Reading and watching on TV some of the forest fires in BC I do wonder what would make anyone become a firefighter especially in the forests. No arriving on a fancy truck with lights flashing and sirens going, just mostly get dropped of with a few others, with your equipment. There are some who jump from helicopters in the middle of no where and have very little if any ground support. You have to deal with all kinds of terrain and conditions and its hot, hard and dirty work.

I thought about a client of mine who did this when he was a student, at UBC, for a summer job, when he told me about it and some of the things you have to do out there it really makes me appreciate these people. He told me about getting out of the way of the water bombers, because the weight of the water, if it hits you, can kill you.

I think though the most impressive thing he told me was running through trees when the fire was crowing faster then he could run. Crowning is when the fire moves through the forest from tree top to tree top, in this case the fire passed him and he was literally running for his life. He made it and went on to become an Architect.

So if you are having a bad day at work just give a thought to the forest fire fighters and you’ll realize you have it easy at least there is probably no possibility of dying on the job.

Wow, 30 + degrees, this is when we all wish that we had bought the air conditioner when it was on sale in May. Note to self buy in January if you can find one.

The same applies to Real Estate it’s a hot market now, one of the best Junes ever for sales and July is going to be the same. Should have bought in April when sellers were a little desperate.

There are still some deals out there but not many.

Again don’t rely on finding them your self get a Realtor to do the looking. They should be able to plug you into the MLS computer and you will get the listing e mailed to you normally before the listing ever appears on Realtor .ca.

Again don’t rely on realtors sites as if they are not in their  Virtual office (adirect link to MLS computers)section the odds are that they are sold, I still find listings stated as active even when they have been sold a year or more.

Find a good Realtor and put them to work there are lots of us out there just waiting to help you.

Wow what a Christmas that was, I hope Santa Clause brought you a snow shovel over 51 inches at my house. This must be the first time in living memory that lower mainlanders have welcomed rain.  Those of you who wanted a white Christmas that’s it for 20 years or 50. Let’s hope the New Year is better from this point on.

I got to thinking about all the Happy New Years I got while shoveling snow. I know of at least 2 other dates that are celebrated as New Years day  The Julian (Ukrainian) one on Jan 13^th, you really should be in Saskatchewan for that one and of course the Lunar (Chinese) New Year so I thought I would look up some others. I was surprised to find that we can celebrate a New Year over 100 times in 2009 every month there are some New Year days.

Go to  http://www.celebratetoday.com/newyears.html  for a complete list. I was surprised then I thought I must find out where all the different cultural centers are, nothing like a New Years eve party every 3^rd day.

Well I wish you all the best for 2009 and Happy New Year, when ever your day is.

Well here we are having gone through a November most realtors would like to forget, only 5% of all the listings sold. Now all of a sudden out of nowhere the amount of buyers has picked up. There are some deals to be had right now and who knows when this will bottom out.

The only way we do know of course is when we see prices rising. This normally occurs when there are few listings and traditionally January and February are the months with the fewest listings so time will tell.

From a sellers point of view a settling down of the market will be a good thing, not so buyers.

There is no indication of the market collapsing like it has in the USA and the lower mainland if BC has a good economy which also seems to be holding steady, I still see signs on construction sites for carpenters and laborers so I take that as a sign the building trades are having trouble getting employees.

Anyhow to all of you out there have a good Christmas and all the best for 2009