By Ottawa Real Estate - www.soldbysorin.com - Sorin V

05/28/2015 My random trip to IKEA with my Real Estate Investor Client!
For the past few weeks I have been working with a client of mine on an investment property that he has owned for the past 3 years in the west end of Ottawa. This was his first investment property and he reached out to me inquiring what his options were for making some changes. We got together on a few different occasions to see the unit and discussed numbers based on different scenarios.
We worked through a few different options together such as: selling as is, performing minor renovations, completing full renovations and also possibly putting it on the market as a rent to own. There was a lot of information to go through and we sat down for hours going through each option to make sure that he made the right decision as to what to do with his first investment property.
and then we went to IKEA...
It was Sunday morning and my client called me at 8:00AM and asked if I could meet him at IKEA to purchase a new kitchen for the investment property. At this point I had already been up for well over an hour as I had just gone out to put my open house signs up at my listing in Kanata so I was ready to go and without hesitation I said see you there in 40 minutes.
After rushing to get there I approached the store (which was not even officially opened for business yet) to find a parking lot full of cars leaving me wondering “where are my clients?” and “what kind of sale is going on here?” As I got in line at the front of the store I noticed my client and his family waving me down amongst the sea of shoppers. As we made our way to the kitchen department to select our new kitchen, my clients show me the feature IKEA has where you can input your kitchen measurements and start designing your kitchen and actually get to see the 3D render of how it will look once completed. That tool will also get you a total cost for all the materials you have selected.
You can check out IKEA'S kitchen planning tool here:
http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_CA/rooms_ideas/splashplanners.html
We looked over all the options then made our choice on style and color…we had finished our first Kitchen...
My client thanked me for the help on last minute notice and said he felt lost as he did not know where to start or what options to go with. This is normal with anyone who does anything for the first time but when you have someone with experience on your team to help guide you then the journey ends up being not only more achievable but also more enjoyable.
My client decided to stay and look around IKEA a little more with his family and I had to go and prepare for my open house so I proceeded to look for the exit which I thought would be pretty simple...WRONG! After walking for about 15 minutes and asking some employees if I was heading in the right direction, I ended up in the food court so I turned back around and proceeded to find another employee for directions. I stopped and looked around and saw 5 different directions that I could go which made me feel very lost and a little aggravated as by this time I had been walking around for 20 minutes simply trying to leave. Maybe I was tired because it was still early, maybe I am a slow walker, maybe IKEA makes their store a maze, or maybe because it was my first time… I am not sure what it was but I knew one thing, I was lost and did not know what direction to go and this got me feeling that maybe this is how a first time home buyer or first time Real Estate Investor feel like. It is hard to know which direction to take when it is your first time. You wonder things like: how does the whole process work? What costs are involved? Who to trust and why?
The moral of this story and what I learned from this experience is that sometimes you can't do everything on your own and it may be good to call on a professional in that field to help or at the very least provide their insights on what they would do. It may seem like you are in a puzzle sometimes but remember there is someone out there that can and is willing to help.
p.s. I did eventually get out of IKEA with the guidance of a helpful employee…otherwise you still wouldn’t be reading this blog post!

Sorin Vaduva
Sales Representative
Capital Homes Realty Inc., Brokerage
sorin@capitalrealestate.ca
www.soldbysorin.com