves to their new home, the POD is then dropped off for the unloading process.

April is the start of the busy second quarter for real estate, and resale housing sales were down over the same month last year according to a report issued by the REALTORS® Association. Average prices of single family houses moved down compared to a month ago, but were up by 8.2% from last year. Condominium average prices moved up from last month and were up 7.0% from April 2009.

“There were three increases to interest rates and changes to mortgage qualifying conditions in April; none of which seemed to slow down the Edmonton housing market,” said Larry Westergard, president of the REALTORS® Association. “Despite the upward movement, mortgage rates are still close to the 10-year average and not out of reach of most homebuyers. In many cases it is a matter of the REALTOR® lowering expectations rather than crushing hopes and dreams.”

Single family residences in the Edmonton area sold on average for $385,359 in April and condominium prices rose to $253,788. Duplex and rowhouse prices of $322,127 were up from last month and the average residential price was down to $339,314.

There were 3,884 residential listings in April with residential sales of 1,740 properties resulting in a sales-to-listing ratio of 45%. Days-on-market rang-in at 40 days and inventory at month end was 8,056 residential units.

“It is pretty clear that the costs of home ownership will increase as our economy improves relative to the US and other world economies,” said Westergard. “Only a REALTOR® has access to the latest and most detailed market figures and their experience and objective viewpoint will help the buyer and seller come to realistic expectations in their home search or sale.”

The annual RE/MAX Quest for Excellence program encourages high school graduating students from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North West and Yukon Territories to write an essay based on their personal experience in one of six topics – Leadership, Sports, Technology & Trades, Performing Arts, Fine Arts and Community Service.

“Over 1300 entries were received this year from students across Western Canada,” says Marie Sheppy, Senior Coordinator, Corporate Affairs, RE/MAX of Western Canada. “We are thrilled to be able to assist these young adults further their education.”

“RE/MAX believes in giving back to our communities, we are proud to play a small part to help students reach their educational goals”, says Elton Ash, Regional Executive Vice President, RE/MAX of Western Canada. “The qualities of essays received are a clear indication that these future leaders will be successful in their chosen field.”

Leadership Category – Matthew Heesing, Fort Saskatchewan, AB; Melissa Ruchogeza, Calgary, AB; Andrea Marshall, Lake Country, BC; Corbin Smith, Abbotsford, BC.

Sports Category – Harry Hothi, Edmonton, AB; Travis Vugteveen, Chilliwack, BC; Kelsa Gobeil, Westbank, BC; Andrea Bain, Victoria, BC.

Technology & Trades Category – Matthew Thompson, Castlegar, BC; Vladimir Zachata, Richmond, BC; Jamie Law, Winnipeg, MB; Anna Leong, Burnaby, BC.

Performing Arts Category – Kathleen Ennis, Langley, BC; Wanmeng Zhou, Delta, BC; Joseph Hoffman, Fort McMurray, AB; Audrey Kwan, North Vancouver, BC.

Fine Arts Category – Meret Shaker, Winnipeg, MB; Katrina Boisclair, Kamloops, BC; Catherine Zulver, Delta, BC; Robyn Lacy, Penticton, BC.

RE/MAX is Canada's leading real estate organization with over 17,500 sales associates situated throughout its more than 680 independently-owned and operated offices across the country.  The RE/MAX franchise network, now in its 37th year, is a global real estate system operating in more than 70 countries.  Over 6,500 independently-owned offices engage over 115,000 member sales associates who lead the industry in professional designations, experience and production while providing real estate services in residential, commercial, referral, and asset management.  For more information, visit: www.remax.ca.

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 10:31 AM PDT