SEAS7 - 327 - James Minchau was back to chat about home security and so much more!

James Minchau sits down with host Curtis Pope to talk about home security and so much more!

James Minchau
Personal Real Estate Corporation
Realtor®
RE/MAX Magnolia
Phone:  604-300-6497
Email: jamesminchau@gmail.com

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✅ Instagram: @jamesminchau
✅ Facebook: James Minchau

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Transcript

Flower Power.
It's time for the REMAX Magnoli real estate show with myself Curtis Pope and we are joined by James minchow today. What is happening, my friend, been a good couple of weeks since we've crossed paths. Has been, it has been, it has been way too long, and hopefully you didn't get into much trouble with Richard last week. Well, any of the calls go to Michelle? Oh, okay, good. Well, then at least I don't have to take them, and you don't. So I did say the disclaimer I think twice this last week, that all the opinions on this are Richard Cummins, not that of REMAX Magnolia or Rogers, our parent company, Oh, yeah. Or that of even maybe Canada, yeah. Really, they're just him, yeah. So I just get that out of the way so that if there's any complaints, they don't come to me very good. And I mean, they know where to get to Michelle. She's made that joke too. She's like, if they get they want to complain, they know where to find me nowhere. She knows how to defend and then she'll say, I know, I know I heard it too.
I love it.
So good.
So what are we chatting about today? We are chatting about security when looking for real estate. You know, there's a lot of people who are security minded when you're looking for a home. I mean, maybe you've come from a place that was insecure, there's a lot of break ins around you, or maybe there was just a lot of people peering or maybe you think they were breaking in, but it's just me locked out of my house again. Yes, yeah, that's usually the case. If it was weird, because the other day I was come home and there was a guy trying to break into my house. And it was courteous, so he thought it was he was he thought it was time to record the show. I said, it's not Saturday morning. Yeah. I was a little confused. That's right,
but yeah, so because a lot of people that's a, that's a, that's a big thing, right? I mean, in this day and age, people want to know, especially when you're moving in from from a place you know, you don't know the city so well. I just handed some keys off this morning, actually, no yesterday morning,
for a for a couple who who've moved to mission for the very first time, and they didn't know anything about it. And so, you know, we had to, we had to really talk about the neighborhoods when we were looking for homes, and security was big on their minds too. I remember that being because my kids were quite young when we moved back, and that was top of my mind too. Is I got a newborn, a two year old and a four year old. I need to have decent yard, and I need, I need it to be a secure place. And our agent at the time was, she was excellent. She was like, you know, I will. She was like, this neighborhood, no, you don't want to be over here. No, you don't want to be here. No, you don't want to. You want to be over here, here and here, kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's and oftentimes, like, when you're looking for security, you will find that the more secure neighborhoods maybe have a slightly higher price, price range. So if security isn't your main option, you know, tell your tell your realtor that, and then they won't. They won't, they won't, really. They'll try to find the, you know, the places that fit your budget more. So if somebody comes to you and says, I want to live on East Hastings at Carroll Street, yeah, I said, How high up do you mind, yeah, living, and how far down do you mind putting your car? Yes, because, as we know, that's one of the worst crime rates in Canada. That was my first radio show. Was it on Hastings in Carroll, oh, and the cooperating Co Op radio. Co Op radio, that's my first rate. I talked to them briefly about having a show when I was much, much younger, when I was before BCIT. I was playing music on that show every Friday, Friday night, I would, I'd have my own show. I discovered where they were, and I went, no go to school. We actually were hauling some gear. And we were, they were helped the the residents of pigeon Park were offering to help us carry our gear, which was very nice. Were they saying where they're going to carry it to? Yeah, they didn't
insecure. So, so So there you go. If people are offering to help you bring your groceries in at your house, you might want to say, perhaps this is an insecure yes, if you don't know these people and they carry your groceries off, but you can get around that by having things like a gated community. So a lot of gated communities are town homes, but they don't have to be. Some gated communities are bare land stratas that have your single family home with your nice yard, even some acreages, um, I have seen with gated communities. And a gated community isn't just isn't 100% safe, because literally, there's lots of ways to get around a gate. We all know how to use a ladder? I think,
in theory, yeah, in theory and but they just they are, if you can break into a place, if you're, if you're my crime friend over here, if you can break into a place that needs a ladder to get over a gate or doesn't, how are you going to carry a.
Some stuff. Oh, back over the fence. It's going to be tough. So you're just going to say, I'll get the next one. So right off the bat, gates will stop. You know, a large percentage of folks who are just randomly breaking into something or just randomly wanting to to spray paint stuff, yeah, let's just say spray paint. That's as bad as it gets. Or my neighbor over just a couple months ago, I left my car unlocked and my Ray Ban sunglasses and about 60 cents were gone when I came out in the morning. Oh, yeah, some, some, sometimes it's, it's worse with the things that they take from your open car than then from the change. Yeah, I was just like, I do not, you know. I'm like, I'll fill out a police report just in case I'm not getting the Ray Bans back, but just in case somebody's got, you know, ring camera around and they catch them down the road, they'll know these belong to me. But it was funny, like, I'm filling out the report, and I'm like, and it's like, anything else? Well, I think they got about 65 cents and change that was in the cup holder, but I'm not expecting that back.
We'll find it. Sir,
wouldn't mind the Ray Bans back. But so true, so true. But lesson learned, even though I live in a good area, yeah, people can wander around and yeah, exactly they can. And with, with, with gates, you're not really, um, you're any sort of access point where they can get through is going to be cameraed. So you're always going to be able to see, you know, who's who's walking around there. Often in gated communities too, there's, there's good there's good lighting around and there. And people who live in gated communities normally have cameras and things like that. So any of your neighbors are usually going to have some kind of footage there. And so that's a that's a big thing. It's like, Can you find me a gated community that is a
single family homes?
And then the the other thing that the people are looking for in in security is the gadgets. And so gadgets are fairly easy to install from an alarm company. So this is cameras, this is security systems. This is a outdoor motion sensing monitoring. This is a ring camera. Ring camera, yeah, now like on your door, yeah, off of amazon for a good price. And yeah, it takes no time to install and and those, those ring cameras are great for for selling your home too, because you you get to see what everybody's talking about when they're leaving your your house. Because generally, they're, they're always summing summing up the the the
experience when they're leaving your house and and most people with the ring cameras are sitting there on their cameras, watching the ring camera as the people are leaving their home after a show. So there's a little tip. There's a little tip. If you're selling your home and you have a ring camera, you can hear a lot. And if you are showing a home, other realtors tell your clients that they're on camera and on audio, because you are almost all the time these days when showing Big Brother is watching, that's right, but they're very Orwellian here. Oh, yeah, Orwellian, or staying well enough alone.
Whoa, ouch. You can edit that that. No, I like it, yeah, okay, no, I'm leaving that. That's going right up on the podcast version. It's not going anywhere. That's right. But these, these security features, are often written in the actual MLS sheets and so and on. Realtor.ca it'll say all the features of the home. It'll often say security system. And so ask your your realtor, what kind of security system, and there could be some really fancy ones, which are completely monitored by, you know, your cell phone, as well as a outside company. You can have the ones that this is security for Central Station, identify yourself immediately the recording that comes on, or just somebody from overseas who who is monitoring your alarm, and can call the police if, if they don't give you the right the right password. Other super cool things that can be
secure security for your home are natural barriers, and so these are things like water. You know, if these aren't going to cross water to get into building a moat around my house now,
Castle Pope, the Pope's castle.
I like that. Can it be a lazy river, at least, so I can, you know, enjoy and you know, my my wife, just went to sip and dip last night, and they sat in the lazy river for about 45 minutes to an hour, and didn't even get off. Sounds about, right? Yeah. So yeah, we can make a lazy river in in on Castle Pope. So if you guys want to go on the lazy river, where it's, what's the address,
somewhere in Abbotsford, BC, just look for the bright lights.
And the shiny Pope hats. Um, but yeah, water can be or or even like a steep hill behind because the kinds of folks who are going to come into your house unless they have a real good reason to steal your 1957
Les Paul guitar, and they know what you've you've got, if they're just randomly coming at you. They ain't walking up a big, steep hill to get to get you. I know where I live, there's a there's a big, steep hill all around me, and the sort of kind of population that might randomly break into houses they live below me, and I know that they're never walking up because they can't. I mean, you know, the kind of crowd who randomly breaks into things generally, are sort of on the the lower end of the of the health range, and they just can't make it up that big, steep hill. So a steep hill coming up to your neighborhood is actually a detractor. If somebody's on foot wants to break in or on a bike, like they normally are, is that they're quiet and they can get through small spaces. They're not riding up that hill to get you find a place on top of a on top of a hill with only exits down or having a hill behind you, so that the only way out up to your place is up your street. And if there's a nice steep hill behind you full of trees and Bush, that's going to be pretty secure, because nobody's going to go straight up a steep hill. And so mission has a lot of these steep hills, even with Abbotsford Eagle Mountain. Eagle Mountain has all these, these steep hills too. So you, you can kind of see, like Eagle Mountain, somebody's not going to be walking up there. Or like Westwood drive that's up on ledge view. I mean, that's that's going to be a real steep hill to get up. You're pretty secure from those random break ins, because they need to ride their bike up that steep hill. And that's really not going to work. So having some sort of natural barriers, a big field of of blackberries, you know, beside you, nobody's going to be walking through that. A swamp, a really dense forest. Sometimes for us is, is cover, but sometimes it's, it's not, and it depends what the what the forest is all about. But like blackberries, nobody's going to be walking through there to actually come and break in. So just look, look for those things as as well. Right? What about a dog? It's got to help. I have a dog, and you know what? She's the most friendly, happy dog on the planet, unless you're a bad guy, in which case, I came in dressed like a bad guy once, and she didn't smell me or something. She didn't hear me, and I thought she was gonna rip my face in in two. So, yeah, but, but, I mean, you don't normally think of that when you're looking for real estate. That's kind of what this is. No, a dog is very important if you don't like, you know, monitor security systems. Our 20 pound Corgi likes to bark at people walking across the street. Good, good enough. But the great thing is, she's only a 20 pound Corgi, but she's got a much girthier bark. She sounds much bigger than what she is. Well, you could put like, a little amplifier on her back and a pitch shifter. You see, I get into my car and she'll be barking, and I'm like, that sounds like a way bigger dog than what she is. I don't have a problem with that, yeah, yeah. My mind's a German Shepherd, and children can lay on top of her in a giant dog pile. But if a bad guy comes, I'm sorry, yeah, but, but, you know, having, having that, that dog in your in your in your house, when somebody's gonna go steal the 60 cents out of your car and they step into and if your doggy can hear that, apparently she didn't, apparently that night she didn't that maybe they were really quiet. But you know, if it if they are making noise, I know mine will bark at any little a feather falling in the in the front yard at night. So I gotta get one of those signs, Beware of Dog and the cat's pretty shady too. Yes, yes, our cat is pretty shady, one of them. So put it on the other side of the lazy river. That's right somewhere down the lake.
Well, Robbie Robertson, for you, I like that. Should we'll, we'll, we'll be back with more. Robbie Robertson in just a moment. We probably should take a break. I don't think that's a bad idea. Yeah, all right, if people want more information about REMAX Magnoli, where can they go? Yes, yes, there's this cool place called REMAX magnolia.com, perfect. We're back for more right after this. You
and we are back with segment two of the REMAX Magnolia real estate show with me, Curtis Pope and James minchow, and we are talking about insecurities. I mean, insecurities. We have lots of insecurities between we have tons. Yeah, if we added them up, it would be four shows where I was gonna be a multiple show, kind of it's kind of thing we will do that later on. I'm very scared of cat. Rodents for me, rodents, yeah, rodents from for me too.
We we also want to talk about
insecurity, what to look at, not just in the.
Home itself like, you know, when you're walking through a home are, well, actually, maybe we'll, we'll continue on with that is a little bit more. When you're go, when you're looking at a home, you're looking all the other pictures. Where are the where the windows, you know, are they down? Are they down low? Where, where somebody can, can spend an excellent amount of time jimmying a window to get in. Are the
sliding doors? Do they have
secondary locks on them? You know those little foot foot locks? And do they work? Because half the time they don't work. And
one thing, and you guys can check it out at home too. This is a play along at home version of the REMAX Magnolia radio show.
There's a sliding door. And you know how the sliding door latch either goes up or it goes it goes down.
It should fall down to lock because gravity pulls that lock down, which which lifts the lock up. It's a lot easier to leave it down. But I've noticed some locks go up to lock. That is a that's a big no no. So when you're when you're looking at your house, make sure it locks down. Yeah, we used to have, actually one of those in our, our old house. It was one of the ones that was up. And I'm like, That's doesn't make sense, yep. And it wasn't as tight as it should be, but an elastic band fixed that. Oh, nice, yes, a good, tight elastic band, or a nice little quick fix, like, listen to Curtis. He knows his security. Rustic fans will. It was funny because, yeah, you see, it would keep it nice and snug. No, it's true. No, it's absolutely true. And then it would be a lot harder to
push from from outside. Not that you can get at those from outside. But windows, yeah, window security.
Lots of windows have security film on them too. So when somebody smashes a window, is that window? How long is it going to take for that window to break? And if somebody smashes a window, say, while you're home,
you have enough time to react, let the dog out of your bed.
And, and, you know, make sure you're calling 99112,
to, you know, get out and get, you know, your way there. Because some of these windows can take 567, minutes to break through with the security film on. It's a really tough film that that is. It's really chewy. It's like a, what's that bulletproof plastic called Adler Lexar,
just like a Lexan film over top of it. So you know the security stuff, you already mentioned the vid video doorbells and smart locks too. So have you ever been out and you said, Oh, I think I may have forgot to lock the back door, honey. You just go on your little app and you go, lock the back door. Oh, no, it's already locked. I can, I can tell. So now there's, there's new smart locks that that have that going on, right?
But other things is, is around the house, is it? Is it clean? How much space between the nearest bush or shrub and your home who can hide around your house and wait for you to leave where the neighbors can't see you. So looking from the front of the house, can you see
areas where somebody could could hide and and run in when you're not looking like especially with garage doors, you you drive away. You're in a not very secure area. Somebody's hiding behind the bush. You push clothes on the garage door and drive away. Do you always look back at the garage door? No, always. And then that's when somebody jumps in and steals all your snap on tools like any of us Park in our garage anymore. That's true. I do not you drive through my neighborhood and everybody's got their garage, everybody, they all set their garage. It's full of stuff. Some guys have turned them into man caves. And I admire him. I do too, those guys, and then with the epoxy floors, and, oh yeah, I love that. As I'm walking through my neighborhood, I'm like, does anybody actually park their car in their in their garage anymore? Yeah,
nobody does. Well, I tried to for a while, like, for maybe four months, and I would love to, but I have too much. It's so civilized to get out of your car or to get in in the in the in the wintertime, and it's, it's nice and warm and your car would be hard to get into the beer fridge with a car there, though, we'll just put the beer fridge in the car.
I think that's illegal. I think that might be it's frowned upon. I think so, yeah, let's don't do that. Everyone at home. The
I'd have to go through the car to get to the beer fridge,
though, the views of James mentioned, that's right.
But now it comes to the fun part. This is the fun part for me, anyway. So you found the home. It looks really secure, and it looks like it's got all the cameras and the motion sensing lights and the doorbells and the and the alert from the garage door that it didn't quite close in the smart locks. And you drive away and you say, let's, let's put an offer on this house, but what you didn't look at is the rest of the neighborhood. Now, what are some things?
You could think about
in the neighborhood that gives you an idea of how nice this neighborhood is. Let's say your nephew is a realtor and wants to take you around the town of chermanus on the and you both get on a ferry together here, and you start driving. And nobody knows what the nice parts of that town are. What are some things that you could see? What are some warning signs
that this neighborhood might not be secure?
A burning vehicle in somebody's front yard might be a bad sign, yes, a skull and crossbones flag that says, Please leave. Yeah, that might be my sinuses. A gun lives here. That's, you know, like,
one gun for me. Bars on the windows, bars on the windows, yeah, but, uh, there's, there's more subtle things too. There's less aggressive. Oh, so I'm just going for the obvious ones. There's the very obvious ones, like, I am a criminal, yes, painted on the on the front of the garage, it's pretty there's a cop car just circling the block with the lights on continually. There's just a dummy cop car just waiting to pick somebody up. Yeah, exactly. But, like, there's, there's things like, if, if a large proportion of the homes in in a certain neighborhood, um, have you know, boarded up things on their on their yard. Are,
you know, they're. They have really long grass, a lot of them,
because place where you cut the grass you find a car, yes, yeah. Group graffiti on every fence. There's, there's, there's people walking around with too much time on their their hands, unless it's Banksy, banks Oh, yeah, yeah, my wife actually went to see the the Banksy exhibit this this year. That'd be cool. She said she it was pretty cool. But that's an extreme, though. But yeah, I mean, if they've hired Banksy, well, then it could be a very affluent it would be like, it would be like, That's right, then neighborhood, but in Orange County, yes, right, we're in a good neighborhood, even though there's graffiti, but it's very expensive graffiti.
Yeah. I mean if, if most of the houses, and most of the nice houses without all that have signs like Beware of Dog security, and there's those security
signs in almost everybody's yard, it's time to start, start getting your your realtor, to maybe do some door knocking. And good realtors, and I know a few in our brokerage, in fact, they all are
who will do that kind of thing and say, we like this neighborhood. We love how it's close to schools, it's close to the it's close to the place where we like to hike, but we're not sure if it's so secure. Your great a great Realtor will offer to go and knock the doors around where you want to buy and just talk to the people. And people are usually really friendly, and they do want you to move there, but they also want you to be be sure. Oh yeah, this is a great place, but, you know, make sure you've got bars on your lower windows, or make sure you have a dog or something like this. And you can, you can learn a lot by having your realtor knock on some doors around your the your proposed neighborhood, just, I mean, you'll find a lot of other stuff too, like, Oh, don't talk to that person, because they'll, they'll invite you over for
delicious food. Or, wait, well, I mean, in our neighborhood, we learned quickly that just down the road was a border guard, and just down the road was a corrections officer. Oh, that's, that's nice. So we're like, I'm feeling pretty safe, yeah, having a, having a an RCMP, next next door, yeah, isn't so bad. Either help, yeah. Or if you live on a hill and get this one, if you have firefighters living on your street, they will often have they'd be the first to be plowed. That's true that the streets, yeah, will be, be the first plow during a snow, a snow event. Yeah, I found this out because I had a listing and it had snowed, that massive snowstorm. We had this this year.
I first thing in the morning. It was like six in the morning, and I got to the street and it was already low heat. Highway had a foot of snow in this place was perfectly cleared. So who lives on the street is is really good, too. So if you have like, a neighborhood watch in the area, learn how, active the Neighborhood Watch is. Because, I mean, that's that is. It's a great program that the neighborhood watch. And if you don't have a neighborhood watching your street right now, what's stopping you go visit the the Abbey, PD or the RCMP in your neighborhood, the local police station and figure out how you and your neighbors can have a neighborhood watch. Because it's, it's great to have know that people are having your back and you're having theirs as as well,
right? Yeah, I would say, so, yeah, I don't have a neighborhood watch on on my street. But now that, now that I've been sort of doing this research here, I'm, I've been thinking like, Man, I should, I should get this together. You are the neighborhood watch. I.
Him the law.
But like missing, missing or broken exterior lights. Like I used to live on a street that the streetlights were always broken, and it was pretty it's actually pretty unnerving at night, and you're like, oh, it's really dark out there.
And then trash litter all all around. That's also a good, a good earmark of people with a little bit too much time on their hands, right? Folks, you know who's because a lot of times it's just, it's just dumb kids being kids and have having nothing to do, and then you have this, this some spray paint on the side of your car, on the side of your house, and you're like, Man, I didn't want that. I didn't sign up for for this. But it's, I think it's, it's good to to have a good look around the neighborhood, and not just, not just on the drive up and back, because I know I've always been like, I'm so focused on the listing itself, on the on the house, that I forget to look two streets in either direction to see how cool the the neighborhood is and and I, I've been lucky so far, but I don't know, maybe one day we won't be as lucky, right, right, correct? Well, I guess we're getting close to the end here, man, already. Yeah, absolutely. We're having a good time. Gotta have some listings. We got to talk about, I have, I got an awesome one here. This one is brand new, just dropped. Just dropped a day ago, actually.
And it is in mission. It's 34651,
Gordon place. This is a really and this is actually, this is a gated community. So if you are looking for a gated community, this actually has a steep hill on the back, a steep forested Hill. Nobody's coming in from from the back gated community. Everyone's very like minded here. So it's like they all are there for security, for beauty, quiet, peace and trust, if that's the vibe you're going for, you know, you you want to keep things clean, and you want to make your yard nice. You want to live in a place where everyone else does that. This is a wonder, wonderful place, 3500 square feet on 32,000
square feet of land. Oh, wow. It it, you know it's it's got neighbors on either side, but you know what behind it, then the next neighbor behind it is the mission Abbey. So all the way is the mission Abbey. So all behind you is a steep forest. So nobody's coming down there, except for maybe a couple of deer or a raccoon once, once in a while, beautiful gardens in the back hot tub. Security System, you wouldn't believe this security system in this place is all controlled by phone, and it's monitored, so you can lock doors, turn off lights, monitor any camera you want. From here again, this whole neighborhood is a security centered sort of people, and they all are really wonderful neighbors and and all sort of look after each other. It's that kind of a community. It's on the hat sick bench there, just just above hatch Lake, up, up on the on the bench. So you're not in the floodplain or anything like that, unless it's a biblical proportions. That's true.
I mean, we, I can't stop that. Then you better run to the Abbey, yeah,
which is conveniently right there, which is conveniently right behind you. And when I was, when I was there doing the listing the Abbey, bells were tolling, and it was a soft, beautiful sound. Oh, wow. Like it wasn't a clanging Bell. You could just hear
it was gorgeous, beautiful views. You step up to your little garden spot where you have a couple of Adirondack chairs, and you look over the Fraser River, Sumas mountain, what's the big white mountain called Baker? Mount Baker? Yeah,
and that one, there is $1.4 million for 32,000
square foot yard with house. Come and get it. It's brand new on the market. Sounds like a beautiful thing. It is a beautiful thing. Curtis, you've you've identified that great job. You can take the rest of the day off. All right. Well, if people want to find out more about this listing and more. Where can they go? You go to REMAX Magnolia realty.com
and join us again next week, when we will talk real estate in order to unlock your real estate potential on a show where real estate is maximized. Thanks for listening.