Check out the latest monthly podcasts from FOCALPOINT e-NEWS! for February. As discussed in our January post, FOCALPOINT is an online lifestyle magazine and web site created by Jeffrey Stolberg with a line up of monthly podcasts from 10 of Canada’s top show hosts, authors and lifestyle experts. Have a listen to Debbie Travis, Sharon Grech, Bryan Baeumler and more….
Posted by NancyP
Some of our blog posts get a lot of traffic, even though they were written last year.
I thought it would be a good idea to relink to some of the posts that get the most traffic over the last year. Many home renovation tips are timeless and it’s a good idea to check in once in a while and revisit them.
Posted by BrianS
We’re excited to be launching, once again, our “Charter Member” program. It’s really easy. Think of 3 home services you’ve done in the last little while, write a review on them, and tell a few of your friends about us, and we’ll give you $15 at Chapters Indigo.
These are the criteria:
You know you’ll be enjoying the sun this summer so why not get into a good book.
Not only that you’ll be helping other people out who are looking to do renovation. Helping them avoid the bad contractors and find the best ones! Give back to the community from your experiences!
Posted by BrianS
We know our readers are into real estate. Many of them buy houses, fix them up and sell them. The tools for finding a house are challenging and using the real estate board’s website can be challenging – especially if you’re on the road.
ZooCasa, a start-up, owned fully by Rogers, is a site where you can go and find properties for sale, as well as ones that have sold in your neighbourhood all through a conveninent map. Now when you’re on the road, and happen to have an iPhone, you can take that experience on the road, and it even checks where you are through the GPS in the phone and locates you.
You can zoom in and click on the houses and it gives you descriptions and sometimes even the price of the house.
Looking for that fixer-upper? Find it here then find one of our great contractors listed on the site for someone to help you make it great.
The application is available from iTunes.
Follow the evolution of Zoocasa on their Twiiter account. They don’t seem to blog much. Something tells me we’re going to be hearing more about ZooCasa in coming months. With Rogers’ backing they won’t stay quiet for long.
Posted by BrianS
There will be lots of unemployed people jumping into the contractor business over the next 12 months in Canada, trying to make a quick buck as homeowners take advantage of the new renovation tax credit - see more about the tax credit on our last post.
But be very careful before you hire someone! Do not give them a deposit until you have done your homework first – check all their references carefully and also make sure they have a business license. And of course read their reviews on HomeStars.com.
The city of Toronto just posted in our forum about a scam artist arrested on several criminal charges – Rolando Gualtieri, 58, of Concord, also known as Giovanni Di Tommasis was posing as a contractor, taking people’s $ and taking off!
Here are some City offices to call before you hire:
Business Licensing Offices across Canada
Toronto: Call 416-392-6148 to verify if the contractor is licensed or to file a complaint.
Building renovators, Plumbing contractors, Heating contractors, and anyone holding him/her self as a contractor in the building renovation field requires a City of Toronto License.
Vancouver : 604-873-7568 and press 0 to reach the business licensing rep
Calgary call 3-1-1 or 403-268-CITY (2489)
I found this helpful page of information provided by the city of Calgary’s site:
Edmonton call 311 or if outside Edmonton 780-442-5311
Mississauga: 905 896-5558
Oakville: 905-845-6601
Brampton: (905) 458-3424
Vaughan: (905) 832-2281
Hamilton: 905-546-CITY (2489)
Note: Not all cities require contractors to have a business license. For example, Markham and Pickering require no licenses for Building Renovators. Winnipeg only requires business licenses for 27 activities: none directly related to home improvement.
Please let us know about your city if we’ve missed it!
Posted by NancyP
It’s time to renovate your house, and Mr Harper is going to help out with a little tax credit to make it a little cheaper and easier.
The federal budget, which was tabled yesterday includes a tax credit for people who renovate their house. It’s not an enormous credit giving a 15% break home renovation projects and you’ll only get your money back after you file your tax returns next spring. You can go to a maximum renovation project of $10,000 and the maximum return is $1350.
Some of the the elegible projects include:
The chattering in the media has, of course, begun and some of the comments are here:
North Bay Nugget – HomeOwners Win
National Post Homeowners in line for 15% tax credit
Winnipeg Sun- Homeowners win in Flarhety’s budget
and, of course, the Globe and Mail – the “Heart of this Budget is at Home”.
Are you going to be taking advantage of the tax credit? Should contractors start putting it into their sales materials? Let us know.
Posted by BrianS
Woohoo! By Friday January 23rd we had achieved new monthly highs in unique visitors (ie. not from the same computer) and total page views (which means people surfing around the site on average look at about 8 pages a visit). <p>
*viewed traffic excludes search engine robots and other spiders.
HomeStars is shattering our records, thanks to all your support. More and more homeowners are telling us they are using HomeStars to help them find the right company, and avoid those that just don’t care about superior work before / during and after the job is done. They also tell us they notice when companies take the time to respond to reviews from their clients.
Posted by NancyP
HomeStars has recently started a small partnership with a cool little start-up called Project Turtle. The idea of the site is that you can name your price for a project and contractors can take a look at the projects and see whether there’s anything there for them.
There are a number of sites out there like this including GoPro, erenovate, ServiceMagic, and Contractors.com. But on all of those, contractors pay for their leads. On Project Turtle, anyone can bid!
Here’s the summary from Project Turtle’s website:
The Project Turtle lets you declare how much you’ll Shell Out for your own home improvement project! As the seller Sheller, simply click Post Project and you’re underway. Three steps and you can bypass all the hassle in searching for (and negotiating with) qualified contractors.
- Describe your project
- Upload images and/or Documents (if you like)
- Name the price.
If there’s a contractor in your area willing to accept your price, they’ll contact you! Easy as that. And best of all, your information is safe! Contractors fill out a contact form and never see your email address. You decide who gets access to you on your own terms!
Project Turtle even has included a space for you to put your HomeStars URL in so consumers looking at jobs can see your past work if you are a contractor.
We’ll admit there’s not much on there now, but we all start somewhere, and we like what he’s doing. So go check it out. We think it’s a cool site, and worth registering for. Post a job! Look for a job!
Posted by BrianS
As a woman running my own business in addition to running my family, there are times when I wonder if I’ve stretched myself too thin. It’s not that we all can’t handle tasks and to do’s, but when work and family obligations conflict, the decisions you make and what you focus on can be even more challenging.
A good friend of mine recently launched a new magazine called Heart, designed for business women. Heart is available in book stores and across Canada and deals directly with the work-life balance issue that affects us all. Heart is also a workbook or journal which happens to include the latest information on trends in both the workforce and personal matters (from finance to health) and particularly how these issues pertain to women. The articles cover subject areas as broad as our daily routines, ranging from recipes to articles on mentorship. It also features women who have successful careers and who have achieved them without sacrificing their personal lives. It is a resource for all working women and fills that mentorship void giving step by step instructions on achieving and maintaining the difficult work-life balance. For those that like to write or even just jot down ideas, Heart shares approaches to journaling throughout the magazine.
I also checked out Heart’s website to see what else it had to offer. The site includes useful templates that are directly related to the magazine’s articles. Take, for instance, the article on networking (“No Woman is an Island. The Power of Networking,” November/December, 2008), on the website you’ll find a downloadable template to help keep track of your networking tree. There are podcasts from interview profiles, “how to” exercises to get you started in journaling and a calendar of events where Heart will appear.
A lot is packed into this new medium and it’s a valuable resource worth reading. Way to go Brenda!
Posted by NancyP
Some of our newest community members to HomeStars are Mary and Hub Kirkpatrick from Tarpon Springs, FL. Their company is Handy Hubby. They also run a pretty neat site called HandymanTeacher.com. I’ve just spent a few minutes on the site looking around, but they have a lot of good instructional videos on all sorts of handyman topics. This is a good site to connect to for both our companies, in case they are working through a new situation they haven’t seen before, or for homeowners who are trying some handyman tasks themselves. I particularly enjoy the section on painting, a handyman task many homeowners do themselves.
Posted by BrianS
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