Thursday, November 27, 2008 Holiday Skate With Santa!You and Your Family are Invited... To a Holiday Ice Skating Party!Sponsored by Telf Maynard and Dexter Associates Realty. (We also have a limited number of skates available).
Please RSVP with numbers by December 15th to Telf Maynard: Office: 604-263-1144 Cell: 604-264-8353 Email: telf@telf.ca I look forward to skating with you! And bring your cameras! Santa is a pretty good skater, but a little out of practice, so there could be some interesting moments! Donations of non-perishable food items will also be accepted for the Vancouver Food Bank. Thursday, November 27, 2008 Hooray! -- We're NUMBER 4 in Google search results!I felt this was worthy of a blog post.....
If you go to www.google.com and search for "vancouver realtors".... Out of 10,000+ Realtors in the Vancouver area, I'm FOURTH on the map list at the top... and I'm actually the ONLY Realtor on the list -- the other results are all Realty companies, not individual Realtors. So I hope you don't mind me giving myself a little pat on the back for this accomplishment.
How did I pull this off? I have no idea. I've done so much in the way of online marketing, I couldn't possibly even list it all for you, never mind telling you what, in particular, got me this status. But there are Realtors out there who spend hundreds of thousands in marketing.... and I'm not one of them!
So what do I think made the difference? I suspect it's because of all my loyal clients visiting my website! YOU--my readers, clients and fans--generating website traffic volume. So thank you. I appreciate the support.
-Telf
Monday, November 24, 2008 Open House. Open House: Sat, Nov 29, 2-4pmCategories:Southwest Maple Ridge, Maple Ridge 
Please come visit me at my Open House at 20914 ROSEWOOD PL in Maple_Ridge.
Open House: Sat, Nov 29, 2-4pm Don't be fooled by the headlines! Now is the best time to be buying or moving up while prices are back at affordable levels. This renovated house offers buyers looking for their first house a great opportunity. The above-ground bsmt offers revenue potential or more room for a bigger family. The big fenced yard can be an adventure for both child and dog, and there are shops, restaurants, and public transit nearby. Whatever the current market, the history of the market in Metro Vancouver over the past 25 years tells us the prices will again rise, despite the short-term drops, and climb to ever higher levels. The new Golden Ears Bridge will make Maple Ridge an even more desirable place to buy, to invest, and to live than it is now!! Wednesday, November 19, 2008 Open House. Open House: Sunday Nov 23, 2-4pmCategories:Southwest Maple Ridge, Maple Ridge
Please come visit me at my Open House at 20914 ROSEWOOD PL in Maple_Ridge.
Open House: Sunday Nov 23, 2-4pm Don't be fooled by the headlines! Now is the best time to be buying or moving up while prices are back at affordable levels. This renovated house offers buyers looking for their first house a great opportunity. The above-ground bsmt offers revenue potential or more room for a bigger family. The big fenced yard can be an adventure for both child and dog, and there are shops, restaurants, and public transit nearby. Whatever the current market, the history of the market in Metro Vancouver over the past 25 years tells us the prices will again rise, despite the short-term drops, and climb to ever higher levels. The new Golden Ears Bridge will make Maple Ridge an even more desirable place to buy, to invest, and to live than it is now!! Monday, November 17, 2008 Zoocasa - new Canadian search siteZoocasa - new Canadian real estate search siteZoocasa is a new company launched on September 11, 2008 by Rogers Communications Inc. It promises "to give all people searching for a home in Canada the ability to easily find homes for sale based on the things they value the most." Although the website is still in "beta" (ie. not yet finished), it does seem to have some decent features, as well as a lot of problems.
Zoocasa allows you to search by the typical information of city, neighbourhood, bedroom count, price, etc. but will also give you some interesting statistics on houses available that match your search criteria, such as listing count, high price, low price, and average price. They all pull data from Wikipedia, giving you an overview of the neighbourhood you are searching, which is a nice feature.
Another nice feature of Zoocasa is automated linking of listings with a Real Estate Agent's facebook profile. While this seems like a fantastic time-saving feature for Realtors (like me) who post everything on Facebook, it doesn't work yet.
But biggest issue on Zoocasa is a lack of listings! There are, as of this moment, 5773 properties for sale in the City of Vancouver (on MLS). Zoocasa brings up just 2814. (Zoocasa results here). Will people use a website to search for property knowing that they're only getting access to less than half of the available listings?
But my personal pet peeve about Zoocasa, and the biggest problem they seem to have, is that my listings are linked back to another Realtor. Now that's annoying. I did email them, twice, about this small glitch and have not received any reply. As there is no phone number or any sort of contact information on their website, it prompted me to do a little research on Zoocasa.com
Officially, Zoocasa Inc. is owned by 2167961 Ontario Inc (as stated in their Terms of Use). As that's not much help, a little more research was required.
The domain name, zoocasa.com, is owned by Rogers Communications Inc. (WHOIS). Which is eye-opening. If a corporation as large as Rogers is planning to enter the Real Estate listings market, they could be a force to recon with! Although, from a quick look at their site, they do seem to be contradicting some of Canada's laws for real estate advertising. I guess we'll see what happens.
A quick search of Ontario corporate records shows that the directors of 2167961 Ontario Inc are "Michael Lee" and "William W. Linton". Michael Lee brings up too many Google results to filter.... but add in the search term Rogers, and you will quickly find that Michael Lee is the Chief Strategy Officer for Rogers Communications Inc. and William W. Linton is Roger's CFO. Very interesting.
Zoocasa was incorporated on March 28, 2008 in Ontario and went live on the web on August 9, 2008.
List of 2167961 Inc. (Zoocasa) Directors & Officers:
Nadir H. Mohamed, President & COO (Rogers President & COO)
Michael Lee, Director (Rogers Chief Strategy Officer)
M. Lorraine Daly, Officer (Rogers Vice President/Treasurer)
William W. Linton, Director (Rogers CFO & Vice President, Finance)
David P. Miller, Officer (Rogers Senior VP, General Counsel, Secretary)
As you can tell, although they seem to be trying to keep it quiet, Zoocasa is clearly owned and operated by Rogers Communications.
Once you have this info to start from, searching for more becomes easy. You can read an interesting interview with one of their web developers here: http://www.blogto.com/city/2008/09/zoocasa_aims_to_clean_up_mlss_mess/
The future of Zoocasa is unclear. If they can solve the seemingly insurmountable problem of where to get their listings from, they might have a chance. MLS is not going to share, and is not going away anytime soon! And if they stop annoying Realtors by linking listings to the wrong person, and actually allow Realtors a way to post their listings on Zoocasa, then they might have a chance to at least survive. I guess time will tell.
Meanwhile, I would LOVE to hear some comments from all of my readers. Which search is easier to use -- zoocasa.com or my own personal website's search feature? Thank you for your feedback! Thursday, November 13, 2008 Open House. OPEN HOUSE: Sat & Sun, Nov 15 & 16, 2-4pmCategories:Southwest Maple Ridge, Maple Ridge
Please come visit me at my Open House at 20914 ROSEWOOD PL in Maple_Ridge.
OPEN HOUSE: Sat & Sun, Nov 15 & 16, 2-4pm Don't be fooled by the headlines! Now is the best time to be buying or moving up while prices are back at affordable levels. This renovated house offers buyers looking for their first house a great opportunity. The above-ground bsmt offers revenue potential or more room for a bigger family. The big fenced yard can be an adventure for both child and dog, and there are shops, restaurants, and public transit nearby. Whatever the current market, the history of the market in Metro Vancouver over the past 25 years tells us the prices will again rise, despite the short-term drops, and climb to ever higher levels. The new Golden Ears Bridge will make Maple Ridge an even more desirable place to buy, to invest, and to live than it is now!! Wednesday, November 12, 2008 Vancouver West October Stats - October 08Categories:stats,Vancouver West Vancouver West Real Estate Stats - Detached HousesThe following is a summary of stats released by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. Most of it is specific to detached houses on the Westside of Vancouver.
Housing Price Index
August: $1,371,663
September: $1,315,517
October: $1,279,528
3-Month Average: $1,322,236
1-Year Change: -6.6%
3-Year Change: +30.8%
5-Year Change: +75.4%
Number of Sales
August: 46
September: 46
October: 52
Number of New Listings
August: 209
September: 314
October: 232 Total Listings (includes condos)
August: 3812
September: 4314
October: 4241 Total Sales (Includes condos)
August: 333
September: 323
October: 285
Summary
Sales are UP for detached houses, but down for condos. Prices are down.Listings are down.
Two months, however, does not a trend make. And listings SHOULD be back down in the 16,000 - 17,000 range for a "balanced market". But they do seem to be on their way down.
The trend of sales going down cannot continue indefinitely -- Vancouver has a positive net migration, people have children, people get married, children move out, people die, people get divorced..... (although not necessarily in that order!)
The Canadian dollar is down, and everyone, everwhere would love to move to Vancouver.... which just became that much more affordable! So houses have to sell and people have to buy!
If sales go up and listing counts continue going down, housing prices will, by nature of supply and demand, be forced back up fairly soon.
Is that a good thing??? Now that depends on whether you've already bought your own home!
So WHEN are the prices going back up? That willl have to wait for my next blog post..... Wednesday, November 12, 2008 Real Estate Board press releaseResidential housing price decline creates buying opportunitiesVANCOUVER, B.C. – November 3, 2008 – Housing price reductions across Greater Vancouver over the last six months have eliminated price gains witnessed in the first quarter of 2008.
The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver (REBGV) reports that residential benchmark prices, as calculated by the MLSLink Housing Price Index®, declined 8.8 per cent between May and October 2008, resulting in a 3.9 per cent year-to-date price reduction for detached, attached and apartment properties in Greater Vancouver between Octobers 2007 and 2008. In May 2008, the overall residential benchmark price was $568,411, compared to $518,668 in October 2008.
“Home sales are not keeping pace with the positive economic conditions in BC,” said REBGV president, Dave Watt. “That’s a direct result of a loss of consumer confidence in the overall market. Accordingly, today’s housing market is characterized by moderating home prices and wide selection. It’s definitely a buyer’s market.” Residential property sales in Greater Vancouver declined 55 per cent in October 2008 to 1,364 from the 3,028 sales recorded in October 2007.
Active listings totalled 19,257 in October 2008, a three per cent decline from the 19,852 active listings reported in September 2008. New listings for detached, attached and apartment properties increased one per cent to 4,867 in October 2008 compared to October 2007, when 4,819 new units were listed. Sales of detached properties in October 2008 declined 56.5 per cent to 493 from the 1,133 sales recorded during the same period in 2007. The benchmark price for detached properties declined 4.7 per cent from October 2007 to $695,962. Since May 2008, the benchmark price for a detached property in Greater Vancouver has declined 9.8 per cent.
Sales of apartment properties in October 2008 declined 52.7 per cent to 647, compared to 1,368 sales in October 2007. The benchmark price of an apartment property declined 3.5 per cent from October 2007 to $358,359. Since May 2008, the benchmark price for an apartment property in Greater Vancouver has declined eight per cent. Attached property sales in October 2008 are down 57.5 per cent to 224, compared with the 527 sales in October 2007. The benchmark price of an attached unit declined 1.4 per cent in Greater Vancouver between October 2007 and 2008 to $448,152. Since May 2008, the benchmark price for an attached property in Greater Vancouver has declined 6.4 per cent.
Editor’s Notes:
The MLSLink Housing Price Index® (HPI) calculates benchmark prices, which represent a typical property within a market. The HPI takes into consideration what averages and medians do not – the price of housing features such as lot size, age, number of rooms, etc. These features become the composite of the ‘typical house’ in a given area. Each month’s sales determine the current prices paid for bedrooms, bathrooms, fireplaces, etc. and apply those new values to the ‘typical’ house model. The HPI measures typical, pure price change (inflation or deflation).
The Real Estate industry is a key economic driver in British Columbia. In 2007, 38,050 homes changed hands in the Board's area generating $1.065 billion in spin-offs. Total dollar volume of residential sales set a new record at $22.25 billion and total dollar volume of all sales set a record at $22.77 billion. The Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver is an association representing more than 9,500 REALTORS®. The Real Estate Board provides a variety of membership services, including the Multiple Listing Service®. For more information on real estate, statistics, and buying or selling a home, contact a local REALTOR® or visit www.realtylink.org.
Monday, November 3, 2008 Open House. OPEN HOUSE: Sat & Sun, Nov 8 & 9, 2-4pm.Categories:Southwest Maple Ridge, Maple Ridge
Please come visit me at my Open House at 20914 ROSEWOOD PL in Maple_Ridge.
OPEN HOUSE: Sat & Sun, Nov 8 & 9, 2-4pm. Don't be fooled by the headlines! Now is the best time to be buying or moving up while prices are back at affordable levels. This renovated house offers buyers looking for their first house a great opportunity. The above-ground bsmt offers revenue potential or more room for a bigger family. The big fenced yard can be an adventure for both child and dog, and there are shops, restaurants, and public transit nearby. Whatever the current market, the history of the market in Metro Vancouver over the past 25 years tells us the prices will again rise, despite the short-term drops, and climb to ever higher levels. The new Golden Ears Bridge will make Maple Ridge an even more desirable place to buy, to invest, and to live than it is now!! Categories: 2607 | Brackendale, Squamish Real Estate | Cambie | Campbell Valley, Langley Real Estate | Collingwood VE, Vancouver East Real Estate | comedy | Cottonwood MR, Maple Ridge Real Estate | County Line Glen Valley, Langley Real Estate | detached | Downtown NW | Downtown NW, New Westminster | Downtown NW, New Westminster Real Estate | Dunbar, Vancouver West | Dunbar, Vancouver West Real Estate | Durieu, Mission Real Estate | East Central, Maple Ridge Real Estate | False Creek North | False Creek North, Vancouver West | Glenwood PQ, Port Coquitlam Real Estate | graphs | greater vancouver | investors | Kitsilano, Vancouver West | Kitsilano, Vancouver West Real Estate | Maple Ridge | Mount Pleasant VE, Vancouver East Real Estate | New Westminster | news stories | press release | real estate | rebgv | S.W. Marine, Vancouver West | S.W. Marine, Vancouver West Real Estate | Sapperton, New Westminster Real Estate | selling tips | Shaughnessy, Vancouver West | Shaughnessy, Vancouver West Real Estate | Southlands, Vancouver West | Southlands, Vancouver West Real Estate | Southwest Maple Ridge | Southwest Maple Ridge, Maple Ridge | statistics | stats | Stave Falls, Mission Real Estate | Steveston South, Richmond Real Estate | Surrey | Thornhill, Maple Ridge Real Estate | University VW, Vancouver West Real Estate | Upper Squamish, Squamish Real Estate | vancouver | Vancouver Real Estate | Vancouver West | vancouver west-side | Vancouver, BC Real Estate | Vedder S Watson-Promontory, Sardis Real Estate | Websters Corners, Maple Ridge Real Estate | West Newton | west-side | west-side vancouver | Westwood Plateau, Coquitlam | Whistler, Whistler Real Estate | Whonnock, Maple Ridge Real Estate |
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- Dexter Associates Realty
- 2094 West 43rd Avenue
- Vancouver, BC
- V6M 2C9 Canada
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