I saw this video clip doing the rounds on twitter yesterday.  It’s a clip showing how the magazine WIRED is changing their business model to appeal to the new consumer and stay ahead of their competition in the publishing World.

The iPad from Apple is due to be released at the end of this month.  We as an industry need to start thinking like WIRED, embracing new technologies and changing our business models to stay competitive.The iPad can change the way we do business if we let it, and why wouldn’t we? If it can do this for a magazine just imagine how it can benefit you and what it can do to help push the boundaries of your business.  Most REALTORS® are still trying to come to terms with Social Media and understand how it can change their business, they are not ready to take on another potential game changing device.  I am and so are all the other tech savvy REALTORS® I know through twitter and other social media sites. We are excited and ready to include the iPad in our arsenal of tools.  I  urge software developers to develop real estate specific software for the iPad so we can use this device to it’s full potential.  I want the ability to have a more dynamic listing presentation in my pocket / briefcase and to promote my listings with interactive software to buyers using the iPad.

Are you ready for the iPad, how do you think it will change the way you do business?

Copperstone Resort

2010 continued to be consistent in sales volume for the Canmore real estate market with 25 properties selling throughout the month.  The Canmore real estate market in January realized 26 sales for the month.  Of the 25 sales in February they broke down in to the following real estate categories:

Apartments:  10 sales with an average sale price of $342,000 or $351 a square foot.

Townhomes:  8 sales with an average sales price of $585,000 or $375 a square foot.

Half Duplexes: 3 sales with an average price of $1,033,000 or $378 a square foot.

Singe Family Homes: 4 sales with and average price of $624,o00 or $460 a square foot.

The Canmore real estate market in February as a whole averaged a square foot price of $376 compared to January’s $401 a square foot.  The focus of Buyers in the Canmore real estate market shifted in February from a Single Family need in January to a need for an a Apartment / Townhome style property indicating, to me, that we started to see more out of town buyers purchasing this month as opposed to local residents purchasing in January.

As we move into Spring we are starting to see more and more properties again be listed for sale on the market in Canmore and I anticipate our inventory rising substantially again over the next two months.  This rise in inventory will continue to keep pricing in the Canmore real estate market flat and continue to give Buyer’s great choice when deciding to purchase.

Canmore Real Estate News

As one of the leading authorities on the Canmore Real estate market I’m often interviewed then quoted in newspaper articles. These are two of the latest articles to be written on the Canmore real estate market. The first is from our local newspaper the Rocky Mountain Outlook, the second from a Western Canadian Industry newspaper called the Western Investor. Both articles give a good account of what has happened to the real estate market in Canmore over the past 18 months and what we the real estate market in Canmore may look like as we move through 2010.

You can read both articles by clicking on their corresponding names below.

Rocky Mountain Outlook

Western Investor

107 Casale Place

Canmore Real Estate in January 2010 was a busy month, how busy? Compared to January 2009 our sales volume increased 250%.  The Canmore real estate market has, I believe, now settled into a steady sales pattern, averaging monthly sales between 20 and 20 properties a month for the past 3 quarters.

Canmore Real Estate in January occurred in the following categories:

Single Family Homes: 10 properties at an average sale price of $848,250 or $417 a square foot

Apartments: 7 properties at an average sale price of $347,214 or $377 a square foot

Townhomes: 4 properties at an average sale price of $650,625 or $359 a square foot

Half Dulexes: 2 properties at an average sale price of $746,250 or $368 a square foot

Four Plexes: 2 properties at an average sale price $547,375 or $425 a square foot

Recreational Condos: 1 property sold at a sale price of $266,700 or $320 a square foot

As a market as a whole the Canmore real estate market averaged a square foot price of $401 for the January sales.  Canmore real estate for February is off to another busy start with 11 properties currently conditionally sold for the month already and calls to look at property still high.  Look for February to equal if not surpass our January sales volumes.  As we move towards the end of February we should start to see more properties come on the active market as our ‘listing season’ starts to take form.  Our inventory on the market is still a little high and with listing season just around the corner this should keep pricing flat until at least the summer.

For all the properties sold in January see below.

Canmore Real Estate December Stats –

Entrance to Buller Pass

On Tuesday January 26th I had the opportunity to take the afternoon and go snowshoeing with a friend a client of mine.  It was another bluebird day in the Mountains around Canmore and the temperature was hovering at around -5 so we decided to pack up the van and head out to Buller Pass in Kananaskis Country, about a 50km drive South on the Smith Dorian Road.  This is a gravel road that winds up through the mountains past the Spray Lakes and heads South towards Mount Shark.  Mount Shark is the starting point for hiking up to Mount Assiniboine in the summer months and is track set in the winter months for some incredible cross-country skiing.

Buller Pass is (roughly) on the opposite side of the highway to Mount Shark and in the Winter months it’s very easy to miss with all the snow piled up on the side of the road.  We were only out for about an hour and a half so did not complete the whole trail – we’ll be going back in a couple of weeks to hopefully accomplish that task, which should take us around 6 hours for the round trip.

Can $2.7 million really represent great value in a home?

The home I feature in this post about Canmore Real Estate I believe does, and here’s why.

155 Carins Landing

In Canmore, Cairns on the Bow is arguably the most exclusive neighbourhood in town. Located next to the Bow River in the Three Sister’s area of Canmore this upscale Single Family Home neighbourhood boasts some of the largest and most beautiful properties in town. Back in 2007 a 5,500 square foot home in this neighbourhood sold for $3,180,000 or $578 a square foot. In 2009 the average square foot price for a Single Family home in Canmore was $430. The home 5 bedroom, 7 bathroom home featured here and located in Cairns on the Bow is 5,723 square feet above grade and is listed at $2,699,000, or $471 a square foot. This is not your average home, it looks and feels more like a European Chateau than your average Canmore home, with heated marble floors in the hallways, extravagant hardwood floors throughout the living spaces, incredible rock work on the interior walls and around the interior door frames, 2 wood burning fireplaces in the living room a large three car garage and parking for seven. The homes in this neighbourhood (only 18 when all built) are all situated on large oversized lots and will always compliment this home, you will never look out your window and see condos or half duplexes or town homes, there is true value in this home when comparing the price per square foot to any other home in Canmore. Is $2,699,000 an incredible amount of money for a home, sure, but will this home increase in value at a higher rate than other homes in Canmore in a different neighbourhood, absolutely.  Compare this home at $471 a square foot to the average Single family home that is selling for $430 a square foot and you soon realize that the quality of finishings, privacy and neighbourhood location of this home are far superior to anything else.

Click here to contact me for more details on this or any other property in Canmore.

Every year at this time I set goals for my self and my business.  I usually don’t share them with anyone other than my wife and she helps motivate and keep me on track for the year so that I can achieve the goals we set for ourselves.  This year I wanted to take a different approach to goal setting and as I was researching effective goal setting methods Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan on Twitter) wrote his annual post on how he approaches goal setting.  So this year, thanks to Chris Brogan, my goals look and feel much different to the usual goals I set for myself.  You can read Chris Brogan’s post here and set your own three words too.

My Three Guiding Words for 2010 are:

:: A-Team :: Endurance :: Cultivate ::

The A-Team

A-Team – this is not a reference to some sort of super-ego of mine, I’m not trying to become the ‘A-Team’ of Real Estate in my market, this is ALL about the A-Team – you know, the 1980’s T.V. hit with B.A. Baracus, Faceman, Hannibal and Murdock.  For me the A-Team achieved results through unconventional methods, thought outside the box, used what little resources they could find to the greatest effect,always put their clients needs first, always achieved justice for the right people and built an incredible word-of-mouth business.  O.K. so they achieved it with corny one-liners and blowing everything up, but nobody got hurt, the right person always ‘won’ and sometimes you need to blow things up to achieve greater results.  At the end of the year I will announce “I love it when a plan comes together”.

Endurance – My sport of choice, as most if not all people who follow me know, is cycling.  This year I want to complete some longer Mountain Biking events and races and continue working towards my goal of riding in the B.C. Bike race, a 7 day mountain bike race through the singe track trails of British Columbia.  Endurance is the key to riding these types of races successfully.  My typical work day starts with a bang every morning at 6:45am, I wake the kids up, make their breakfasts and lunches, help them clean teeth, wash faces, get dressed and out for the bus in a 45 minute frenzy, I then tend to continue to go full speed for as long as I can before tending to crash about 8pm exhausted.  My riding tends to mimic my work day routine.  Endurance is something I need to pay attention to and train for, both for my improved cycling performance and for my business / life.  Life in 2010 for me is thinking of it in terms of a marathon, not a Sprint and the endurance will help me compete more effectively.

Cultivate – not plants, I live in a condo for a reason.  I do not have green thumbs.  Here’s why this is my third word for 2010.  2010 is a year where I will improve the processes I put in place in 2009, nurture and foster relationships with clients, colleagues and family,  form and refine my business through education and continue to seek the acquaintance or goodwill of people.  This year I am also committing more time to my children, to nurture, train, mentor and support them in all they do.

Those are my three words, I would love to hear your comments on my goals and sincerely would appreciate your support in keeping me accountable for them.  What are your three words? What are you going to achieve this year? let me know below.

2009 Sales Figures for Camore Real Estate

So 2009 finally comes to a close and it’s been quite the year in the Canmore housing market.  Actually, it’s been quite the decade for Canmore real estate and I thought, as it is the end of the decade I’d look back over the past ten years to see how the Canmore real estate market has performed over such a time.

Firstly though, let’s take a look at the performance of the Canmore real estate market in 2009.  I remember at the beginning of the year the market looked pretty bleak.  We had just come off the worst fourth quarter sales Canmore had experienced as a town selling just  34 properties from October 1st 2008 to December 31st 2008.  All the Realtors were discussing their predictions for the first quarter of 2009, we were trying to find ways to cut down on our monthly expenses yet still provide the service and duties to our clients that they needed and expected from us.  There was much strategizing going on within the brokerage as to how best communicate the fact that Buyer’s were few and far between and the selling prices of homes that home owners had come to expect when selling in Canmore were not realistic anymore and needed to be altered if Seller’s were to indeed sell their home in Canmore.

As the year started to unfold we as Realtors were quickly realizing that the first quarter was shaping up to be the same as the last quarter of 2008.  At the end of March 39 homes from our ever increasing inventory of homes for sale on the Canmore real estate market had been sold.  As you can see by the chart below 2008 had been our slowest year of the decade for sales with only 237  properties selling in the year.  Based on the first quarter results of 2009 the market was setting itself up for two dismal sales years back to back – something that had been unheard of in the booming real estate market of Canmore.

Sales for the past Decade in Canmore Real Estate

Thankfully in April the market seemed to turn a corner and sales activity since then has been very consistent allowing us to achieve sales for the year of over 300 units.  Looking at the sales numbers in the chart to the left you’ll see that the sales numbers for 2008 and 2009 are not that dissimilar to that of 2000 and 2001.

The Canmore real estate market for 2009 was a true Buyer’s market, finally giving Buyer’s a chance to enter in to the Canmore real estate market at a more reasonable price than years previous.  We have seen first time buyer’s able to buy in to the Canmore market which in turn has allowed young families that had originally bought those smaller condo’s and apartments to move up to their next home, keeping families in our community rather than losing them to Cochrane, Calgary and beyond as we have seen over the last few years.  Prices did fall, dropping as much as 20% on some properties but the average square foot price for a property in Canmore has held steady since April and it seems at this time that Sellers and Buyers have achieved a happy medium in regards to what a reasonable list and sale price is for a home.  At the beginning of 2009 we had an inventory of homes on the market of close to 500 properties, our market today has an active inventory of 295 homes for sale in Canmore.

We’ve seen land developers enter in to bankruptcy, builder’s merge with other builder’s and other developer’s re-invent themselves and their product in order to try and sell product and stay in business.  It’s been a very difficult year for many in the real estate industry in Canmore but it’s also been a year of learning, changing, strategizing, branding and understanding the new market.  2010 and beyond will promises to bring new challenges in the Canmore real estate market and the larger real estate market in Canada.  Comments from the government stating that they may intervene to cool off real estate markets that appear to be on another bubble by reducing amortisation periods and increasing eligible down payment percentages are just two of the issues facing potential buyers as we move into the New Year.  Today though, is a post to reflect on 2009 and those reflections should show that at the end of the year we sold 307 properties at an average square foot price of $386.  The average price of a Single Family home in Canmore was $757,809 down 17% from 2008 and 19% from 2007 and sales of single family homes in Canmore was up 37% over 2008 and down 26% from 2007.

Canmore Real Estate sales for the month of December were slower than we have seen in previous months with a total of 15 properties selling in the month. For information on the third quarter of Canmore real estate sales click here. The breakdown of sales in Canmore real estate for December were as follows:

Apartments 3 :: Half Duplex 1 :: Lots 2 :: Single Family Homes 7 :: Townhomes 2

Two positives for sellers in our market this month 1. Homes that sold in Canmore in December sold for 95% of list price and 2. They averaged a square foot price of $428, the highest square footage price for sold properties we’ve seen all year in Canmore. We have 8 conditional sales going in to January and, based on the calls I’ve been receiving since Christmas, interest from Buyer’s wanting to purchase real estate in Canmore is still high. For a look at the properties that sold in Canmore in December see below.

Canmore Real Estate December Stats –

New Year's in Canmore

New Year’s Eve 2009

Party on the Pond

6pm – Midnight:  New Year’s Eve in Canmore starts at 6pm on the 10th Street Pond with Hot Chocolate and Hot Dogs sponsored by Sobey’s.

There will be Music, a Bonfire and Skating all night with Fireworks at 9:30pm for the Kids.

At Midnight the big light show takes place at Millennium Park

Vancouver 2010 Torch Relay

January 20th 2010

Olympic Torch Relay

Cheer on our local Torch Bearers as they pass through Canmore January 20th 2010 and take part in  the Longest Torch relay in History.  Click here for more more information on the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Cross Country Skiing World Cup

February 4th 2010

World Cup Cross Country Skiing at the Canmore Nordic Centre

The world’s best cross-country skiers will be returning to Canmore, Alberta in 2010!  The Viessmann World Cup FIS Cross-Country event will run February 4-7, 2010 at the picturesque Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park and will feature the final international races prior to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.

Don’t miss the action as Canada’s Olympic team makes its final preparations against a star-studded field of 200+ athletes from over 25 nations.

February 4, 2010

• Official Training
• Canmore Winter Festival

February 5, 2010

• Women’s 10km Skate
• Men’s 15km Skate

February 6, 2010

• Women’s Classic Sprint
• Men’s Classic Sprint

February 7, 2010

• Olympic Sendoff Celebration

For more information visit the Alberta World Cup website or click on the photograph above the heading of this section