Welcome to 26 Castle Frank Crescent. This Rosedale property is steps away from Castle Frank subway station and was the home to Torontism’s very own Richard Silver. The property is currently listed for sale at $3,248,000.

“[My family and I] had made the decision to downsize, giving us more flexibility,” Silver said. “We bought a condo that will be ready in 2021 and are curious if we could live in a smaller property.”

About the property

This 3+1 bedroom and 4 bathrooms residential home is approximately 3,479 square feet. It comes with professional grade appliances, a beautiful backyard with mature trees and a koi pond, and a Smartified home system.

The house is a detached side split and one of the only side split homes circa 1955 in the Rosedale area,” said Silver. “It has been substantially updated over the years and is an excellent house for entertaining.

When Silver purchased the property, he wanted a cottage-in-the-city type lifestyle to accommodate his busy schedule. The garden, which centres around a 200-year old tree does that for him. The garden is so amazing that it has even been featured in a magazine. Yet, other parts of the home are just as wonderful.

The main floor family room is where [my family and I] spend most of our time enjoying friends, family, the fireplace and the garden access.

Silver notes that property of this type would be ideal for someone looking to downsize as they plan to move into a condo.

The selling process

When an agent prepares to sell a home, there’s a certain process that must happen, and this includes more than just listing the property. Primarily, the seller must declutter, stage, and make minor renovations to the property to prepare it for showings.

“It is not a fun process,” Silver states, “But we had lots of help from our stager, declutterer and painter that made it almost pain free.”

When asked about his experience in the shoes of a seller, Silver described that,

We had to divorce ourselves from the home. The colours [of the walls] were lightened, the furniture came from our stager and we depersonalized it for showings. We had to always assume that there may be a showing that day and that the house [must be] in the best shape for the showing.

Staging

Though staging your home is not cheap, Luanne Kanerva, owner of Katu Design, who was in charge of staging Silver’s home explains why it’s so important:

Staging can benefit both the sellers and the buyers. Sellers sell faster and for more money and buyers often see potential in a home they might have otherwise overlooked. Staging also makes rooms look bigger and gives a sense of space. It can be difficult in an empty room to decide if a king bed or large sofa will fit. Most people now decide to come to see a property from online photos and a series of blank wall/bare floor shots reveal nothing and are not very inviting.

Kanerva has worked with Silver for about 15 years. However, she treated Silver as as any other client and started with a consultation. Together, they decided on new paint colours and Luanne made recommendations on taking away certain pieces of furniture that were too dark or large. Furniture was rearranged to create a better flow for buyers to move through the rooms.

I always tell my clients that selling is not living! So, although you may want five side chairs because you have family visiting every weekend, for selling we need people to walk freely through the room. Therefore, we take away three of the chairs.

Kanerva loved the layout and flow of the Rosedale property. She noted that it’s perfect for entertaining or a home/work situation, and that the garden is so peaceful that it can be hard to remember you’re so close to downtown.

Kanerva, in staging 26 Castle Frank, started off slowly. “…but then I realized he had some very large dark pieces of dining room furniture that really had to go, so I just did my job!” Kanerva said,

[Richard] was fine but I think it was a good reeducation for us about how emotional and time consuming the decluttering and staging process can be for some homeowners

To Kanerva, Silver was the ideal client because he trusts her work. Her biggest challenge is often reluctant homeowners.

Decluttering

Another important part of selling a home is decluttering.

“Decluttering is the process of sorting through your belongings to determine what you want to keep, donate, give to friends and family, sell, and discard,” according to Ann Christie, owner of Declutter and Downsize.

By completing the decluttering process, you will transform your space into organized functional areas that are not overcrowded and are easy to maintain.

Christie has worked with Silver for 15 years. She sees the importance of decluttering in the home selling process because the accumulation of “stuff” can often overwhelm homeowners. Decluttering helps organize a seller and presents the home to potential buyers in the best possible manner. When a buyer walks in, they can better imagine themselves living in the home when they’re not distracted or put off by mess and chaos.

The challenges of decluttering are similar to the challenges of staging — homeowners commonly have a strong attachment to their decorating style. However, this was not a major issue in declutter 26 Castle Frank.

“Richard and [his family] are great clients, to be honest – ideal clients, they make good, quick decisions and stick with the decisions they make,” said Christie. “They trust the decluttering process, because they have seen the results so many times when we have helped Richard’s clients prepare their homes for sale.”

Selling any home is a huge process. Staging and decluttering can often be the hardest part because it involves a seller detaching themselves from their personal belongings and watching their home become just another house again. But Silver, who understands the importance of staging and decluttering, made the selling process seem easy by reminding himself to not get attached and to work with his stager and declutterer, instead of against them.

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It was there for three and a half decades, but now Rosedale’s Patachou Patisserie has finally gone the way of the diplodocus and the dodo, leaving some of us wondering where our next croissant will come from. Fortunately, the Rosedale area is not short on fancy food dispensaries, especially along Yonge street. So, while none of the places described below is exactly like Patachou, they may each be able to fill the gap in some way.

Nadege Patisserie

The original Nadege Patisserie opened in 2009, at 780 Queen St. West, under the ownership of French pastry chef Nadege Nurian and her Torontonian partner Morgan McHugh. The pair opened a second, smaller, Rosedale location in 2011, at 1099 Yonge st, about a block and a half north of Patachou’s old corner at Yonge and Macpherson.

Nadege isn’t as cozy as Patachou was, and it isn’t a restaurant at all (although the one on Queen does have a cafe section). In fact, the place bears some resemblance to a jewelry store, with the flat, bright, glassed-in displays and perfect, colourful wares. The prices are also somewhat reminiscent of jewelry; a single sculpted treat no more than three inches across can be around seven or eight dollars, and a single chocolate ‘bon bon’ is $2.5 – or $16, if you get four in a fancy box. You could pull off a credible marriage proposal with one of these things.

One reason for those often eye-watering price tags is certainly the quality of ingredients used.

“When I look at ingredients I don’t look at the price of stuff. I look at quality.”

Ms. Nurian told me, but she does apparently try to give some financial consideration to her customers;

“The idea is like, yes, it is really nice, there’s a lot of… the best ingredients, but I want to make sure that everybody can still come and feel great.”

I’m not sure about ‘great’, but I did feel pretty good while eating the Nadege pain au chocolat ($3.15 each, including tax), which was moist, flaky, buttery tasting (but not greasy), with a rich, smooth vein of bitter chocolate down the centre.

During my conversation with Nurian, the word ‘passion’ kept showing up, especially when I wondered what had made her patisseries so successful.

“I’m very strong, that’s what I think it is.”

She explained matter-of-factly

“And I’m very, very passionate about what I do. And I think, the passion; I’m able to pass it on to people.”

This passion, it seems, is artistic in nature, for when Nadege Nurian talked about her work, she didn’t talk about ‘baking’ or ‘cooking’, but ‘creating’.

“So, how I create; I create, you know, first on paper, I write ideas, I sketch cakes, I sketch things, I write colour ideas, everything.”

The inspiration for these creations can come from all over the place

“I mean, you know, it’s everyday life. Like travel, meeting people, fashion, reading. And I think, you know, when you’ve a creative mind it just comes. I don’t know, it just comes.”

Of course, there are other, more external sources from which ideas flow. I asked Nurian if her customers ever put in requests for new products. The answer was emphatic;

“All the time.”

“Sometimes there is a lot of customers who want, like, very traditional french. You know, I could do some, but some I don’t want to do, because it’s been so overdone. But maybe there is another way – I try to understand what they like about it, like maybe that flavour that I can shape in a different way.If it’s something that’s really, like, everywhere, I’ll maybe try to put my own touch on it.”

And sometimes, she just goes ahead and does exactly what the customers ask for.

“I remember when we opened, customers, they kept asking me for gateau basque, gateau basque, gateau basque.” recalled Nurian. “And so we did it last year, and I think people are very happy about it.”

Although she is very much involved in the creation of new products, success has meant that Nurian is now much more of a businesswoman than the hands – on chef and baker she used to be.

“I’m still in the kitchen every day”

she said,

“but for a very short time.”

The growth of Nadege Patisserie means a few other changes have occurred as well:

“Now, you’re responsible for everyone here; we have an amazing team… we’re responsible for them as well, you know. So we have a budget, and things like that. Things are more draining when you’re the owner than just the chef. There’s a big difference. So it’s important to keep the passion. I think the day you stop, people could feel it in your products, for sure.”

So once again, it comes down to passion.

Chocolate Brunette

I’m pretty sure that a few years ago, there was a crystal ball in the window of 182 Avenue Road. Snuggled in between Dupont and Davenport, the spot advertised fortune-telling and other mystical services for years before gently fading out of existence like the face of an over-used tarot card. The vacant store-front caught the eye of Micol Corno, a local pastry chef with an online business called The Chocolate Brunette Pastry Company, and an ambition of running her own store.

The physical Chocolate Brunette opened a little over a year ago (one year and two months, to be precise), and when it started, it ran full-bore with a crew of one.

“I did it for almost a year.”

Corno said of her exhausting one-woman baking act.

“It was a lot of work. But I want the products to be made fresh daily. I wanted to keep the freshness – it’s extremely important to me.”

Now, she has another full-time worker who can mind the shop while she’s “in the back concentrating on the baking.” Everything on display is made on site.

And what is it, exactly, that is on display here? Corno gave me a fairly vague but tantalizing list;

“We have cupcakes, truffles, cookies, individual portion-sized sweets, and then we also offer salads and sandwiches for the businesses in the area.”

Unlike Nadage Patisserie (and a few other Yonge street bakeries), nothing about Chocolate Brunette is even thinking of being French. The desserts are “Italian infused”, to use Corno’s words.

“So for example, we have cookies with nutella, which is Italian. We have crostata di frutta, which is an Italian fruit tart, and profiterole, which is a well-known cake in Italy. But we put our own twist on them.”

I didn’t realize all of this (nutella is Italian?), and assumed – even after looking at the website – that this was primarily a fancy cupcake store with some cookies on the side. Apparently I’m not the only one:

“A lot of people mistake it for a cupcake place.”

Cupcakes are a pretty big deal here, it’s true, but Corno told me she hopes to expand into soups for the cold weather, as well as pasta, and of course, hot chocolate (“With whipped cream on top”). She is also considering a more health-conscious – and for a pastry chef, much more radical – line as well:

“A lot of people do ask me for gluten [free]. The truffles are gluten-free, but I want to introduce, maybe a gluten-free cupcake if possible.”

I expressed doubt about such an endeavour, but was assured that

“It is possible, and they can taste quite good, without the gluten.”

It seemed silly not to ask about the recipes and ingredients involved in the Chocolate Brunette. Name aside, there are lots of things here that don’t involve chocolate.

“I try to keep it as simple as possible.”

said Corno

“I don’t want to use too much butter, too much sugar. I try to use high-quality ingredients.”

I, on the other hand, tend to work on the assumption that more butter is better, but Corno seems to consider it too heavy, and said that she limits it because

“I don’t want a customer eating a dessert and then they feel like they just eat a piece of brick.”

There wasn’t a crumb of brick in the nutella cookie and ‘molten lava’ cupcake Corno was kind enough to send home with me (but for a baker’s beneficence, $1.50 and $3.00, respectively). The cookie’s texture was unusual but not unpleasant, and its flavour a fine mix of both chocolate and hazelnuts. Oddly enough – given Corno’s care with sugar – it was too sweet for my taste, but the cupcake was just right; moist and fluffy with a blob of rich chocolate ‘lava’ embedded in the bottom.

I asked Corno what the worst part of her business was. Her answer was instant;

“The long hours. No sleeping. I haven’t slept in a very long time.”

From our conversation, I’m guessing that – along with sleep deprivation – another hazard of the baking business is Chronic Sampling Syndrome. When I asked Corno if she tried a bit of each batch just to make sure it was up to snuff, she gave me an adamant

“No no no. I wish. No.”

Before adding that

“It’s quite hard to stay away from the chocolate.”

Despite all the trials and temptations, Corno seemed quite happy with her work. If failing to get any sleep is the worst part of it all, then the actual food creation is the high point.

“I love being in the kitchen and baking.”

she assured me

“That’s the best part.”

Looking at her welcoming but tiny venue, I asked Corno if she had any plans to expand in the future.

“Definitely.”

she said

“If possible, yeah, I’d definitely like to expand and have another Chocolate Brunette in the city. Definitely. But we’ll work on this location first. One thing at a time.”

Honourable Mentions

Baking is a busy line of work. While Nadage Nurian and Micol Corno were both able to take a little time off to speak to me, the proprietors of two other fine flaky establishments never quite got around to answering my emails. Both places do deserve at least a brief mention here though, if for no other reason than the fact that they both resemble Patachou quite closely in basic concept.

Just a little bit south of where Patachou once stood, Le Petite Gourmet is still soldiering on at 1064 Yonge st. They don’t strike me as quite so high-end, but they’re also not as high-priced, and – like Patachou – you can get a full meal and eat it on site. They even had plum tarts ($2.65) when I visited in August, as well as two types of meat pie ($3.65). I’d avoid their two-dollar danishes though. The one I had actually tasted stale.

Right across the street (literally, right across it) from Nadage Patisserie is Petite Thuet at 1162 Yonge st, the only place on this list that will actually sell you a loaf of bread. In fact, Thuet (named for one of the owners) will also sell you some jam to put on that bread, and has seating for about four people and a Chihuahua. They also make a pain au chocolate that’s decent but not quite as good as Nadage’s (but at $2.50, is a bit cheaper), and danishes (also $2.50) that aren’t as bad as Gourmet’s, but aren’t that great, either. Their sausage-rolls ($3.00) are kind of fun though.

JNJFVK

As Canada’s population grows, the price for housing continues to increase in the country’s major urban centres.

According to the Ministry Of Finance, in Ontario alone the population is projected to grow by 30.1 per cent over the next 26 years with the GTA the fastest growing region in the province. Population there is expected to increase by more than 2.8 million, reaching nearly 9.5 million by 2041.

With more people moving to cities home prices are expected to increase. In addition to population growth the rise in prices is being amplified by a lack of supply. Just what is causing this dearth is a hotly debated issue.

Some people have pointed to foreign investors swooping in to buy up all the real estate, a theory which has led to the implementation of a foreign buyers tax in Vancouver. British Columbia’s Liberal Party brought in the tax in an attempt to cool the market, but it’s largely too soon to tell whether there has been an impact on home affordability. Officials in Toronto are watching closely, but others believe the problem stems from elsewhere.

Toronto Sign

“People want to come to Toronto and the number of people has increased, but the number of potential housing has not increased at the same rate,” says Richard Silver, Sotheby’s International Realty.

I think what happens is that Toronto is fairly fixed in its ability to grow in size because of the moraine at the top and the lake at the bottom. But I think it has more to do with the fact that there is land and there’s potential for land but there’s a lot of government restrictions on it.

Writing for the Globe and Mail, Brian Lee Crowley, managing director, and Sean Speer, Munk senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, point to past and present governmental policies for causing the dwindling housing supply:

Present policies such as green belts and land reserves, exclusionary zoning and obstructive building and construction regulations are directly or indirectly designed to manage the housing supply – including the types of homes that are constructed. One can debate the utility of these ‘urban containment strategies,’ but it’s not debatable that they’re making homeownership more difficult, rather than easier.

They point to research done by Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, which “has shown that restrictive land-use regulations are a major impediment to housing supply and in turn drive up prices.”

It’s a sentiment that Silver echoes, pointing out certain “sacred cows” like schools and churches that seem to defy development.

They were complaining today about Don Bosco School in Etobicoke having 90 people in the school where it used to have a thousand. So why have you got a school sitting there with 90 people, can’t that 90 be moved into another school and that property be developed on?

Dundas Square

In their article, Crowley and Speer argue that the federal government should use spending programs to encourage provinces and municipalities to liberalize reforms to restrictive zoning and housing regulations. But for young buyers it may be a matter of shifting expectations. As Silver points out, Toronto is Canada’s Manhattan, a city where the idea of homeownership is distant at best.

It’s a matter of expectations. Is the Canadian dream to own or is the Canadian dream to live in a country that has a lot of freedom and stuff like that? Is it imperative that we assume that everyone just has to own a house? Is that the Canadian dream or can the Canadian dream be renting?

The numbers support this. These days, as Crowley and Speer point out, median households need to dedicate 71.7 per cent of their pretax earnings to own a single-family detached house in Toronto. In Vancouver the number is even higher.

So if foreign buyers aren’t the root cause of the hot housing market, what is the purpose of a foreign buyer’s tax? Silver believes the endeavour is concerning.

I don’t like what it says. We’ve always been the home of foreign buyers and we’ve always been the place where people want to come to and I think it’s a bit of a slap in the face for anybody who wants to move here.

He believes a tax on properties left vacant would be more useful. These are buildings that remain unoccupied but still draw on services. Regardless of how expensive housing gets, he says foreign buyers are something Canadians need to get used to.

China has three times the population or four times the population of Canada and the United States, they have the ability to travel, and to move outside of China and so they’re doing it. So are we going to be receptive and welcoming the way we have been for groups from England and Europe and other parts, or are we going to close our doors because it’s someone from China?

Silver finds this discriminating:

It’s very disappointing to me. My family is pretty diverse and I’ve always been about diversity. I fought for it for years and the fact that we’re trying to segment one group, even though we’re not saying it’s one group, is disappointing to me.

Just last week, a fellow agent told me that gadgets will never replace a skilled agent. I absolutely agree. However, I believe that gadgets can make our lives as real estate agents much easier and inspire us to cater to our clients in ways we wouldn’t have dreamt of before! How? Let me show you as I guide you through the amazing world of the best gadgets for realtors. In these seven thorough investigative reviews, I will rethink the use of some already established gadgets and also introduce fascinating start-up ideas already in production for you. Let this article be the key to a fascinating series of articles about gadgets that will make your work as a realtor so much more awesome!

Phantom DJI 2 Vision + GoPro HERO4 Black

My inspiration for coupling these two product

Phantom + GoPro

s and using them as a real estate agent came from one of my favourite English actors, comedian and writer Richard Ayoade and his Channel 4 show The Gadget Man. As he flew the Phantom 2 over the medieval Leeds Castle, I could see myself doing the same over some of the finest houses I’ll be selling in Toronto. I believe that the marriage of drones and high-resolution cameras will bring a revolution to how we do our work.

The Phantom 2 quadrocopter is extremely easy to use. After you simply click the parts into each other, you can fly it almost straight from the box. Isn’t that just amazing? The Wi-Fi connection reaches over 300 metres. Moreover, you can also boost the reach by adding the Wi-Fi Range Extender. However, the original 300 metres should do the job perfectly without any trouble at all.

Phantom 2 sports a feature called stable hovering, which allows you to stop mid-air and take either photos or take a pause in the video and zoom in on some particularities. I found this extremely useful when analyzing the damage on some of the houses I was selling for clients, because this way, we didn’t need to call in the specialist to climb to the roof and we simply flew the drone up,

Jane Christensen, a former REMAX real estate agent who worked in the U.S. and later UK, comments.

The full charge will give you around 25 minutes of flight. I’d advise you to consider buying an extra Smart Battery that costs close to $150 CAD, and you can add 25 more minutes to your flight.

The basic model of the Phantom 2 quadrocopter will cost you approximately $625 CAD, which is a surprisingly low price, considering that you are actually going to fly a real drone! Can’t wait to try it out.

I’d also advise you to check your local rules on flying the UAVs before you do so, since some of the areas might have restrictions, as Josie from the OPCC told me. You can check the short version of the Canadian regulation here.

To get the best real estate video pitch, you need to mount the drone with a camera. My advice is to go big here, because the picture is all that matters. My top tip is the latest camera from the GoPro family – the HERO4 Black. The HERO4 Black takes Emmy Award–winning GoPro performance to a whole new level. Truth be told, I was still excited about the awesome properties of the older model, and GoPro has already released an even more awesome Hero4 version.

The biggest advantage of the HERO4 Black is the combination of professional-level resolution and a light and tiny build. Incredible high-resolution 4K30 and 2.7K50 video and high-frame-rate 1080p120 video enable stunning, immersive footage of any property of your choice — or even your own promotion videos.

Jeff from Digital Camera magazine told me about another useful feature of the new GoPro:

The feature I am very excited about is the SuperView™, a new video mode that captures wide-angle perspective like no comparable camera has before. I couldn’t compare the picture taken to anything else I have put my hands on before.

Naturally, HERO4 Black is also capable of taking high-resolution 12MP pictures at 30 frames per second.

The new GoPro has a built-in Wi-Fi connection that enables it to reach the Smart Remote, which allows you to control multiple GoPro cameras from distances of up to 600 feet (180 metres) so you can comfortably shoot wonderful 360-degree videos of properties.

GoPano Micro

GoPano Micro is a revolutionary lens for the iPhone 5 that enables you to create 360° panoramic videos. You just snap the lens to your iPhone 5 and tap to make 360° videos instantly. It’s an absolute game changer. You can also buy the lens for the iPhone 4S/4. The GoPano for iPhone 6 hasn’t been announced just yet.

GoPanoMicro Iphone

This project started on Kickstarter, but over the past three years, GoPano has integrated well into the iPhone user community. The dream of Michael Rondinelli to sell easy-to-use, widely accessible 360° lenses came true.

Jonathan Margolis from Technopolis TV says it’s one of the most remarkable pieces of technology he’s ever seen. It produces videos of a kind you’ve never seen before. Moreover, this is the first viewer-controlled video delivery image of 360° panorama ever attempted. It’s actually bordering on virtual reality!

Jane Christensen shares her view on GoPano:

I imagine this would feel great to a customer who wants to buy a new house. You can use the drone to fly over the house with the regular camera and shoot the interiors with GoPano. This will enable the customer to feel in control of the video as opposed to the feeling of being sort of restricted by the realtor’s view. Often, customers feel they are just being fed the “nice” parts of the house. With GoPano, they get to choose where to look.

Your video very cleverly uploads to the GoPano website and you can edit it. Whoever accesses the video can then turn the shot around to the camera to have a unique GoPano signature experience of the video.

You can get your GoPano Micro for $98 CAD in the online shop. GoPano also offered an option for a 360° panorama lens for regular cameras starting at $875 CAD. However, they have unfortunately been sold out for quite a while now. Clearly, this gadget became a hit the minute it showed up.

Pocket Printer by Zuta Labs

I think I can safely say that this gadget is something I have been looking forward to since I’ve started printing. An Israeli start-up that will fit a whole printer into your pocket is set to hit the market somewhere in the first quarter of 2015. After raising $487,000 CAD on Kickstarter, the company started to ship out its first printers that fit into your palm (still can’t believe the words I’m writing!) and are able to print directly from your phone, tablet, or laptop onto any size of paper.

Robotic Printer

Can you imagine that while you show your customers their new house, the printer will print out all the documents you need them to sign right on the spot? Without the need for electricity, installation, or heavy lifting, for that matter, I predict that this printer simply has to become an essential part of any realtor’s equipment.

The printer is activated by sliding a hatch at the bottom of the printer, which will reveal the inkjet. The inkjet lasts for over 1,000 printed pages and the battery lasts for over one hour per full-charge (three hours to charge fully).

The first version will print in grayscale. The printer comes in 2 colors — Mars black and Titanium white and will be made out of Polycarbonate. The dimensions are 10 centimeters high and 11.5 centimeters in diameter and the printer will weigh about 300g. It is estimated that the speed will be about 1.2 ppm. It is likely to cost $266 CAD when it goes on the sale in 2015.

Tuvia Elbaum, the firm’s chief marketing officer, described the product.

How cool is this?

With no other really portable printer on the market, the pocket printer offered by this exceptional group of engineers and designers from Israel is something to really look out for.

The minute I’ve first noticed the idea on Kickstarter, I knew that these guys have just revolutionized the way we think about printing. Their printer is just the thing I need as a business student. Whenever I need to print something out really quickly, like a draft of a contract, I want to know that I won’t be limited by my location,

Jonathan Mill, a business administration graduate from the University of Windsor, added.

Duracell Powermat

What I came to realize more and more as my client base started to grow was that my phone rings almost constantly. I talk to my wonderful family, my dear customers, contractors, potential clients, other realtors, and the list goes on and on. However, my smartphone’s battery often doesn’t agree with my busy schedule and simply decides to run out of power in the middle of my active day. I found that this phenomenon, with the accuracy of a sniper, always hits me when I’m busiest.

Battery Low

The reason I told you this story is that every realtor knows it to be true. We need to have our phones powered up at all times to be available to chat with our clients whenever they want to talk to us.

Duracell came up with an amazing idea that I simply adore — to make a cordless charging system called Powermat. To charge your phone, you just need to lay your phone down on the Duracell charging surface. When you’re on the road, there is an option for a portable Powermat to charge up your device.

With the wireless cases, you can also tap into the network of Powermat stations in Starbucks, McDonald’s, and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. But this service is only available in the U.S. right now. Wireless power stations are expected to roll out to Canada, Europe, and Asia within a year.

Grab a cup of coffee and charge your phone!

Daniel Schreiber, the President of Powermat, a company implementing the wireless charging systems, says:

Powermat helps us create a world where our technology is mature enough to take care of itself so we can live our lives and not babysit the battery. We believe it’s time to do for power what Wi-Fi did for data. Wi-Fi meant that data just arrived at your device. With wireless power, power just arrives at your device.

You can get all you need to set up your home wireless power stations for less than $80 CAD. The Powermat for one device will cost you $44 CAD and a wireless charging case designed by Yves Behar (!) will cost you $33 CAD. You can keep the mat in your office, in the car, or wherever else you need it and just lay the phone down on it. I love the idea.

InReach Satellite Communicator for Smartphones

In the previous review, I emphasized the importance of our accessibility as a real estate agent, and I would like to offer you one more suggestion from the same category. InReach is a world-renowned company that develops satellite communication systems that let our customers reach us anywhere on the planet. Plus, I guarantee you are going to feel very cool just knowing you have this device.

Inreach Communicator

Even when you’re going away on a trip to the country where you can’t be too confident about the cell coverage or simply going north to more remote parts of our beautiful country to have a look at a lucrative winter cottage listing, you don’t want to lose your cell reception.

Chris from Outdoor Gear Lab, an amazing website for all kinds of outdoor stuff reviews, had a look at the DeLorme InReach for Smartphones:

This satellite messenger beacon is by far the best device for being able to send three different types of messages on its own. The area where it really shines is the ability to pair with your smart phone where it then becomes kind of like a back country cell phone service. You’ll be able to use your smart phone to send as well as receive messages, something that very few devices let you do. It also pairs with the phone so easily, unlike other devices where we run into problems.

The price of this small and very portable device is $249 CAD. Better communication, however, is not the only thing you will receive when you decide to buy the InReach system. It also comes with the DeLorme Topo North America GPS maps (full U.S. and Canada coverage) and NOAA (U.S.) nautical charts — something I’m definitely going to use a lot.

Bonus: Uppercup

No more one handed typing. No more spilling coffee. Have your hands free for your optimal texting, gaming and social networking pleasure.

This is how Ruben and Frank from the Dutch marketing agency Natwerk start to address their fictional customers in their hilarious mock pitch video for their even more fictional, revolutionary product, Uppercup. This is one of the best gadget publicity stunts I have ever seen, and also one that I have been quite disappointed about when I found out that the idea was just a publicity stunt.

Uppercup – The first cupholder for the iPhone from Natwerk on Vimeo.

Truth be told, although the concept is absurd and an additional 2 inch cover for my iPhone would be just about as handy as using my old phone from five years ago, there was something subtly appealing about the idea of freeing my hand while typing without the necessity of putting the cup down.

I hope this last gadget made you smile, just like it made me. Please let me know if you have any more ideas about the gadgets for us realtors. I would love to hear from you!

MH00VK

Belle’s Easy and Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies:

Some of you may already know this but our family are Chocolate Chip nuts. We have tried all sorts of recipe’s but here is our favourite and it is so easy to make. If you are looking for a great way to spend your shelter in place time during Coronavirus, try this very simple recipe.

Mix Together:

2 1/2 cups flour (575 ml)
1 teaspoon salt (5 ml)
1 teaspoon baking soda (5 ml)

Mix together:

1/2 cup butter (115 ml)
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar (17O ml)
1 cup brown sugar (230 ml)
1 teaspoon vanilla (5 ml)

Combine ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Add 2 cups (460 ml) of semi-sweet chocolate chips (you could add variations of Chocolate chips as well: Milk Chocolate, White Chocolate, Butterscotch Chips for example) and 1 cup (230 ml) of nuts if you choose (crushed walnuts are best, I think). Mix well and spoon onto a cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 (190 C) for 16-18 minutes. For best results, shuffle the trays of cookies in the oven at the half time mark.

Remove from oven and place on foil or rack to cool.

This will make 24 soft cookies

If you like your cookies thinner and crisper, when they are on the tray you could flatten them a bit with a fork before baking.

ENJOY!!

Over the past weeks, we have started more and more to connecting with family, friends and colleagues (perhaps even dating) using Zoom.us.

Here are some important tips that you might want to follow to present your self in the best light:

1. Number one is definitely light. Make sure there are NO lights behind you, only in front of you. If you were on stage you would have blinding spotlights in front of you and Zoom should be no different.
2. Remember that although you are on the internet, you are having a face-to-face meeting and similar rules would apply. Hair should be combed and to get full value from both parties in a discussion you need to see the person’s features. Hats are not a good idea as they shade the face and make your features too dark. Pay attention to what is happening on the screen as it is distracting if you do not.
3. In the upper right hand of the Zoom screen, you can see an option between Gallery view or Speaker View. Play with that option until you decide what is more comfortable for you.
4. Keep the computer’s camera at the same height as your face. If you have an iPhone or Android that you are using, buy a tripod from Amazon and make sure you are looking at the camera.
5. Turn every other screen on your computer off, and of course, put your phone in silent mode.
6. If you have a list of points that you want to tackle get that list on the screen near your phone or on a note next to the camera otherwise you are looking down and up. If the camera is at the top of your computer or laptop move the Zoom screen as high up as possible so you are not bobbing your head.
7. Remember at all times that you are on camera, focus on the Zoom conference. Eat and drink before and after but not during. Don’t touch your hair of face and if you are using a Virtual Background stay still and don’t talk with your hands.
8. Are you on the strongest Wi-Fi connection available in your house and are you on the best computer? It might be a good idea to speak to your internet provider or order a better computer. Remember that Zoom or work-from-home options will be a new normal and as your clients and you get more used to it you may find it to be a larger part of your business technology. If your internet is being shared, as everyone else not to stream as it will downgrade the picture and you might lose voice and picture quality on your Zoom conference.
9. If you are using an iPhone or Android make sure it is in horizontal position otherwise in vertical you will have bands that will show up on the sides.
10. You may want to sign up for Zoom as they have free or paid subscriptions and the differences may be an issue for you. Also, there are lots of YouTube how-to’s available to watch. There are a number of Webinars and live training on the Zoom website.
11. You can add Virtual Backgrounds by clicking on the “Settings” wheel and choosing “Virtual Backgrounds”. Across from the “Virtual Backgrounds”,  you will see a plus sign and by clicking on that plus sign you can upload any photo on our computer. A great suggestion is to find something that is indicative of the location that you live in or any high definition photos that you may have on your computer. If you are a Realtor why not add some of the high definition of your listings. Imagine speaking to your clients from their kitchen or living room.
12. If you choose to record the discussion you can do so and as soon as you end the call it will convert the discussion to a file that you can save on your computer or in the Zoom cloud.

Visit the Zoom site as they are reducing some of the restrictions to assist in helping with coronavirus protocols.

I am sure that points have been missed in the rush to get this posted so use the comments tab below and I will update this list and thank you for your tips.