As more homes are equipped with "smart" technologies for everything from surveillance to home automation, the real estate purchase process is changing.

Home sellers are increasingly using video and/or audio surveillance to eavesdrop on potential buyers, using the information gleaned as leverage. This places the buyer at an obvious disadvantage during negotiations.

Are you a prospective homebuyer? Onto your second or "forever" home? Whatever your situation, preparing for homeownership requires you to arrange your finances so you can put your best foot forward dealing with your mortgage, taxes and home maintenance.

Before you start the process of looking for a home, consider the following:

Renovation guru and HGTV star Bryan Baeumler is in town this weekend for the Calgary Fall Home Show, which runs from Thursday, Sept. 19 to Sunday, Sept. 22 at the BMO Centre.

Believe it or not, winter is coming. Ensuring that your home's cold-weather systems are running efficiently will save you both money and major headaches in the long run. Work your way through this fall home maintenance checklist and you can rest easy knowing that your home and yard are ready for winter:

If your garden party is usually over after the irises, peonies, plums and lilacs fade, add late-blooming flowers to really stretch your summer this season. Making way for late bloomers means the joy of summer continues past your escape to the lake and well into back-to-school season.

Rebranded Calgary Renovation Show to feature what's hot for 2017

New Year's resolutions are almost as inevitable as the New Year itself. And if those resolutions include home renovation projects, then the Calgary Renovation Show is here to help.

Previously known as the Calgary Homexpo, the rebranded show returns to Calgary for its 46th year Jan 13 to 15, 2017, but with a new name, new look and new presenter – Marketplace Events, the group behind the Calgary Home + Design Show and Calgary Home + Garden Show.

"The all-new Calgary Renovation Show focuses on reimagining your current space," courtesy of some 200 exhibitors related to the latest in home and renovation trends and products, as well as a variety of guest presenters, said show manager Teri Salazar.

Bring nature indoors for low-cost decorating this season

Michelena Bamford loves the scent of natural evergreens such as junipers, pines, blue spruce, white spruce and cedars in her home.

But the owner of Calgary-based Rocky Mountain Wreaths doesn't limit herself to greens. She also gathers local dogwood, birch and wolfwillow twigs to add to her work. Combined, she says it brings nature into her home and brightens up the dark days of December.

"Different plants that we appreciate at different times of year are really important to me," said Bamford.

Engineered gardening could help expand growing potential

You likely don't think about light quality or intensity when you're crunching a carrot or raising a radish, so why should you care about Jack Zhang's newly engineered lights?

Because Zhang's new LED lights could help you grow your own super-efficient vertical farm in a kitchen nook, empty bedroom or spare closet.

Zhang, an electric engineer by trade, spoke to me about his newly imagined LED lights when the Lumenari Biosciences co-founder and CEO attended the Canwest Horticulture show in September. At that time, Zhang said his company was, "all about designing energy-efficient lighting systems for the horticulture industry."

If your yard is a bar, mushrooms are the patrons and the wait staff

The phone call came during my regular CBC radio phone-in show.

The caller had heard Dr. Scholl's foot powder was a fungicide. She knew lawn mushrooms were a type of fungus, so she wondered if she could kill her lawn mushrooms with foot powder – active ingredient Tolfanate, a synthetic thiocarbamate.

"No, definitely not," I exclaimed.