Counter tops – Often people comment on the counter tops as if this indicates that a home is built well. This episode walks us through several different types of counter tops.
Laminate counter tops, butcher block counter tops, quartz counter tops and marble counter tops. This Series called “Well-Built Home” was created by Stephan Kingma and his little sister “Andrea Bravo”. Stephan Kingma is a builder in Chilliwack and owns a company called “Monarch Developments” and Andrea Bravo is Realtor in Chilliwack and Abbotsford. They have one goal – to teach you what to look for! Quartz counter tops are higher end and more expensive then laminate, but are low maintenance.
Granite Counter tops are more expensive then quartz and have to be cleaned and sealed properly. Laminate is nice because you can go with many different looks and it’s cheap. Butcher block counter tops look really nice, but need to be maintained properly. Marble counter tops also look very nice, but marble scratches easily so it shouldn’t be used on a surface that get’s a lot of use. Check out andreabravo.ca or Mymonarch.ca for access to all of our videos that teach you how to tell if a home is built well. We are not all contractors, home builders and real estate specialists, most of us don’t know the first thing about home construction, materials, processes and practices! Yet most of us end up wanting to buy a home in our lifetime. We grossly underestimate the number of components of a house that all have to work together, if anything is done poorly it can compromise the entire home, or aspects of the home. Houses are made from all sorts of different supplies, wood, brink, steel, concrete. Some first steps when buying a home is to see if you can find out who built your home and check into the history of it.
This can be as easy as a google search, or can take some time phoning around, going to the city to look for who applied for a building permit etc… if you have a good realtor they should be well connected in the area and in most cases should be able to figure out who built the house. Once you know who built the home you can check into that builder, find out who they are, what their reputation is, talk to some previous buyers in the area and so on. Many contractors are professionals and really good at what they do, others are either inexperienced and/or willing to cut corners to get the house done quickly and make a sale. Very few builders are actually corrupt; generally they just aren’t that experienced and simply don’t know all the best practices. Well Built Home will teach you to spot the signs of a “Well-built Home” and Run from poorly built homes! Look at the house carefully. Houses are complicated things, don’t just look at the fixtures, quartz countertops, cabinets, flooring etc… make sure the walls and floors are level and square, check the foundational walls and other unfinished areas of the home for potential warning signs of a poorly built home.
Some of these problems are easy to cover up for builders, but other warning signs will be there. List of problems in a poorly built home can be endless, so know what to look for. The goal of buying a “Well-Built home” is to buy something that will last a very long time and have good re-sale value when you choose to sell your home. It is important to spot the signs of a well built home and know how to do that before you head out to look for one. In this series we talk about residential construction and new home construction, though you can apply a lot of this to an older home as well. “Stephan Kingma” owns a company called “Monarch Developments”, he is a “Chilliwack Builder” and lives in Chilliwack. Stephan has been building for over 20 years, he also does large scale renovations and is a sought after expert in the trades. Monarch Developments is rated one of the top three builders in Chilliwack, Monarch Developments builds high end spec homes . Monarch Developments builds their spec homes as though they are custom homes and takes great pride in the quality of their work.
Monarch Developments has created the “Well-Built Home” Series alongside their realtor “Andrea Bravo” as a way to teach average people who don’t know anything about construction to spot the signs of a well built home, and hopefully avoid a housing horror story or a housing nightmare. Andrea Bravo is Stephan’s little sister and is a Realtor in Abbotsford and Chilliwack. She created the series “Well Built Home” with her brother Stephan to teach the average person how to walk through a home, and what to look for when buying a home. She grew tired of people buying homes based on pretty fixtures and quartz countertops. Andrea Bravo loves selling Real Estate and is a realtor in Chilliwack and Abbotsford. Our who goal is to teach you what to look for. Because you only get what you pay for, if you get what to look for.