Quotes from Scott McGillivray

I'm in a BMW rut. My last three cars have been BMW 3-Series.

If you're struggling to get on the same page as your partner and you're not able to agree when it comes to renovations, my suggestion would be to consider hiring a designer. The introduction of a third party moderator with expertise can help break the tie and offer a voice of reason.

A lot of times people get caught up in bidding wars, and will go way over what their price needs to be because they love the house so much.

On average, you will pay less for a home on a Monday than you will on a Saturday and a Sunday.

In a way, I've made a career out of sweat equity, and I've enjoyed sharing what I've learned in the process. It's a great feeling to educate people on how to get into their first or fifth home in the most economical way possible.

It isn't always easy to stay within budget when committing to a renovation, but one place you can cut costs is on the demolition.

Student rental is definitely a very profitable form; it is also a very time intensive type of investment. There's a lot of working involved with student rentals.

One of the biggest challenges is that once somebody realizes that they're ready to buy a home, then they realize that they haven't prepared properly, and it takes a while.

Buying a home is a very emotional process. It's important to remain rational and stick with your price limit while buying.

I fell in love with real estate, renovations, and became a licensed contractor when I was 26.

I think that every homeowner has a fascination with real estate. You can't deny that it's such a huge player in our finances. It's probably the most expensive thing you'll ever purchase, so you're forced to pay attention.

No means maybe in real estate.

I think a lot of people try to time the market when it comes to buying or selling a property or investing in real estate, but the real secret to real estate is not timing the market, but time in the market.

I try to work on houses not cars. If I was as good at working on cars as I was on houses maybe I would. But I'm not.

You have to care about the transactional cost. You have to care about the future value. You have to care about maintaining value in your home through repair and maintenance.

Whatever you put in your listing, make sure that it's a true representation of the property and it's not dishonest.

I can confidently say that I have a great relationship with my siblings, though I know not everybody does. I would hope that my children have a very similar relationship with each other.

Before purchasing a fixer-upper property, make sure to look at the numbers. It is easy to become emotionally attached to a house, and buyers can lose sight of the true costs of the renovation work.

The biggest mistake that I see homeowners make all too often is not doing a proper inspection of the home and falling into a project that is a lot bigger than they probably anticipated or budgeted for.

And personally, one of the secrets I guess you can say with success on HGTV, for not only myself and a lot of other individuals who have shows, is that we truly do love what we do. We're passionate about real estate. We love design. We love seeing transformations. We love working with our hands.

One thing that has saved my bacon many times is talking to the neighbor about the property. Neighbors are so transparent and honest, they will give you the entire down-low on the property.

Trial and error does not work in real estate. It's way too expensive to learn from your own mistakes, you need to learn from others' mistakes.

I never thought I'd be doing TV shows about real estate.

People automatically associate the caliber of the space based on the appliances.