Selling with BREL + Kristin Shensel

Selling Your Home with BREL

When you list your home for sale, you want three things:

  1. The highest possible price…
  2. …in the least amount of time on market…
  3. …and a smooth selling experience with minimal inconvenience and hiccups. 

We’ve designed our seller experience around those same goals – and we’re proud of the results we’ve been able to achieve.

 

 

Why Work with a Team

There’s a lot that goes into selling a home – more than any solo agent could possibly do effectively.

That’s why we’ve pooled our talents and resources and invested in specialized in-house experts focused on staging, marketing and administration…which allows our agents to focus on servicing their clients.

Our agents sell homes. They build relationships. They problem-solve. They negotiate. They go into scary basements. They discover neighbourhoods. They obsess over prices, market values and the newest, hottest listings. They make sure our clients don’t buy the wrong home.

Meanwhile, the rest of the BREL team does what they do best: Next-level staging. Killer photography. Powerful marketing. Rock-solid paperwork. White-glove services for our clients.

The magic of BREL is in the teamwork and all the things that happen seamlessly, behind the scenes.

Experience & Results

Since 2009, the BREL team has been helping buyers and sellers across the Greater Toronto Area.

In 2023, Sellers who listed with the BREL team sold their homes twice as fast and for an average of $10,969 more than the average home sold on the Toronto MLS. 

Sales Volume

$1 billion +

Clients Served

2,000+

# of 5-star Reviews

650+

Average % of Asking (2023)

103.1%

Average Days on Market (2023)

14

Staging & Design

When a home is professionally cleaned, staged and showcased at its best, it sells faster and for more money – often tens of thousands of dollars more than the unstaged competition. 

We believe so strongly in the value of staging that we own our very own staging company, UPstaging–with full-time employees, a carefully curated collection of furniture and accessories and a dedicated warehouse and moving truck. Our staging and design services are exclusive to BREL clients. 

Our team can use your current furniture and style as the canvas, or completely reimagine your space to make it show its absolute best. Included in our services:

  • Staging consultation with a detailed room-by-room analysis and prep plan for the Seller
  • Access to our trusted Trusted Partner home professionals – handymen, painters, carpet cleaners, plumbers, electricians, gardeners, and many more 
  • Help to coordinate and wrangle tradespeople
  • Professional cleaning 
  • Staging of your home, including furniture and accessories
  • De-staging after the sale

Marketing

What sets BREL apart from other REALTORS is our marketing acumen – and in a shifting market, getting your home seen by the right people, in the right places, is more important than ever. 

When I list a home for sale, I work closely with our in-house marketing team to strategically identify the target buyers and customize our marketing tactics accordingly. Our listing marketing plan always includes:

  1. Stunning HDR digital photography
  2. Interactive 3-D walk-through tours
  3. Floor plans
  4. MLS listing (written by a professional copywriter)
  5. Prominent listing on the BREL website (visited by 90,000+ people every month)
  6. Immersive online home tour experiences
  7. Digital exposure on all the important real estate search websites, including: realtor.ca, Zillow, Point2Homes, The Real Estate Book, REW, Homefinder, Zoocasa, Zolo and more than 12,000 agent and brokerage websites.
  8. Exposure to international buyers via listings on more than 130 international real estate portals in 70 countries on 6 continents.
  9. Facebook and Instagram posts 
  10. Targeted, paid ads on Facebook and Instagram
  11. YouTube and Facebook videos
  12. Email marketing campaigns to potential buyers, top agents and brokerages

When it makes sense, we might also include:

  1. Public open houses
  2. Agent open houses
  3. High-quality feature sheets or booklets 
  4. Direct marketing postcards in your neighbourhood
  5. Scripted video tours
  6. TikTok or other social media videos/posts
  7. Drone photography and/or video
  8. Unique marketing as needed–e.g. coordinating with community events

Pricing & Negotiation

In a cooler market, getting the listing price and strategy right is critical to getting buyers’ attention…and once they’re interested and make an offer, it becomes all about negotiation skills and strategy.  

You can count on me to:

  • Get a solid understanding of your goals and priorities
  • Value your home using multiple data points and methods (it’s both an art and a science)
  • Recommend a pricing strategy to bring in the highest possible price (and ensure it’s aligned with the current market realities and expectations)
  • Obsessively keep on top of what’s happening in the market and how buyers are feeling
  • Perform an ongoing competitive review of activity in your neighbourhood – what’s selling, what’s not selling, and why
  • Recommend pivots to strategy and/or price if necessary
  • Always negotiate in your best interests

As a Certified Negotiation Expert, I’m focused on finding the win/win sweet spot for my clients. 

Easy Showings

Homes sell faster when it’s easy for potential buyers to tour them. That’s why we:

  • Have a BREL-branded lockbox onsite at each property
  • Send detailed Showing Notes to every agent who books an appointment. The Showing Notes are intended to help the buyer’s agent show the property to their client; they highlight what we love about the home, renovations and upgrades, utility costs and taxes, nearby school information, parks, neighbourhood shops and amenities, etc. It’s almost like we’re at the showing with them!
  • Recommend flexible showing timeframes, ideally, 9 am to 9 pm, every day.
  • Plan for buyers who don’t already have an agent. Our extensive marketing reach means we often attract buyers who aren’t already working with a REALTOR. Because we believe buyers and sellers should each have their own independent representation, we assign a second BREL agent to your property – one who is familiar with the home, but independent of the BREL listing agent – to show the home to unrepresented buyers.

Commission

We offer two commission plans that differ based on what’s included.  

With our Gold Plan (5%), we pay for professional staging, cleaning, a pre-listing home inspection or status certificate, professional photography, floor plans, 3-D interactive tours, comprehensive online and offline marketing campaigns and more. Most of our sellers choose the Gold Plan. 

Our Silver Plan (4.5%) includes the same level of marketing and strategy as the Gold Plan, but doesn’t include our home preparation and staging services. Our Silver plan often makes sense for owners selling tenanted properties or homes that don’t require staging. 

Our Guarantees

We set high standards for ourselves and expect to be held accountable for delivering what we promise. While we can’t control what’s happening in the market, we can guarantee the service and communication you can expect when you work with BREL.

  • The “You Want Us, You Got Us” Guarantee. We’re serious about being responsive, available and easy to communicate with. If we don’t return your message or call within 12 hours, we’ll donate $20 to a charity of your choice. 
  • The ‘You’ll Know What We Know” Guarantee There’s nothing worse than not knowing what’s happening. We’re committed to providing a weekly huddle call or meeting and a formal update on showings, feedback, marketing activity and competition. And if we don’t deliver? We’ll deduct $500 from your commission.
  • The “Happy Seller” Guarantee: We won’t hold you hostage to a piece of paper. If there’s ever a problem while we’re working together, we’ll do everything we can to fix it. If we can’t, then we’ll release you from your contract. If you aren’t happy, then neither are we. 

About Me

Life before real estate: Before real estate, I worked in newspapers and publishing for my entire career. I was in charge of The New York Times sections in the Sunday Toronto Star. Before that, I headed up the Marketing team at Penguin Books. Both AMAZING jobs.

What I love about being a REALTOR: I am obsessed with houses and condos. Obsessed. From as far back as I can remember I wanted to be a real estate agent. As a child, Sundays were always filled with going to open houses with my parents after church and breakfast at a greasy spoon. Every day is different – it is challenging, sometimes difficult, always stressful (in all of the good ways) and helping people realize their family or investment dreams is my dream come true career.

Why I love helping sellers: One of the favourite parts of my job is helping Sellers prep their properties for sale.

My life outside of real estate: Running, Sleeping, Eating: Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Peer Reviews

From Matt – The term ” Work wife” has often been said about my relationship with kristin. Some people you just click with! That’s me and kristin. I have been working and sharing clients with her since the first day I joined the BREL team. We just love to tag team and work together. We can meet a new client for the first time and kristin can finish my sentence and I never have to worry if we’re on the same page with our thoughts and how to approach helping the client.

From Allie – If Kristin was an inanimate object she’d be a care bear. She’s the type of woman who would drag herself through a snowstorm with a broken leg just to give you a blanket, and it’s no exaggeration! She’s definitely someone who puts people’s needs above her own and is the most generous person I have the pleasure to know – generous not only financially to those in need, but with her time and energy with people she knows and to those she doesn’t know very well yet. She’s warm, funny and is a rock star Mom juggling work and raising a family. She’s a fierce advocate when sticking up for people’s rights and is an amazing listener. Within 5 minutes of meeting Kristin she’ll be your friend for life. She’s also excellent at what she does, has experienced anything and everything in real estate (and has some great stories to tell!) and will go to the ends of the earth to get her clients the best possible outcome.

From Mel & Brendan: The longest-running BREL team member, OG BREL agent Kristin Shensel has been with us since the days when our “office” was a dining room table. And yet, she stuck with us, leaving behind a successful career in publishing to hitch her fate to our (small at the time) operation. Flash forward almost a decade, and “Agent K” as she has become known, has done it ALL in real estate—from admin assistant, to rentals, to multimillion-dollar sales. Today, she is a powerhouse with literally hundreds of transactions under her belt and a determination to protect her clients that’s legendary. Official supplier of cat memes, social convener and therapist for the BREL family, it’s safe to say that we couldn’t imagine BREL…without K.

From Manh: Kristin goes over and above for her clients. There are no limits to what she is willing to do to make her clients happy. She is knowledgeable and provides honest and trusting advice. Kristin builds you up and encourages success, her easy going nature makes it most enjoyable to work with. She has provided me with all the tools to ensure my transition was a success. I am signed on to the Kristin train and incredibly happy riding by her side.

Read All My Reviews

Client Reviews

Five star service, fantastic experience from start to finish with selling our east end home. Our agent Kristin was a superstar, responsive, organized, knowledgeable, passionate and very well connected. The Brel team exceeded expectations, a real pleasure to work with, shout out to Manh, Zun and Sydney, Thank you! When we saw our listing go live we were blown away, looked amazing and no doubt helped to knock competition out of the way. I highly recommend the BREL team to anyone looking to sell their home. Do yourself a favour and give them a call, the team and their contacts go above and beyond to get you what you want. Thanks again

- Curtis M.

115 Showings; 25 Bidders and a Life-Changing Result Buying and selling a home is one of the most all-encompassing and stressful things in your life. Add in the insanity of the GTA housing market and you are dealing with a whole other level. So, having the best possible team supporting you is crucial. It’s critical they can combine expertise with empathy – have the know-how to get the job done above expectations; and the compassion to support you through all the ups and downs. After the past few months, I can tell you there is no one better at combining expertise with empathy than Kristin Shensel and her team at BREL and Bspoke Reality. And yes, that headline is correct – the efforts of the BREL team (and it was a TRUE team effort) resulted in 115 showings of our house; 25 bidders on offer night and a final result that still has me and my husband wondering if we won the lottery. When I say it’s a full team effort, it’s no lie – and each member of the BREL team brought their own expertise and empathy to the process. From the very beginning when we looked to buy our new house, Kristin gave us a crash course in the market and had us fully prepared with a strategy for offer night. Throughout the process she was checking in, seeing how we were feeling while still counselling us on our offers and the pros and cons of each decision. Then it came time to sell our house – and it was like the Avengers assembling. Kristin had an amazing handyman in our house tackling all those tiny tweaks that you never get around to but wish you would have as soon as they’re done. And then there’s Kiel, Enoch and Jim – the staging team of my dreams. They transformed our house into something magazine worthy that showed would-be buyers see the true potential of our previously humble home. The BREL marketing team then stepped in and stepped it up – incredible photography that showcased Keil & team’s staging miracle, interactive 3D videos; social posts and a attention grabbing write up that gave a voice and personality to our home that undoubtedly piqued the curiosity of many who came through our doors. Through it all, we had stellar support from the BREL admin team – documents, updates, lawyers, you name it – it was all handled with quickly and expertly. If there was a bump in the road, we were constantly told “That’s our issue to fix, not yours.” And they fixed it every time. The final step before listing was pricing strategy. Kristin went far beyond merely looking at comps. She personally toured the homes in our area that were for sale leading up so she understood what was out there and what we should price at to maximize interest and offers. Once the house was up, the comp visits continued to prep for offer night. Kristin was in constant touch about how things were going and through it all, she was always asking us how we were doing and encouraging us to be confident and not stress. Then came offer night – a whirlwind of numbers and emotions. Given the interest, Kristin pulled in additional support from the BREL team to organize the offers and handle the paperwork so she could deal with the flood of agent calls. And as things came to a head, she showed her empathy by ensuring all agents were informed to the best of her ability in the moment and allowing them to keep their clients up to speed. And in the final offers, she pulled in the senior BREL partners to add additional counsel to ensure we were set up for the best possible result. Which we got – and then some. I keep telling Kristin she’s changed our lives for the better – and she deflects out of humility, I guess. Well, I’m writing this review so she can’t stop me from saying it here….. Kristin, you have forever changed our lives for the better and did it all with care and kindness. We are forever grateful. Short story long – hire her – she’s amazing.

- Lindy F.

As a seller, it was essential (critical) to select the best representation for our property. Toronto is saturated with agents, and we quickly learned that all agents are not made equal. Being one of the biggest transactions in life, we knew we had to be careful, and extremely selective in weeding out the amateurs vs. pros. After numerous interviews of various agents and brokerages, we decided on the Brel Team and THANK GOODNESS, we did. After initial discussions with Brendan and Mel, Kristin Shensel was brought on to sell our property. Despite being told by other agents that we would not likely get what we had in mind, Kristin completely proved the opposite. She presented and executed a sales strategy that ended up getting us 14% over listing and our home sold very quickly on offer night after 7 days and it all happened during the worst ice storm - this completely surpassed our expectations! Throughout the process, she demonstrated true knowledge and experience and never over promised, but rather and IN FACT over delivered! She was SUPER responsive to the hundreds of questions (via text, phone, email) and kept us informed (and sane) each and every day (morning, noon, and night). What a professional! If you are currently in search of a top agent, DO NOT look any further. The Brel Team is turnkey. They offer all the essentials and so much more. From beautiful staging, to amazing photography and closing out deals, they are truly a power house. Agents will say and tell you what you want to hear and claim they are the best, but we trusted our gut and the Brel Team has proof in the pudding with real transactional facts! Don't risk the biggest transaction of your life on amateurs, we were so fortunate we didn't. Thank you so much Kristin, Brendan, Mel, Kiel and Jimmy! We are so grateful and indebted to you all. Best wishes.

- Stephanie T.