Kimia Nejat On The Realities of Being A Realtor

We sit down with Kimia Nejat of Exit Realty, a longtime sponsor of our show who pops buy for a pint and shares some insights on Nova Scotia's real estate market. A lot of random tv and movie talk along the way. 

ALSO! Kimia announces her new non-real estate podcast "Therapy's Expensive" with her boyfriend, focusing on both lighthearted and deeper conversations.

Tune into this one for insights on what to do if you’re buying your first home, how home staging can make your sale way faster, some of Kimia’s other passions and even a story or two which reiterates why we feel Kimia is one of the greatest realtors around! 

Looking to connect with Kimia? Find her on Instagram and Facebook @kimianarealtor or email kimia@exitmetro.ca

Your Dream Home Does Not Have to Be Just A Dream. Today's show is brought to you by Kimia Nejat of Exit Reality Metro. Kimia is the realtor who knows how to get things done. Buying or Selling? Go to afternoonpint.ca/kimia and we will set up an introduction

Does Your Business Need a Boost With Foot traffic? Hosts for An Event? Or Even Actors For A Production? Or the Production itself? Go to https://www.afternoonpint.ca/services and see some of the services that the Afternoon Pint team offers. 

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:14

Cheers and welcome to the Afternoon Pint. I'm Mike Colvin, I am Matt Conrad, and who do we have with us today?

Speaker 2 0:21

I am Kimmy Anna Jatt. I'm with Exit Realty.

Speaker 1 0:25

You might have just heard her name at the top of this episode. That's right, and her commercials in all of our episodes. That's also right, since darn near day one, yeah, it was like.

Speaker 3 0:34

I don't know, like month three, month three, month two, yeah, two and a half.

Speaker 1 0:39

We worked on an agreement. You became a sponsor for the show and you helped us out a ton. You made the show keep happening. Yeah, 100%, Because I mean our wives would have pulled the plug by now. We're spending all this money on booze every week, so thank you so much Of course, yeah, so awesome.

Speaker 3 0:59

Yeah, of course, yeah, so awesome. Yeah, thank you. And and this episode is long overdue because, yeah, we've been wanting to have a chat with you for a little bit here and yeah, yeah, welcome.

Speaker 2 1:03

So hopefully I don't bore everyone, you know, no, no, you're a super interesting person anyway. So I mean, you know I literally pay you to say that.

Speaker 1 1:10

What, no, no no, you're not paying us to say anything here.

Speaker 3 1:15

Yeah so the she may technically pay us the. The good thing is is and I think we've talked about this before is that we don't just enter a partnership with anybody. It's an extension of the show. That's right. It's people we trust people we want to work with Exactly.

Speaker 1 1:32

We trust you 100%.

Speaker 3 1:33

Yeah, so cheers to that. Thank you so much for helping the show.

Speaker 1 1:36

We'll do another cheers to that and I hope we stay with us for 100 more episodes. Right, so we are at Great Roads Brewing in. Lower Seifel, nova Scotia. That's right. Right, what are you drinking, matt? Red IPA.

Speaker 3 1:48

Love it. Red IPA it's my favorite one here.

Speaker 1 1:50

And you're trying to.

Speaker 2 1:51

Take it easy.

Speaker 1 1:52

Take it, easy it. I'm having a knob here today. I'm just kind of sleepy and I don't want to fall asleep halfway through the show.

Speaker 3 1:58

How's that different than any other day? I don't know. Fair enough.

Speaker 1 2:03

A long way to drive today.

Speaker 3 2:04

Fair enough yeah.

Kimia's New Podcast Announcement

Speaker 1 2:06

But anyway, yeah, so we're happy you're here. So maybe we'll get into this special announcement here first, because I thought it was kind of cool. You told us that you're starting your own podcast.

Speaker 2 2:16

Yes, and it's completely non-real estate. It's just myself and my boyfriend and we just thought we're pretty interesting. The conversations that we have at home sometimes are pretty funny, pretty cool, and we just feel like, in such a dark time today, we thought we'd put something out that's a little bit lighthearted, kind of feels like what it would be like if you went out on a date with us, and it's just random conversations, basically us kind of interviewing each other, a little bit, talking about our backgrounds, and we will have the occasional guest on the show.

Speaker 2 2:52

It'll be just our best friends.

Speaker 3 2:54

So they they all come, maybe different, maybe some afternoon pointers maybe do a cross episode, yeah we'll do that with you.

Speaker 2 3:02

That'd be fun yeah, 100, yeah, that'd be awesome. What so?

Speaker 1 3:05

so what's your, what's your boyfriend's background, what's he do?

Speaker 2 3:08

so he is going all the way back. He's from scotland and he moved here when he was 15. He lost the accent, unfortunately for me um, but yeah, he's like.

Speaker 3 3:19

I met him.

Speaker 2 3:20

He did not have an accent he doesn't know and he blames it on braces, but I blame it on. I don't know what I'd blame it on, but um yeah, that's why scottish people speak differently.

Speaker 1 3:29

They never had braces, maybe pretty messed up teeth, but okay she said it, not me.

Speaker 2 3:36

I can say that the symptoms like the big book of British smiles, the Simpsons episode. You remember that? Yeah, yeah, and he has a pretty serious job himself. I don't know how much he wants me to divulge in that, but yeah, so it would be something very different for the two of us. Very non-professional, I guess. And yeah, just give something for people to enjoy.

Speaker 3 3:59

Cool.

Speaker 2 4:00

Yeah, a little bit of light in the darkness.

Speaker 1 4:02

I like it. Yeah, you got a plan when to launch it, like when you're going to launch the podcast.

Speaker 2 4:06

We have our set created at home.

Speaker 1 4:09

Okay.

Speaker 2 4:10

And we are going to sit down at some point this coming weekend and attempt our first episode.

Speaker 1 4:16

Cool.

Speaker 2 4:17

So I'll keep you posted on that.

Speaker 1 4:18

So this is your warm-up. Basically, this is why you decided to come on now. You're just kind of getting ready for the big time.

Speaker 2 4:23

Exactly, we get it. I'll see how long I can talk for and then, we'll figure that out.

Speaker 3 4:27

There's a deal there. So, yeah, if you need any tips or anything like that, don't ask us.

Speaker 1 4:33

Because we don't know what we're. She's going to be on to us now. She's like, wow, I love it.

Speaker 3 4:40

So that's awesome. That's really exciting. I like the concept, the fact that it's almost like it's not that different than this. If they were sitting at a table next over to us, it'd be like listening to a pub chat, except it's going to be the people. If you and your boyfriend were out on a date, it's the people who are at the table next over might be listening to your conversation, kind of thing that's right, yeah, that's great.

Speaker 2 5:01

So what are you going to call the show? I can give you the name. Yeah, totally, I can say it now because we have officially picked. It's going to be called Therapy's Expensive.

Speaker 1 5:08

Therapy's Expensive, so you're allowing each other for your conversations therapies and whatnot. Brilliant good. Yeah, I like that. I like that style too. I like, uh, honest open conversations.

Speaker 2 5:21

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, we have a pretty, I guess, non-conventional way of of the way we met and our relationship is very non-conventional. I find a lot of people our age don't have the kind of relationship we have, so okay well, you're gonna have to tell us a little bit.

Speaker 1 5:34

What's the kind of relationship? What do you mean?

Speaker 2 5:36

um, we are like two 80-year-old married people who've just been together for ages and ages, okay.

Speaker 1 5:45

So boring.

Speaker 2 5:47

Yeah, that's what I was getting at. Totally, can't give too much away.

Speaker 1 5:50

No, that's fine, okay, so what is a topic that you guys think is going to be hot for this show?

Speaker 2 5:59

I don't think anything's off the table.

Speaker 1 6:00

Cool really yeah have you considered trying different experimental drugs and doing an episode, each episode, on something different, like we do that? We got the beer thing pretty well covered, but you could try it, there's heroin's wide open. There's tons of stuff out there, right I? Think so we'll figure it out a different drug every episode. That'd be kind of wild. I think so, man.

Speaker 2 6:17

Yeah, I have a background in psychology, so you'll see a little bit of that come out. He also has a degree in psychology, so we'll-.

Speaker 3 6:24

Oh wow, oh, you're just going to be analyzing each other the whole time. A hundred percent, oh wow, yeah that doesn't sound self-destructive at all.

Speaker 1 6:32

So that makes it way. Psychologists that are going to be just talking about ripping on each other.

Speaker 3 6:38

Ripping on each other laying on a couch each laying on a couch and just be like your mother sucks oh, your mother sucks.

Speaker 1 6:43

I changed my mind. I am not going on this show. They'll be like we. We can identify 46 different things that are wrong with you, she's already got that figured out.

Speaker 2 6:53

Yeah, but uh, five minutes in. Yeah, five minutes in wow, that's, that's cool.

Speaker 1 6:58

I like the therapy play yeah, so great.

Speaker 3 7:01

I think it's cool. Yeah, yeah, I'll listen. Yeah, I'll check it out.

Speaker 1 7:04

Yeah, so we'll make sure to promote it when you get your opening show, we'll. We'll put it on blast that week or whatever. Whatever help you need from the point, we've got you man that's cool exactly.

Nova Scotia Real Estate Market Insights

Speaker 3 7:12

Yeah, right on, so thank you I guess on to realty right sure so yeah, you've been um.

Speaker 1 7:19

I think you've been a real leader at this since day one. You got into it early, right? Yeah how many years have you been in realty now?

Speaker 2 7:26

I was 21 when I started. Yeah, so it's been about six years.

Speaker 1 7:29

Yeah, amazing six, yeah yeah, and you had a lot of success all over the province, right?

Speaker 2 7:34

um, yeah, I go, I go all over most, most realtors. They kind of try to stick to a certain radius within where they live I'm literally from one end of the province. I just listed a place in Yarmouth.

Speaker 1 7:46

Yes, crazy.

Speaker 2 7:47

And I go all the way up to Cape Breton. I've sold and helped people purchase, so everywhere.

Speaker 1 7:53

But that's kind of good for people that might be out of this province or just don't know where they want to move yet. They want to explore a couple areas in nova scotia. Right there's, I mean, halifax is an awesome spot, but there's a lot of beautiful places outside of halifax that are worth living in. There is right? No, it's true.

Speaker 3 8:07

No and and the place in yarmouth. We can say this because he'll, he'll definitely want us to give us a shout out.

Speaker 1 8:14

So chip.

Speaker 3 8:15

It's chip's house who's listening. If you want to move to Yarmouth, buy Chip's house because he really wants it to be sold. He has the coolest basement of all time. It is the coolest basement.

Speaker 1 8:24

I mean he customized it. Do you like sports or?

Speaker 3 8:26

visual stuff like that, even if you want the best theater and you don't like sports.

Speaker 1 8:30

You could take two of the three TVs down, have a big, prominent screen in the middle.

Speaker 3 8:39

I've already figured it out literally watch like a new hope empire strikes back and jedi consecutively that that?

Speaker 1 8:44

yeah, that'd be weird. I was just thinking of a trilogy no comment no comment.

Speaker 2 8:49

It's just two dudes talking right now yeah, you don't like star wars I've only ever seen the first one, and by I don't know where that falls in the timeline, the first one that was made, the very, very first one, like 1977?

Speaker 1 9:04

Yes, so episode four, that's right. New Hope Okay, cool, I'll go with that. Did you like it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I loved it.

Speaker 3 9:09

Oh, then, you should definitely watch the others Totally loved it like 10 hours and watch a bunch of them, and I just can't do that right now, you don't, you know. So my son's only three and we just kind of like started introducing but he's obsessed with darth vader um, because of my influence and uh. But we actually let him watch like a new hope a couple weeks ago and we actually let him watch vampire strikes back, glued to the tv, and my wife doesn't like it and she's sitting there going like I do not understand how a three-year-old gives two craps about what's going on right now, but he's obsessed. He asks to listen to the soundtrack in the car. That's cool, and so he got through the two and now we just have to do Return of the Jedi, which we'll probably watch pretty soon, and so, like, honestly, honestly, new Hope is good, empire Strikes Back is better.

Speaker 3 10:01

Return of the Jedi is not as good, as you know, not as good as Empire Strikes Back, but yeah, that original trilogy is pretty good, and so is Rogue One. I'd argue Rogue One may be one of the best ones ever. Great movies, yeah.

Speaker 2 10:16

Why doesn't your wife like it? I?

Speaker 3 10:18

don't know, she likes lame things like Harry Potter Are you a Harry Potter person.

Speaker 2 10:25

I'm ashamed to say it now.

Speaker 3 10:27

No no.

Speaker 2 10:27

Same. Thing. I've only seen the first four.

Speaker 3 10:30

Those are like the worst four it gets better as it goes.

Speaker 2 10:34

I like the light-hearted and happy ones and then it gets so dark after the fifth one.

Speaker 1 10:37

That's way, way better.

Speaker 3 10:38

I only saw the first one, voldemort, I will say, is a great villain. He is a great villain and he's really only in like the last three movies or something. Okay, like the other times it's just like a face or something or whatever. Right, but harry potter's terrible he does nothing.

Speaker 3 10:55

Hermione does all of the heavy lifting. And what's his face there, ron, he's like the fun kind of best friend, loyal guy. Harry Potter. Just winds through eight movies and then, I don't know, magically gets saved. Yeah, you don't like him. No, I really don't. I have no opinion on it. I fell asleep the first movie. I was like sitting there and I looked at my wife and I was like you know what? I was kind of rooting for Baltimore Twins.

Speaker 1 11:21

I like the hat that sorted the kids going to school. I like the hat that would talk a different way instead of do a different part of the school. I thought that was neat.

Speaker 3 11:32

I could see you being that About the hat yeah.

Speaker 1 11:34

For some reason I could do the voice of the hat maybe. Yeah, that'd be the only yeah. That'd be a fun role.

Speaker 3 11:39

Exactly. Yeah, I could see that.

Speaker 1 11:41

So, yeah, we're going really focused on real estate for this episode. We're doing great so far.

Speaker 3 11:47

Listen, there's houses in Harry Potter and let's go back.

Speaker 2 11:50

There's a nice segue back to houses, Actually, when I was a kid, the school that I went to was a private school and we had houses. We had a whole sorting system, just like Harry Potter, and they were all based off of different cities in Scotland.

Speaker 3 12:07

And my house was Fife and then there was Argyle and a bunch of them. Your boyfriend is from Scotland, yeah, and you went to like some sort of Scottish private school.

Speaker 2 12:13

No, no, it's not a Scottish private school, but we just happened to have Scottish sorting houses.

Speaker 1 12:18

Where is this private school?

Speaker 2 12:20

but we just happen to have scottish sorting home where houses. Where is this private school, bedford academy? Oh okay, cool, cool.

Speaker 1 12:23

So you grew up in bedford.

Speaker 2 12:24

Okay, it's all making sense thank you, there you go, is it? No, no, no, I was like what kind of box he's putting me yeah, yeah exactly, I don't know either, yeah all right, so back to real estate.

Speaker 3 12:35

Okay, yeah, so real estate. Um, you've obviously must have seen a huge change in that over the last five years right. We saw prices increase and all that crazy stuff. Do you see prices are starting to go down at all at this point.

Speaker 2 13:19

I don't really have the answer a lot of people are hoping for.

Speaker 1 13:22

No no.

Speaker 2 13:23

I don't, and people keep. I know for me I work. A lot of people are hoping for no, no, I don't, and people keep I know for me. I work a lot with buyers and I always have the conversation. They're like, well, I'll just wait till prices come down, and I always. It's hard to convince those people because realistically, they do think they really truly believe that at some point the bubble will burst, prices will come down. But the reality of it is Nova Scotia still has so much room to grow, so much, and I obviously I'm not a fortune teller, but I can't foresee the prices coming down anytime soon. So when they tell you that the best time to buy real estate is now, realtors aren't just saying that it is true.

Speaker 3 14:02

No, that makes sense?

Speaker 1 14:03

yeah, kind of true. There's always the best time to buy real estate.

Speaker 3 14:06

Yeah, in a sense, yeah Right.

Speaker 1 14:08

It never, really isn't the best time to buy real estate.

Speaker 3 14:09

I mean, unless you go into a recession or something like that. But I don't think you want to bank for that, yeah.

Speaker 1 14:14

Yeah, I wonder if that will happen this year.

Speaker 3 14:17

a recession place. Lots of things kind of go in circles and stuff like that, like the waves or whatever you want to look at it as, because I know when I bought my place, like eight years ago, we got 90 of asking price. That's completely gone now. Like there's not even a thought of that. You can be able to happen. Basically, you have to offer over what the asking price is most times, but like, do you see at like asking prices, like at least what you're listing it for? Like are people winning houses? Like winning bids that are less than asking?

Speaker 2 14:46

Not in bids.

Speaker 3 14:47

No.

Speaker 2 14:48

Definitely not. If you're in competition, it will go for over asking for sure, yeah but I mean like even if it's like you know, are you seeing someone lists for whatever?

Speaker 3 14:57

we'll say $500,000, just keep numbers. Even Is anyone getting it for $485,000? Yep, really Okay. Is anyone getting it for $485,000? Yep, really Okay. So at least it's not completely off the rails where it was like $100,000 over asking and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 15:10

No, and it's certain pockets of Halifax and surrounding areas too. I mean Sackville. Good luck Sackville, dartmouth, not a chance. I just wrote an offer for clients of mine in Sackville. There were 23 offers. Whoa, and I mean part of that. You kind of blame on the listing side. Yeah, they probably underpriced it ever so slightly, but really anything under $500,000 just flies off the shelf.

Speaker 3 15:36

Okay.

Speaker 2 15:37

Yeah.

Speaker 3 15:38

That's brilliant Crazy.

Speaker 2 15:39

And then you go outside. That's why I like to go outside of HRM, because that's where people can get the cheaper houses and I don't want to say cheap to make it knock the markets down.

Speaker 3 15:48

No, no. But it's not the houses cheap either, it's just the fact that it's not in the city. So therefore where people want to live. Demand blah blah, blah. Right.

Speaker 1 15:57

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 15:59

Yeah, yeah, so I, but yeah, so I didn't really kind of realize. I guess that people are actually getting under asking because that's what I got and I didn't think that was really happening anymore.

Speaker 1 16:10

I don't know if you can tell us this at all, but do you find that there's still a lot of people coming from out of province looking for homes in Nova Scotia, or do you find it's back to kind of people here just kind of getting out of the apartments or such?

Speaker 2 16:21

Yeah, not as much as we were seeing before, because we put in certain I don't want to say we, because if it was my choice I wouldn't have done this but the province put in certain legislation that out-of-province buyers they're taxed at higher rates. If you're a foreign buyer you actually can't even purchase in certain pockets of HRM, right. So they've done these things to make it a little bit easier for the folks here at home to purchase.

Speaker 2 16:46

But then a lot of the younger crowd here, the younger families, they just can't because they've been so far pushed out of the market.

Speaker 1 16:53

Right.

Speaker 2 16:54

It's very difficult, but yeah, we are seeing a lot less of the the out of province buyers.

Speaker 1 16:59

Definitely. Yeah Well, you see a lot now in politics. I mean to promise to build so many homes. I mean that's on all sides. So no matter who won the election, that's still going to be like the race to build as many homes as possible seems to be the constant.

Speaker 3 17:14

And I think that's the only way that you'd ever actually be able to see housing prices go down is you need to have houses sitting for a long time empty. Long time empty, right. It's the same thing with rent right. As long as there's, you know, as long as they can fill every single apartment all the time and have a waiting list, rent's never going to come down. But until we have, like you know, a landlord needs to sit on an apartment for like six months and no one wants it, and then they're just kind of like, oh geez, all right, I guess I have to lower this to kind of attract people, because the last time I lived in an apartment it was people were quite literally almost paying people to come live there it was like hey, I'll give you the first month free yeah, like the space I had for 800 or 900 bucks or something 950 floors yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 18:01

It was unbelievable. I had three bedrooms.

Speaker 3 18:04

Yeah, I had two rooms Like yeah, one room was empty.

Speaker 1 18:08

Yeah, it was just that was the apartment I could get and I was like ah, I'll get it up Whatever. Yeah, it was just it's mind-boggling.

Speaker 3 18:15

Yeah, I had two bathrooms, two full, to get that way again. Until we have apartments sitting vacant. And it's the same thing with houses, right? Yeah, until we build a bunch, houses aren't going to go down, right.

Speaker 2 18:34

Yeah.

Speaker 3 18:35

Yeah, and.

Speaker 2 18:35

I will say I mean I work a lot with first-time homebuyers. They're around my age. The age of the average home buyer now has obviously increased a little bit because, the younger folks. They can't purchase, which is quite sad, I know. When we bought our first house three years ago, it was such an incredible feeling to go into your own space.

Speaker 3 18:55

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 18:56

And I wish I could help more people feel that same feeling every single day. Feel that same feeling every single day, but the reality of it is, unfortunately, most people under 30, not even in their wheelhouse right now until they're at least in their 30s, a little bit more settled, get to a better paying job.

Speaker 1 19:12

Exactly.

The First-Time Homebuyer Conversation

Speaker 3 19:12

Get through their career a bit yeah or they basically stay at home for a long time. Even if they're a couple, they stay at home with their parents, that's scary, my kids right now are staying home forever, but a couple.

Speaker 3 19:25

They stay at home with their parents. That's scary. Kids now are staying home forever. But here's the thing they stay home and they could save up and then all of a sudden, maybe they save up. After eight years they save up. Between the two of them save up $100,000 and they put a bigger down payment on it, because I do see some people who are in their mid-20s that are buying houses, but again they lived at home, they saved, they were penny-pinching, they were not going out and doing what I was doing at 19, 20 years old. I know you were doing it at 19, 20 years old.

Speaker 1 19:47

What was that? Going out four nights a week, spending, you know, 100 bucks a night? I don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3 19:54

Yeah, yeah, so like they're not doing that, right. They're just not, and because it's probably part of this the way it is now. It's like if I want to buy a house by the time I'm 30, I better not drink that money away yeah, yeah, well, drinks are a lot more expensive than these days, too low right dollar shops.

Speaker 1 20:11

Thanks, dome, yeah yeah, so, yeah, it's changed. The world's changed so much, I think, and it's just, you know, it's a, it's a, it's. I think it's a global issue. Sometimes we always get mad at our neighbors or who's in politics, but I mean, if you look, the world has to expand because some places are having very difficult times and that's why people are immigrating to Canada, that's why people are moving around the world and that's why housing is getting scarcer. Right, yeah, it's not going to be a problem that fixes itself overnight.

Speaker 3 20:41

What inspired you to get into real estate.

Speaker 2 20:49

Because I know you have other passions that we'll talk about. But what inspired you to get into real estate? Um, I so, all through university, I worked at the mall and I really enjoyed sales.

Speaker 2 20:56

And, again, it's the people aspect of it it's not so much that I enjoyed selling t-shirts at the mall, but it's. It's just the meeting new people every single day, helping people and the feeling that people would get they'd be so happy when they would try something on. It just put a huge smile on their face and it's that feeling that I was like okay, I want to do it on on a bigger scale.

Speaker 2 21:17

And the biggest purchase anybody could ever make in their life is a house yeah really a car, second to that, but but a house, and I'm not really a car salesman kind of person, so I figured real estate would be the next best thing. My dad he's been a realtor for 30 years and I go to open houses with him.

Speaker 1 21:36

I used to watch him do it so you knew the game of it, yeah.

Speaker 2 21:39

A little bit. I'm very different from my dad so I knew, going into it, there would be certain things that I wouldn't do like him. But yeah, so that was a conversation we had and he actually said he tried to talk me out of it. Oh really he said don't do real estate, it's not for you.

Speaker 3 21:55

You will fail. Oh wow, Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Speaker 2 21:58

I think he did that because he knows that I'm stubborn, and if someone tells me I can't do something, it makes me want to do it even more.

Speaker 3 22:03

I love that.

Speaker 2 22:04

That's good, so maybe it was the push I needed, I don't know, but yeah.

Speaker 1 22:07

Now your dad retired.

Speaker 2 22:09

No.

Speaker 1 22:10

No, he's still going.

Speaker 2 22:11

I think he's almost 70 now and he's still doing it every day.

Speaker 1 22:15

That's awesome.

Speaker 2 22:16

It's a career you can do for the rest of your life.

Speaker 1 22:25

Yep, some deals with your dad. No, no, no, no, I don't think it would go very well on any deals as he.

Speaker 2 22:28

No, no, no good, he's a good guy yeah, yeah, I mean my mentor in the business. She's 85 now wow, amazing okay, and she's still rocking it every single day.

Speaker 3 22:35

She's incredible so yeah you could do it till the day you die it seems like a lot of people actually do real estate like well, well, well and like they don't really retire.

Speaker 1 22:44

It seems that way.

Speaker 3 22:45

But you get to make your own hours.

Speaker 1 22:50

You work when you want to work depending on your age and stuff like that, and eventually the pressure to make or sell 50 houses a year would be there, and if you sold one or two a year, you'd probably be just fine with that At a certain age, you could just kind of chill out and enjoy it, right.

Speaker 3 23:00

Enjoy the company. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Speaker 1 23:04

Cool.

Speaker 3 23:05

Maybe I'll get my real estate license when I'm like 60.

Speaker 1 23:07

There you go, there you go, why not why? Not so what's this instrument? You play again Instruments, instruments Like 50 or something. So you play how many instruments?

Kimia's Musical and Acting Background

Speaker 2 23:16

I play five, five. I used to say six, but I've humbled myself.

Speaker 1 23:22

But you, played an instrument that was an interesting one, that was a little unorthodox. What was it? Was it an oboe?

Speaker 2 23:29

No, I wish Do.

Speaker 1 23:30

I just want to say that word. Maybe Maybe Okay, gosh, I'm trying to guess now what it was you have to tell me.

Speaker 2 23:36

I'm sorry, All the basics Piano guitar, drums, ukulele, bass, upright bass. I can figure my way around it if I have to. I'm teaching myself how to play the cello. It's not going very well, so that's why, I don't include it in the five or six.

Speaker 3 23:54

My uncle plays the cello. It's hard, I don't know, maybe Sure. Yeah, it's a cool instrument, though I really like it. The cello is awesome. Yeah, I really was into at one point I was really into this band called Apocalyptica, and they did like a lot of Metallica and like rock songs. It was for cellists, though, awesome.

Speaker 1 24:14

Nerdy, but that's cool. Um, yeah, no, I played the violin of grade seven or eight.

Speaker 2 24:20

It's just a big violin.

Speaker 1 24:21

Yeah, yeah, it's just a big violin.

Speaker 3 24:22

Yeah, figure it out he played it like the violin, though that's why I wasn't very good at it.

Speaker 1 24:26

I was cricket sized at that age yeah, it was a big, big violin, but no, I got kicked out of music because I didn't know how to read music oh, I can't read music, yeah so I got kicked out grade 8.

Speaker 1 24:38

I got called out, I was in an orchestra and the and a composer lady I will not mention her, but we're still not friends. She literally kind of picked me up out of the class because she put new sheet music and I'd just listen around and be able to eventually kind of pick up what everybody else was putting down right, but could not read a note Music and they caught on. It's new sheet music. It's pretty easy to tell you don't know what you're doing right, because you're not even figuring it out.

Speaker 3 25:02

You're just looking and listening right.

Speaker 1 25:05

So how do you learn new instruments? So is it all by ear.

Speaker 2 25:09

It's all by ear.

Speaker 1 25:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:10

And we don't really have any musicians in the family. I know I have an uncle that's quite musical and he used to just bring home random instruments and just pick them up somehow.

Speaker 1 25:29

So I think I probably got it from him genetically, I guess. Yeah, yeah, I just play around with an instrument until I figure it out. Yeah, awesome, huh, incredible yeah, so you any shows or? Anything, no, no are you gonna make this? You should at least make the music for the intro for your new podcast right full circle.

Speaker 2 25:40

Yeah, yeah, totally, I'm gonna try to put something together well, we've been criticized about the music for this show.

Speaker 1 25:45

I have a friend of mine who's a magician, Not a magician a musician. Thank you.

Speaker 1 25:50

He might know some magic, I don't know, he's going to come over one of these days and help me re-record the song. He's been saying this since day one. He's like you've got to change that song. I'm like going to like get it online like, because you can buy songs online, obviously right, but there's so much stuff around copyrighted music and how you use it and this and that that I kind of pissed me off. So I was like I'll just make it on. I made it on my phone.

Speaker 3 26:12

Garage band on your iphone, it's a free app.

Speaker 1 26:15

I made the loop and I made it in about four minutes. Yeah, because we had this, the first episode, coming out like two days and that was it. So it's stuck with us a hundred and I don't hate it. 110 episodes yeah, kind of sounds like pornography music, but does a little bit, but whatever it works right, but I think it might be time for a change soon, so maybe we'll get some real music on there. So there you go?

Speaker 3 26:36

yeah, it'd be fun, yeah, I would try yeah, good, good side hustle for you too. You could do podcast music right, just Jingles, jingles, just give them away. Yeah, yeah, uncle Jesse, isn't that what he did on Full House? He did write Jingles.

Speaker 1 26:50

No.

Speaker 3 26:50

Wasn't it. He's a musician.

Speaker 1 26:52

Was it Jesse? Yeah, it was Jesse.

Speaker 3 26:54

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 26:55

And Dave helped him too, though, didn't he? Dave, coolidge, coolidge, dave Coulier, coulier.

Speaker 3 27:02

Yeah, joey, uncle, joey helped him.

Speaker 1 27:05

I think, write the songs, didn't he?

Speaker 3 27:06

No, I don't know, maybe I don't think so. That doesn't sound familiar. I haven't watched in a long time.

Speaker 2 27:11

Okay, that's right. Probably too young yeah that's right.

Speaker 1 27:14

So they were like the geezer show we're the old ones now.

Speaker 3 27:17

We are, yeah, so you understand you're old. Yeah, we're the old fogeys here talking about Star Wars and Full.

Speaker 1 27:23

House yeah, but man, oh man.

Speaker 3 27:26

But other than that, you actually are a pretty artsy person, because you're playing, you know, you do music, you know 15 instruments, but you're also into acting.

Speaker 2 27:38

Yes, yeah, since I was three or four.

Speaker 3 27:42

Three or four.

Speaker 2 27:43

Yeah, I also started dancing at three, four I think.

Speaker 3 27:47

Oh, so it all kind of started around the same age, so you're into the arts?

Speaker 2 27:51

Yeah, that's cool, love it.

Speaker 3 27:53

We have, yeah, I mean, we've had a few people from the film industry and things like that on the show and, uh, it does seem like it's starting to pick up a little bit here, um, with some stuff. So I still think it's hard to make a a living as an actor in this, in this province, unless you're going to be an actor and slash cameraman, slash writer, slash producer or something, but it uh yeah.

Speaker 3 28:17

So what? Uh, what made you get into acting like you said? Three. So I mean, I look at my kid and he's pretty dramatic and pretty. You know, he's a big personality, sometimes everything. And sometimes, if we were people who wanted to put his image out there, we were like can he be great at that? So what got the bug for you? Do you remember?

Speaker 2 28:40

I know it definitely started when I started performing on stage, because when you start dance that young, that's the first thing they do. They'll stick you up on a stage and make you a little dance monkey. So that was part of it, I think. Just being on a stage in front of tons of people, it just wakes something up in you. You love the attention and my mom would always have a camera on me at all times. And yeah, I just really liked it.

Speaker 3 29:07

So did you do like, were you really into like the school plays and things like that, or were you doing stuff outside of school?

Speaker 2 29:13

Mostly school plays. Yeah, I did a lot of Shakespeare growing growing up um and I still love shakespeare to this day. I would love to do more theater, but it's quite time consuming to do to do theater.

Speaker 1 29:25

So yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like you know you get three nights a week free for, and then every night for when a show runs. That's it's. It's unbelievable, right. It's a 40 hour a week job, right.

Speaker 2 29:36

So it's hard to do on top of your existing job it is, yeah, it is yeah, and that's the ultimate goal to make a comfortable living with real estate so that I can eventually support the acting and the music.

Speaker 1 29:46

That's, that's the plan yeah, that's a cool plan, yeah, yeah I think, it's.

Speaker 3 29:50

I think it's doable too well, I mean yeah, like where you can kind of you know you have mostly have control over your schedule you can do those things, Like if you need to take a couple days off to be in something you can. Right, so it's cool with the flexibility of that too.

Speaker 2 30:07

Definitely yeah.

Speaker 3 30:09

Speaking of theater and everything. Have you watched this show? Adolescence?

Speaker 2 30:13

No, but I've heard good things Okay lessons?

Speaker 3 30:16

no, but I've heard, I've heard good things. Okay, so my, my, we, my wife and I were, we, we've watched it and it, um, it's, it's really unique. So if anyone listen hasn't watched whatever, it's a british show and it's all done with one camera, one shot, one take. If they screw up, they had to start all over again.

Speaker 3 30:35

40 minute episode wow and so like they're lifting cameras up on drones and all this following people around. It's cinematically. It's pretty cool to see, like just with the video, and how it trails and everything um. But my wife was like, because I was sitting there thinking like, oh, this is crazy. Like how do you make sure you get it perfect? She's like, well, it's not that different in the theater. I was like, oh yeah, well, since you put it perfect. And she's like, well, it's not that different in the theater. And I was like, oh yeah, well, since you put it that way, I guess that's kind of true, right? Yeah, it's not that different in the theater. You put it on a two-hour show. Mm-hmm, you've got to know your lines. Yeah, you take they used for the episode that's cool yeah so you can look it up.

Speaker 3 31:16

It's like they had to do this, like there was. There was like one of them where it was like they had to run through it like 60 times or something stupid like that right the school episode is insane.

Speaker 1 31:25

I you like that and I didn't like it that much.

Speaker 3 31:27

That was one the reason I didn't like it is I felt that they it was impressive with the camera work because there was so much going on, uh that like the fact that they all they did with the camera and the fact it was all one take was pretty crazy, but I actually felt that like distracted me from the story. I found it was they did they almost did too much. The camera was too crazy. It was too much too much for the story.

Speaker 3 31:51

I loved the first episode. Yeah, it's crazy like it was so good, worth watching yeah, if you get a second.

Speaker 1 31:57

yeah, it's really good, Real good acting as well.

Speaker 3 31:59

I can't understand how people do that because, like, my brain just doesn't function that way. I tried doing school plays when I was in elementary and I can remember lines. I never got any lines. There was like you be the tree.

Speaker 1 32:12

Yeah yeah, yeah I always like directing more than like acting.

Speaker 2 32:15

Yeah a little bit more fun. I can see that, and producing and stuff too.

Speaker 1 32:18

But uh, yeah, you know I really love acting a whole lot. Right, I had a hard time with lines, like even remembering three lines and just going out and doing them and coming back I'd be like it's so hard to hit your mark sometimes right.

Speaker 2 32:30

So yeah, definitely yeah, it's a challenge, it's a passion for sure, yeah, no, I used to write scripts when I was like seven or eight on Microsoft word on this huge computer that we had at home and I would write out these I mean I say script. It was this like two page dialogue and I would pretend act all of the characters in them in my room.

Speaker 1 32:52

That's awesome.

The Hot Tub Story and Client Service

Speaker 2 32:53

And uh, that's yeah, them in my room and, uh, that's yeah, yeah, yeah, so didn't have a lot of friends going up, which I think shows.

Speaker 1 33:02

That's a cool hobby, bedford academy was mean, they were lonely right.

Speaker 2 33:05

I was a weird kid, it's okay it might make sense.

Speaker 1 33:08

Talking about acting, we had kristen green on this show this year and you know talk about a person just made their own opportunities the whole way.

Speaker 1 33:17

Like you know she didn't have it. Like you know, Nova Scotia is so sparse, right? How could I possibly get the role that I actually want to play? I mean, really, the truth is you might have to create it. So if you have writing skills and stuff you know, exercise them, Try to put them out, Find friends that will help you with the project and then just start making your own shit, Right, I mean, it's no different from the podcast world really Right, you know you just kind of start doing it for yourself.

Speaker 1 33:41

I think that's something that I mean, especially today, like technology is taking such a tremendous jump, we wouldn't have been able to do this podcast like this 20 years ago or 10 years ago. Right, but now right. You, right, but now right. You can make a pretty quality uh movie production off your iphone, right, with a few cheap lighting tricks that you can find on youtube, right, it's. It's totally different, right? So the the opportunity is there now to get creative and create your own shit.

Speaker 3 34:09

So I yeah, that's something I kind of took away from our chat with kristen too. He is like she very much was like I just wrote roles, yeah and put me in them kind of thing, right, yeah so chat with Kristen too. She very much was like I just wrote roles and put me in them.

Speaker 1 34:20

So I mean that's always an option too, right? So go into your deepest kind of what you want to do and then just give it a go. I've got a few scripts, too, that I want to put out one of these days. We'll see If I get time.

Speaker 3 34:33

I'll probably run out.

Speaker 1 34:34

I'm already too old for the roles that I wrote. I wrote them that long ago.

Speaker 2 34:38

I will play all of them.

Speaker 3 34:41

That'll long to be an interesting movie.

Speaker 1 34:44

We got a gangster rapper from Dartmouth. You want to do that one? That's a fun one. We got a lot of different roles, so we'll see what's up. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 34:52

I think it'd be fun to kind of get into some of that a little bit. I was never really into the arts but I had a bit of that creative itch and that's why I like about this and everything.

Speaker 1 35:03

One of the action roles we are well, we're actually I got Matt doing with me. Oh yeah, Now this is actually we have to keep it somewhat quiet because there's an NDA, so it's working with RCMP officers right for their training programs. Okay, so I've been helping them for about 10 or more years and what it is is we basically meet with some RCMP officers and we help with their staff. So these guys kind of organize their own scripts and their own scenarios and stuff and we play various roles that they would assign for us to play and scenarios where we would be a character, maybe at different intervals, in a relationship with police officers whether they're trying to be an informant or they were a criminal or whatever.

Speaker 1 35:42

Right, it's very cool and uh, yeah, I've been doing it for a bit and you learn so much about people and the human experience. I mean, they're trying to teach, uh, they're trying to teach a lot of things, but I mean, uh, you know, one of them is just the human connection right, yeah you know, and uh, and how valuable it is. It's such a cool learning experience. So, yeah, yeah. That sounds cool Get you on one of those, if you like.

Speaker 1 36:03

Whatever, yeah, yeah, there you go that would be easier than you playing a rapper from Dartmouth. I think yeah, but Maybe that's my thing.

Speaker 2 36:12

You don't know that, kim.

Speaker 1 36:13

A what? Kim A, kim A, kim A. That's kind of a good way to start off a track, I think Kim A.

Speaker 3 36:22

Or K-M-I-A.

Speaker 1 36:25

K-M-I-A. You've got a good name to spell out in a rap. K-i-m-i-a Mother, yeah Right, you could just kill it yeah.

Speaker 2 36:33

That's my next single coming out right there Selling real tea all day mother Right. Love it.

Speaker 3 36:39

Stay out of my way. She sings, she sings, she plays.

Speaker 2 36:42

She's going to do the whole thing. I'm taking notes.

Speaker 3 36:44

I am, I am. Next thing, you know, she's going to come Like literally next year. She's writing a musical. Okay, then For me yeah, that was not your best man. No, no, no, no, sorry. I told you I was tired today she's going to take that little snippet, though that's what she's putting on for everything now, that's right.

Speaker 1 37:13

That'll be the worst marketing idea you've ever had.

Speaker 2 37:15

Or the best.

Speaker 3 37:16

Or the best. Yeah, We'll see I'm going to go with. It's so terrible, it's great.

Speaker 1 37:20

Okay, cool.

Speaker 3 37:21

Love it, I agree.

Speaker 3 37:23

Well, so here's the thing. So how actually I met Kimia is that we are in a networking group and honestly, a big part of why I kind of approached her to kind of be a sponsor on the show and everything, we were talking to people in the networking group anyway. We were talking to people in the networking group anyway. But honestly, just listening to you talk a lot about the industry and some of the things in there is actually really what heavily kind of won me over, because I'm in the insurance industry for 13, 14 years. I know more real estate agents than I probably need to Right, right, right. But what I will say is just some of the stories that you've told and some of the just kind of how you handle clients and how you handle certain things in the approach that you took. That's kind of what won me over to say like, okay, no, she's going to be the right person for this show. Right, because you can have a really good real estate agent.

Speaker 3 38:20

My mother works at a law firm that does a lot of real estate law and I know she kind of emphasizes like, oh, this real estate agent is really good at the paperwork. That's really important to her, obviously, and that can be really important because things can get done real well. But I think it can matter to a person about how well the paperwork is, but I think really what matters in all sales and all service and dealing with people in relationships is everyone's going to remember how you made them feel right, no matter what, and I think that was a big thing. So that was a huge compliment for you, like because out of all the people I could have approached, for a real estate agent to potentially be a sponsor here, like you know, for me to go with someone who at that time I only knew only knew you for like a year maybe-ish.

Speaker 2 39:04

Maybe, if even that.

Speaker 3 39:06

So honestly, yeah, kudos to you. Honestly, you do a good job and sometimes I'm pretty surprised at some of the stories you tell, and not everyone goes that full extra mile.

Speaker 2 39:19

I'm a huge people pleaser. I was kind of raised that way. I come from a very family-oriented culture and I treat my clients the same way. I would do anything for them, and if I know that something's not going their way, I will try my best to make it go their way, and sometimes that's to my detriment. I have cut my commission. I have taken money out of my own um, my own bank account for my clients just to get them yeah, just to get, make sure that they get the best end of of whatever deal that they're going through.

Speaker 3 39:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2 39:53

Um, there's my, my hot tub story.

Speaker 3 39:55

I remember this and I was like I was like I'm going to ask her if she can tell it Totally.

Speaker 2 39:59

Of course yeah.

Speaker 3 40:01

You got to hear this hot tub story.

Speaker 1 40:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2 40:03

This was early on, I'd say I was maybe two years, three years in and I'd been working with these clients from Ontario and they had a pretty hefty budget and they were only coming to town to view houses on the weekend. So it was obviously we were seeing like 10, 15 houses. On a Saturday They'd fly back to Ontario, wouldn't see them for two weeks and then again Saturday they'd be back to view another like 10 houses. So they were here one weekend and I'd shown them like 10, 11 houses in a row. And at that point even the most organized realtor starts to get a little confused about what they saw in each house. And the last two houses we saw that day, they both had hot tubs. One of the hot tubs was included with the sale and the other one was negotiable, oh, okay.

Speaker 2 40:51

In my head. No, no, I got them confused. They ended up offering on the one where the hot tub was negotiable. It wasn't actually included and we didn't find out until a couple weeks before closing. The seller had sent over a list of negotiable items for the buyer to purchase if they wanted to outside of the deal. The hot tub was on the list. My client called me very, very upset and I just thought that was my mistake. I should have written that into the offer and I'm a huge paperwork person. I love paperwork. I'm right on top of it. But again, this one time just didn't stay on top of it and I paid. It was like $6,500 out of my commission to pay for the hot tub to stay.

Speaker 2 41:34

Wow Because that was my mistake and it shouldn't have gone that way. And now I have clients for life because they're very happy and they're very appreciative of what I did, 100%. And I didn't do it for the business side of it. I genuinely did it because I felt bad. That was my mistake, yeah, and I wanted to right the wrong. And, yeah, I even asked the listing agent. I was like, well, you know, you can help me out a little bit. That was my mistake. Can you ask the sellers if maybe they'll cut the price in half? It cut the price in half. It's a used hot tub at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 42:21

She said nope, we're not doing that. That was your mistake, this and that you see a lot of people's nasty faces come out in this business a lot, and I try to keep a level head when it comes to that, so yeah, and you don't have to say any names, but like is there, are there any?

Speaker 3 42:37

is there any other like real estate agents that you just were like avoid?

Speaker 2 42:42

um, I'm a pretty relaxed person when it comes to different people. I don't know if it's the background in psychology or if it's just me as a person, I don't know. I get along with most people, yeah, or at least I try to, and in this business you can't let other people get to you because then you're not servicing your client. That's true. If my clients want to see a house and the realtor that has it listed I don't have a good relationship with, I can't do anything about that. I'm not servicing my client if I say no, I'm not going to show you that house. I don't like that person.

Speaker 3 43:12

Right. Do you feel that, by any chance, that if for some reason, you had this rival real estate agent, do you feel that that could impact the deal that you're getting though? It could, yeah, yeah, absolutely Whether they favor your offer or not, and things like that.

Speaker 2 43:33

Definitely. Yeah, Favoritism does play a huge role in this business. And again, when you have 23 offers on the table, you are going to have those agents who are going to call their favorite realtor and say, hey, can you guys up your offer by X amount.

Speaker 3 43:46

Right.

Speaker 2 43:47

We are not allowed to do that. But again, people business, it happens. Favoritism.

Speaker 1 43:53

So you mentioned earlier about first-time homebuyers, right?

Speaker 2 43:55

Yeah, oh, yeah, good Okay.

Speaker 1 43:58

So say you were a first-time homebuyer, what's like the do's and don'ts, did you think like, if you're kind of getting into it, maybe a couple things you should look out for when you're going into buying your first home things?

Speaker 2 44:09

you should be ready for. Do work on your credit. That's one that a lot of first-time homebuyers don't think will affect them, especially if you are going in. So we have a really good program program, the down payment assistance program. Here in nova scotia. The government will help you. They'll essentially loan you the five percent for your down payment. It's you don't have to pay it off for 10 years. It's interest free. It's fantastic. But they do check your credit for that you have to have a minimum score.

Speaker 2 44:37

um, they do look into your debts and obviously all the regular things that they'll look into, but it's little things like that that they don't realize. Oh, you know, I'll just pay that credit card off when I get to it. So that's always a conversation I urge people to have is, if you're concerned or if you're not sure where to start, just call me or email me. I'm always happy to have a chat. Like I said, that feeling that I got when we bought our first house. I want more people under 30 to be able to experience that. So I'm always happy to have that conversation. And the other thing is be patient. A lot of first-time homebuyers again, it's a very competitive market out there. They will write one or two offers, They'll get beat out, they lose all hope and they say, they say no, no, it's just not going to happen not meant for me, but like I have first-time home buyers right now.

Speaker 2 45:24

I've been working with them for a year, wow, and again they keep getting beat out. It's just not working out, but I prepped them for that. When we first started, I said you guys need to be patient.

Speaker 3 45:34

It's going to take a while, but it will happen you know, I'll even double down on that like, because I bought, like my, my wife and I bought our place, like I said, eight years ago and we actually looked for a house for four years. Four years Because my wife moved from Quebec and she's like, hey, I want a place next to the ocean. So that was like her stipulation, right?

Speaker 2 45:56

Yeah.

Speaker 3 45:57

My stipulation, being in the insurance industry, is I have a three-strikes-you're-out If it's like three things in the insurance industry is I have a three-strikes-you're-out If it's like three things that the insurance industry doesn't love, I was like nah, so we were going to places that we liked and I was like axing it once we get to three things Like aluminum wiring, nope, kind of thing, you know, going through it and whatever, right. So it took us four years and it felt really awful sometimes, I mean, because we're just like, oh, we're ever going to get a place, kind of thing, right. And we came really close, really close, with one real estate agent, um, where we almost bought a place we were two grand away from and I, but we had hit where I was like this is our max. My wife was still a student at the time, so it was all like I was paying for everything at the time and uh, so we were two grand away, I said hard no, and that person who had been sitting on the house for at that point, I think for like eight months, wow, yeah, right. And uh, I was. I was like they'll come down two extra just to make it not sit again, right, and they didn't. They hardly had their hard no, and so I was like no, I'm stubborn. So I was like no, no, that's it.

Speaker 3 47:04

Um, but I remember we had to leave that, that agent because we were going through the process of making the offers, we had to leave that real estate agent because they left my like she was not my, she was my fiance at the time, but they left her off the offers. And my wife was pissed, oh, wow, yeah, like it was just my name throughout all the documents in it. So, yeah, I uh, uh. We ended up, once that house fell through, we took that as a sign to find a new real estate agent, cause my wife was like why is she only talking to you? Why is? Why is your name the only one on this paperwork, kind of thing. Yeah, so it was.

Speaker 1 47:46

That's like a do for realtors. Do include both partners when buying a property. Or ask I get, like you know we weren't married yet.

Speaker 3 47:53

Right and I get like I was the only income and all that stuff. So but like ask like hey, you know both of you guys going to be on this.

Speaker 2 48:00

Yes, I always ask yeah because you can't assume no yeah.

Speaker 3 48:05

So then we ended up changing. That's another reason why it took us so long, because we ended up dropping that real estate agent and going with another and eventually we found some stuff. But patience, you're 100% right. Patience Because you don't want to rush into something. I know people who rushed into buying houses and then had to end up selling them just even a few years later because it ended up being overwhelming. They probably got into a house with more money than they thought and, yeah, you don't want to end up in a really bad situation just because you really want that place.

Selling Tips and Home Staging

Speaker 1 48:39

So, camille, you can help people sell their homes too, right? Oh yeah, so we kind of talked about the dues briefly there for what you could do if you're buying a home. I've been selling a home. What's some of the big dues for that?

Speaker 2 48:56

That's a little more complex because that you kind of have to take on a case-by-case basis. It really depends on the seller, it depends on their financial situation.

Speaker 1 49:05

Sure yeah.

Speaker 2 49:06

Depends on how much work the house needs. If it's in such disrepair that even staging won't save it then, that's the way we have to go.

Speaker 1 49:13

Is there any real calm and cheap or easy things that are often overlooked?

Speaker 2 49:18

Yes definitely. Yeah, I mean a fresh coat of paint. That does wonders yeah, little things like just open up your curtains, bring some light into the house, that just the little things like that give the house a good clean, because you might. Obviously you live in your house every day. You're used to the way it looks, the way it smells yeah so you have to bring in a realtor, because we use all of our senses to tell you okay, this house smells like cat litter. You guys might want to go air out the windows or something like that.

Speaker 2 49:48

I had a client once who bred cats?

Speaker 1 49:50

What? Oh no, bred cats, she bred cats, yeah, and the second I walked into the house. I was like this is not an odor, I'm familiar with.

Speaker 2 49:59

And she was like, yeah, I breed cats in the basement, so little things like that.

Speaker 1 50:02

Oh, that would be awful. Make a hard sell, right it?

Speaker 2 50:05

was yeah, I mean, the odor was probably our number one issue when that house hit the market, Even though we'd been airing it out for weeks. I had air fresheners, I had candles going everything you can think of and we ended up selling it obviously, but yeah, up selling it obviously, but yeah, little things like that.

Speaker 3 50:26

So you should always bring in someone for a second opinion to let you know the. So I could ask you about staging. Yeah, because I'm like I don't know. I'm kind of I'm like I don't know if I think does it really work?

Speaker 1 50:36

like I know I understand making it totally works.

Speaker 3 50:39

What do you mean? Okay, I'll explain what I mean by this. I understand you can stage it and you can make it look better, but do you get enough to justify the cost of spending for staging?

Speaker 2 50:53

I would say yes. So just statistically speaking, staged homes they sell 70% faster than an unstaged home.

Speaker 1 51:01

Okay.

Speaker 2 51:02

And the nice thing is you don't necessarily have to pay for furniture, you don't have to do the whole thing.

Speaker 1 51:08

Right.

Speaker 2 51:09

A good stager can actually come in and just stage it with your own things Yep, and that's mostly what I do. Okay, I bring in my stager for all of my listings, yep, and she spends three, four hours with the homeowner. I'm there as well and we just move stuff around and that makes a huge difference.

Speaker 1 51:25

It would give you the difference from looking and going into a house that's lived in to a house you can see yourself living in.

Speaker 2 51:32

Exactly.

Speaker 3 51:33

Oh, there's a good tagline. Well, no, but it's just like Did you steal that from somebody? You're not clever enough to think of that? I thought of that.

Speaker 1 51:38

Yeah, I thought of that myself. Don't be an asshole.

Speaker 3 51:41

She's taking that. No, you can have it.

Speaker 1 51:44

But totally notice. I remember when our home was staged and how beautiful it was. And it just totally we saw we could see ourselves living in there, and then we had so many questions about, like what was in that closet, like what do you think they do for a living, you know. But yeah, no, I think it totally works because it totally just gives you a little bit of a pounce so you can see what you want to do with the place yourself.

Speaker 2 52:08

Definitely. Yeah Well the number one do would be depersonalize, depersonalize, that's the thing. I always walk in and I'm like hey, take those pictures of your grandkids off the wall. Take all of these pictures off the wall. Take down this, take down that. If you're a huge sports fan, take that stuff down the wall, because not everyone is a big sports fan.

Speaker 3 52:25

I noticed that you took all of Chip's Toronto stuff down.

Speaker 2 52:28

Yes, he was actually. You know, he was a pretty good sport about that.

Speaker 1 52:32

I walked in like a tornado and I took everything down, so all that stuff was up with the previous realtor.

Speaker 2 52:37

Eh yes, oh yeah, it was, and I walked in with a huge list of things to do and most of it was take stuff off the walls and him and his mom were incredible, incredible with it. They were so patient with me.

Speaker 3 52:49

Actually I got a text from Chip Like honestly he was, and he said he was like dude, thank you for recommending Camilla, because she's already done 15 times more what the previous realtor has done. So and he was like it's been like a week, that's cool.

Speaker 1 53:03

Well, good luck. That's an awesome endorsement. Yeah so, yeah, so I think we don't got much time left. I know you got to be somewhere here soon, so we got 10 questions.

Speaker 2 53:12

Oh gosh, and you had a gift for me, oh yeah, okay, cool, so it's a two-parter.

Speaker 3 53:28

Two-parter. Okay, I'm excited. Socks, oh wow the brew socks.

Speaker 2 53:29

Oh, that's really cool. That is really cool. Thank you so much. That's so cool. And then I. There might be a fight about who gets to keep it, but I got you this little ipa a lot.

Speaker 3 53:37

Ipa a lot when I get ipa a lot when I love, when I drink. I like this.

Speaker 1 53:42

I hired one for the For the audio crowd, so there is a beer Plush toy. It says IPA, which is one of our favorite beers. A lot when I drink, so I like it.

Speaker 3 53:52

You can figure that out. You know what I think. What we do is. I have an idea for this.

Speaker 1 53:56

This could be the new mascot For the show.

Speaker 3 53:57

We could just sit him in the middle and bring him to every episode and uh and see if people address him or not.

Speaker 1 54:04

I think that's what we should and if he addresses him, you get a free endorsement. We say that's convenient as, yeah, pretty much that realty gave us that yeah yeah, there you go. Good boss, move camilla k to the I to the m to the. I to the a. Yeah, good move. Yeah, all right, let's get into, let's go, let's get into the 10 questions here, because I told you guys, I was tired today. I must be a little weird.

Speaker 3 54:26

Okay, all right, so remember that's good. You saved some beer because you've got to take a drink.

Speaker 2 54:31

Yes, yeah, I was taking it slow because I figured for the game.

Speaker 3 54:35

Yeah, that's right. So do you want me to start? Go ahead, all right, so question number. Oh, there's one I missed. You can fill one in there, sure. So question number one what is the craziest?

Speaker 1 54:54

thing that you've seen when going for an initial viewing of a home.

Speaker 2 54:59

Oh my God, that same client that bred cats, her two cats were doing it in the basement, I guess that was.

Speaker 3 55:10

That was pretty awkward for me.

Speaker 2 55:10

Okay, no sex swings or anything like that no, I felt like I interrupted because they both just looked up at me like mid-act that's terrible, okay.

Speaker 1 55:19

Um, what's one of your favorite albums to listen to?

Speaker 2 55:22

Favorite albums, Like CDs albums, or is there?

Speaker 1 55:25

even like growing up or present day From any part of your life.

Speaker 2 55:30

I'm a huge Burton Cummings fan.

Speaker 3 55:31

Okay, awesome.

Speaker 2 55:33

So his, oh my God, what's it called? It's the one of his face. It's red, not his face, but the album's red.

Speaker 3 55:40

Yes.

Speaker 2 55:41

My Own Way to Rock yeah. I love that album Start to finish.

Speaker 3 55:45

Awesome, britain Cummings is pretty awesome. Great answer. All right, so question number three, because we know you like acting. So what is an acting role that would be a dream for you to play?

Speaker 2 55:56

Anything in American Horror Story. Oh, okay, that's my favorite TV show of all time, all time. Of all time, yeah, and anything in that show would be an absolute dream.

Speaker 3 56:06

I do like that. I like their concept about how every season is different and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 56:13

Yeah, the anthology style is very cool. Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 1 56:16

So the next question. You spelled it wrong, but I'm going to run with it. No, I didn't spell it wrong. You meant to say what bear is the best, not what beer is the best.

Speaker 3 56:23

No, say it correctly which beer, which bear is best, which bear is?

Speaker 1 56:31

best. I don't like the way you said that that's how it's said in the office. Oh, what's the best bear?

Speaker 3 56:46

you don't remember that episode?

Speaker 1 56:47

from the office.

Speaker 3 56:48

No where jim dressed up like dwight and he sat down. He's like which bear is best? Gosh you're, you're hurt on the tv oh my god all right.

Speaker 2 56:58

I don't remember what the answer was on the show. I've seen the office. I can't remember that.

Speaker 3 57:02

Dwight started freaking out about impersonation. He's like identity theft is a serious crime, jim oh. And he was like bears beats Battlestar Galactica. That's all he said. Oh my gosh, okay.

Speaker 1 57:15

All right, that totally got missed, all right.

Speaker 3 57:18

You take number five.

Speaker 1 57:19

No, wait a second, let's just okay, we're going to go back. We're going to do this question. Okay, which bear is the best bear? What bears do you like the most? Could be any bear in the animal kingdom or a TV bear.

Speaker 2 57:33

I love Little Bear, little Bear Remember that show?

Speaker 1 57:36

Oh, yeah, I do. Yeah, you don't remember that.

Speaker 3 57:39

No, I didn't watch it, but I remember. I know what it is Shadowed a Little Girl, no Paddington. Oh.

Speaker 1 57:44

Paddington.

Speaker 2 57:45

There you go, I take it back Paddington.

Speaker 1 57:47

All right, we got that question back. That's cool, I like it.

Speaker 3 57:51

Grizzly's back but anyway, what instrument is the easiest to learn in your opinion?

Speaker 2 58:09

um probably piano okay, I would say drums but the thing with drums is there's so much going on at once so that some people might think that that's quite difficult. So piano, I'd say interesting cool answer.

Speaker 1 58:15

I would have said tambourine, but oh see's a, I was giving people some benefit there, yeah okay, the triangle, I guess. Triangle is also yeah, okay six. What's the cheapest area to buy a home in Nova Scotia right now? What's one of the lower cost areas?

Speaker 2 58:37

Oh, Out in the boonies of Cape Breton. I'd probably say yeah somewhere around there, Like you could get houses for under $200,000. Rural Cape Breton Now is it still cheap down in like?

Speaker 1 58:51

Fredericton, I know you're just not in your province. It used to be dirt cheap to get a house in like Fredericton and St.

Speaker 2 58:56

John, it's still pretty cheap in New Brunswick compared to us. It's still very cheap, yeah, very cheap in New Brunswick compared to us.

Speaker 1 59:00

Compared to us. Yeah, it's still very cheap. Yeah, cool. Okay, I think you've got the next question. Yeah, I do.

Speaker 3 59:03

Question number seven Name one real estate agent. You can't stand and you can take a drink. Yeah, that's good. There you go. Wow, I can't.

Speaker 2 59:22

There's names running through my head but I can't say it. What a crazy question to ask, I know.

Speaker 1 59:27

He knew what he did when he went there.

Ten Questions Game with Kimia

Speaker 3 59:28

Yeah, I knew what he did. I 100% knew what he did. I just wanted to make a drink once, oh okay, cool, okay.

Speaker 1 59:34

Next question. This is a realty question again Ocean view or Lake Access.

Speaker 2 59:40

Oh, depends on the person. Really, yeah, do you mean in terms of what's worth more?

Speaker 3 59:48

Sure, let's go with that. You can answer it any way, I left it completely open.

Speaker 2 59:51

Okay, personally, I like Ocean View more than Lake Access.

Speaker 3 59:55

Okay.

Speaker 2 59:58

In Nova Scotia a lot of places are Ocean View just because we're so close to the ocean.

Speaker 1 1:00:02

Yep.

Speaker 2 1:00:03

Yeah Cool.

Speaker 3 1:00:05

Good answer, thank you, I like it. Question number nine you're going to have to ask it or tell me what it is, because I left it off.

Speaker 1 1:00:13

Okay, I think I see a question number nine here, as what would your last meal be?

Speaker 3 1:00:19

Oh, okay, I just sent it to you and filled it.

Speaker 2 1:00:23

Does it have to be just one thing, or can it be a whole spread?

Speaker 1 1:00:26

Give a whole meal here. Last meal death row. You're going to jail for selling a bad house, Okay.

Speaker 3 1:00:34

Bad house, haunted house. Oh, there you go.

Speaker 2 1:00:39

It would be the Holy Smoke Burger from Jack Haster's. Okay, my favorite burger of all time Cool Sushi.

Speaker 1 1:00:46

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 1:00:48

And a nice big ice cold Diet Coke.

Speaker 3 1:00:55

Ice cold Diet Coke. Love it.

Speaker 2 1:00:56

That's your jam and a slice of vanilla cake and a what Vanilla cake, yeah, is vanilla cake like just any vanilla cake, or is vanilla cake a thing? Just any vanilla cake Cool.

Speaker 1 1:01:07

Yeah, all right. So our last question. We ask everybody Matt go ahead, buddy.

Speaker 3 1:01:11

So what's one piece of advice that you were given that you would like to share with us?

Speaker 2 1:01:20

Always be humble, always Cool. Always, always, cool always always, always, and not just with things. Don't be humble with the money you have and the stuff like that, but with information, because as humans we never know enough. There's so much for us to learn in this world, and it's just always be humble about what you know, okay awesome I like it. My dad taught me that. Yeah, oh, there you go. How do people find you if they?

Speaker 1 1:01:44

It's just always be humble about what you know. Okay, awesome, I like it. My dad taught me that.

Speaker 3 1:01:47

Oh, there you go, camilla how do people find you if they want to?

Speaker 1 1:01:49

work with you, buy or sell a house, buy or sell a house.

Speaker 2 1:01:50

Thank you, I am very easy to find. I'm on Instagram camillanarealtor, the exact same on Facebook. My phone number is 902-880-8429. And my email is just Kimia at exitmetroca.

Speaker 1 1:02:07

Too easy. Thanks for being a friend of the show and a sponsor. We appreciate it.

Speaker 3 1:02:11

Very much so.

Speaker 2 1:02:11

And we appreciate you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Cheers, cheers, cheers. Bye.