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

I have recently spent time in the San Diego area. It was an eye opener, foreclosures all over the place, yet waterfront apartments in Coronado still asking over $2,000,000 and at least 1 had sold. 3 bedrooms and over 1800sq ft but I wonder if, after the financial meltdown, these properties will be even looked at. This time even the people with disposable capital must be taking a breather and wondering if any of their investments are safe.

I have a client that invested this year in Real Estate in the States and had already seen his investment loose ½ of what he paid, in 4 months. It’s a long term investment but just how long it will take to recover his equity is now any ones guess. .

 I read that this is the sort of economy that million and billionaires are created.  People that take investment gambles and have the money to make cash purchases probably.

In England there is a growing trend for buyers to demand a price reduction just before they have to pay for the property otherwise they will walk away from the deal, not a good situation if the seller has bought another property, their Real Estate transaction is vastly different from BC but we are hearing about buyers wanting out of the contract before completion because of perceived falling values.

 I don’t doubt that it will hit us may be not as hard but we will be affected. The real estate market will slow down faster as buyers re think their futures but if you are thinking about long term real Estate investments  this will be the time to get a little more serious there will be some opportunities out there, not as many as the States but perhaps a little more secure, in the short term.

If you are trying to sell right now it’s a frustrating time but it is really is a “normal market” after several years of sellers markets. The election does not help apart for creating political uncertainty the amount of signage out there tends to make for sale signs blend into the background.

Despite all the media attempts to paint the Lower Mainland Real Estate market as a disaster, it’s not that bad. Yes it is a little slower that the last few years but that really should have been expected to happen at some time or other, that time turns out to be now, but it could not keep going at the frantic pace it was.

I still believe that the future will be an increase in price and a steady market.

If you were to go up to the top of Burnaby Mountain and look West there is Water, East and North mountains and South is the USA, unless there is a whole scale out migration in the tens of thousands or we extend the city, over the border to Bellingham, we are running out of land so land will continue to hold or increase its value and as you know land is the major price component the property value. The house just depreciates in value from new until demolition.

The only alternative is to build on all the farm land and I don’t think any level of government would allow that to happen in a large scale as the cost of food goes up and their re election chances go down after all the true purpose of party politics is to get elected then re elected, and you thought it was to represent the people!

As long as we have a steadily increasing population (Surrey grows at approximately 1000 people per month) there will be a demand for housing, be it rental or residential.

If you were to graph out the market for the last 30 or so years you will see ups and downs, the funny thing is that, normally, the down is never as low as the last down and the high is always higher that the last peak proving that Real Estate is a medium to long term investment and most people who try and continually flip properties will get caught out by a down turn eventually.

 Why do we keep getting “experts” come through town and tell people how to get rich in Real Estate when most of these so called “experts” don’t even know that the foreclosure procedure in BC is not the same as the States, people here have rights and normally 3 months to redeem their mortgage after it goes to court and the property has to be appraised and not sold for what is owing but at a fair market value as deemed by the court.

I can not believe how many calls I get from potential buyers calling all the listings that they might possibly be interested in.  What is wrong with you, I know you think you will get a bargain but you won’t, in most cases the Realtor keeps all the commission and does not get you a deal because they are bound by law to get the seller the best price possible. Normally ,in Canada anyhow, the listings are posted on the realtor .ca 72 hours after hitting the Realtors MLS site so the Realtors that have buyers signed up will find them before you even see them.

Wouldn’t it be easier to find a Realtor that will work with you to find a place that you like and not spend countless hours looking at places you have not interest in?  You just tell your Realtor who now works for you what you want and they will find it a lot quicker that you will and they will represent you in any negotiations, more and more we are seeing deals where the buyer goes to the listing realtor and if you look at the contract it says there is no agency with that realtor, this means that you are on your own. I often think of this as going to court without a lawyer and asking the Prosecutor to defend you. To all you potential buyers out there get a Realtor, let them spend that all too expensive gas rather than it coming out of your pocket. I met someone the other day that had a list of 73 Realtors to call talk about wasting everyone’s time. He had been trying to do this over 3 weeks and guess what most of them were sold by the time he talked to the Realtor