M Shane

Create Your Unique Home with Personalized Brick Work

Installing brick pavers for your sidewalk or the entire driveway will instantly increase your home's curb appeal, and make buyers add your home to their favorites list on a real estate tour. Brick pavers have been around for centuries. Cobblestone s... Read >

Spring Home Sales: Start Preparing Your Home Now

With the spring on its way in many parts of the country, now is the opportune time to get started on all of your preparations for the season’s real estate revival. In many parts of the continental US, wintertime means a slowing down in the housing mark... Read >

Beauty is in the Eye of the Builder

While many of us are far from experts in architecture, we do, at least, tend to know what we like. Our thoughts on what constitutes a perfect home from a design perspective, may not be perfectly honed but the majority of us feel comfortable enough in our ... Read >

The Winchester Home: A Spooky Construction Story

Think that your renovations take forever? Thank your lucky stars that you don’t have things as hard as Sarah Winchester did. Starting in 1884, the Winchester House was in a constant state of construction and renovation for  the next 38 years. Sarah... Read >

St. Albert Still Struggles With Habitat for Humanity Development

In theory, the creation of affordable options for low income families seems like a straightforward worthwhile endeavour, but in reality, the issue can be very complicated and met with less than ideal enthusiasm from some area residents. The city of St ... Read >

Painting Your Home for a Quick Sale

So you’re looking to sell your home and you can’t afford to invest in hiring a home stager to set things up for you; in this current economic climate home stagers can cost more than you can afford to spend but that doesn’t mean that you can’t brighten... Read >

Renting as a Solution to Falling Home Prices

The forecasts all seem to agree; America’s real estate is headed for another drop.  If you’re trying to sell your home, this doesn’t come as good news.  If you need to move, having a home that you can’t sell without taking a huge loss is a big deal!  I... Read >

Sound Real Estate Advice

Thanks to the popular media we are well aware of the struggling housing market. And there's nothing like a crisis for bringing hordes of 'experts' out from the woodwork - witness the amount of advice currently being banded about, regarding the buying and ... Read >

Is This Property Going to be Profitable?

When looking at a property for rental investment, you have to pick and choose carefully to get the best value out of it.  To aid you in your search for a profitable property, you must study the type and location of the properties you wish to buy carefu... Read >

Blogging Effectively to Promote Yourself as an Agent

You may be considering adding a blog to your website in order to get higher rankings on Google and hopefully capture the interest of people who are looking in your area for homes.  If you’ve never had a blog before, you may be wondering if it’s worth i... Read >

Improve before the Move

Homeowners may decide to make improvements to their houses for a number of reasons. It may be that a planned move has been put on temporary hold, due to the vagaries of the current housing market. Perhaps, a few updates here and there will make the proper... Read >

The Techno File

Most active real estate agents are well aware of the countless technological changes that are helping change the face of their industry. In recent years, we have seen a shift of Richter scale proportions in the way that properties are advertised. Real... Read >

Glut of Short Sales and Foreclosures = Great Deals for Patient Home buyers

Short Sales and foreclosures are reaching record levels in the U.S. as many homeowners are feeling the squeeze from the recent recession. Whether the reason for having to give up their home is related to job loss and not being able to make the mortgage pa... Read >

FSBO – The Hidden Dangers of Selling Your Own Home

One of the aspects that home sellers overlook when selling their homes is the safety of having an independent representative show your home to strangers and screen buyers before they enter your property.  The presence of a For Sale sign can indicate t... Read >

A Pretty Fairway to Live

Having a home on a golf course is the dream of every golf nut and with golf's rising surge in popularity over the last decade or so, golf course homes are harder to come by and come at a premium cost. But is living on the links really a smart choice? Befo... Read >