Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

This past weekend some 300 teams of 5 or 10 persons plus a whole bunch of crazy folk that ride this event solo congregated at the Canmore Nordic Centre for the annual 24 hours of Adrenalin mountain bike race.

Canmore becomes a hub of activity from about the Thursday before the race onwards as people to start to arrive from all over the Country, Continent and World to compete in this endurance relay race.  This year Canmore was host to the National Solo Championships where the winner from both the men’s and women’s solo category would win their airfare to Australia to compete at World Championships being held later this year.

I’m neither fit enough nor crazy enough to attempt to ride for 24 hours straight by myself to see if I compete in such an event.  I am however just crazy enough to compete on a five person team.  This was my fourth time competing at this event over the past 10 or so years and after every previous year I’ve vowed never to do it again, but somehow I always end up back at the start line ready to take my turn at riding a lap.

The object of the exercise is to ride as many laps as you can within a 24 hour period with each member of the team riding a lap then handing the baton to the next member and so fourth until you have each ridden one lap, then the baton returns to the first person in the rotation.  The event seems to become more and more competitive each year yet stays incredibly friendly with great camaraderie between all the thousands of competitors.

Our team of 5 guys was competing the 200+ category, no we weren’t all over 200 pounds, our combined age for the 5 of us was over 200 years of age.  This set us up with a little advantage as the category itself, while being extremely competitive, was not as fast as the under 200 category.  Our team of five riders paced ourselves in the early going and was holding down a respectful 5th place after we had each ridden a lap.  After we had each ridden 2 laps we had moved up to 4th place in our category and were dreaming of a podium finish as nightfall came upon us.

With headlights on, a clear sky and a full moon we rode the night laps extremely consistently and by the best lap of the day – the Sunrise lap – we had moved ourselves in to third place by about 13 minutes.  At 11am on Sunday morning I was the last lap our group was going to put in for the race and by 11:10am I was setting out on my 5th lap and our team’s 22nd lap with a 7 minute advantage over the 4th place team.

Now, 5 laps may not sound like a lot, but after being awake since 7am the previous morning and having already ridden 4 laps of the 19km course I can tell you that it was all I had in me to keep turning the pedals one foot at a time to climb the single track switchbacks to the top of the Nordic Centre.  The one and only thing that kept me going and not getting off the bike to walk some of the harder climbs was the fear that the 4th place guy behind me was catching me and I’d be the reason we lost our podium finish – the one thing I was never going to let happen no matter how tired I was.  After 12kms the trail passes back through the pits at the Nordic Centre where I was met by the rest of my team cheering me on and letting me know the 4th place team was catching me but that I still had a few minutes to play with.  As I headed out on the bottom half of the course I was exhausted, but knew from the previous 4 laps that it was mostly downhill which gave me lots of time to recover for the final climb back to the finish line in the arena at the Canmore Nordic Centre.

My last lap wasn’t my fastest but it was fast enough to hold down 3rd place for our team by 3 minutes and 39 seconds. After 24 hours of 27 teams of five guys in the 200+ age group category racing a 19km loop we beat the 4th place team by 3 minutes and 39 seconds.  Of the 301 teams that entered the event we placed 14th overall, no small achievement for 5 guys that work full-time and have kids and families to take of.  We’re proud of what we accomplished this weekend, the team I was on was incredible and were certainly the reason we ended up on the podium.

I received an e-mail on Monday from our team captain letting me know that he has signed the team up again for next year – I’ve already told my wife that I’m never doing this race again, but if history plays it’s part I’m sure you’ll see me on the start line raring to go again next July.

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?

The Canmore real estate statistics have now been compiled for the 3rd Quarter and show the continued recovery of our market.  Thanks again to Bruce Fletcher of RE/MAX Alpine Realty here in Canmore for putting these stats together.

For Canmore real estate the 3rd quarter was a revival of sorts as the volume sold equalled the volume sold for the first two quarters combined.  This activity came as a relief to all Seller’s in town who started to see more showings and more quality in the offers and interest their homes were receiving.  As volume increased, prices continued to hold steady month to month when comparing the square footage price,  but when compared to 2008 the average price of a Single family home in Canmore dropped 17% ($154,374) with Canmore condo prices dropping 10% (53,203).

Canmore real estate for the 4th Quarter continues to be strong, November sales are the strongest of the year so far with 47 properties selling in the month.  Typically the real estate market in Canmore for the month of December starts to slow the closer we come to Christmas and that trend has continued this year with 10 unconditional sales so far this month with another 6 properties currently conditionally sold.

If you would like a more detailed analysis of the Canmore real estate market please let me know, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very safe and Happy Holiday Season and wish you all the very best for 2010.

Winter seems to have finally hit Canmore this weekend.  On Friday we received roughly 10cms of snow in town, no doubt bucket loads more at the ma0r ski hills in the Mountains (I haven’t had the opportunity to snowboard yet this season as I was preparing for and am now recovering from recent shoulder surgery).  Rarely do we see it snow all day without a break but Friday was one of those days where the weather was completely socked in and the ski hills were more than likely the large benefactors of such traffic stopping conditions.

The rivers, lakes and ponds are now freezing over nicely and should be ready for some awesome skating conditions just in time for our Christmas season.  Overall the ski hills have had phenomenal conditions since the very start of the season which will hopefully translate in to a stream of Europeans jumping on planes in the new year to come and enjoy all the great snow conditions in our winter wonderland. The snow certainly makes for some great pictures which in turn adds to the allure of the Mountains.  The local winter festivities have started, we’ve seen the Winterstart festival and the two World

East End of Rundle Mountain

Cup Downhill Ski Races at Lake Louise and the Santa Claus parade in Banff.  Skate with Santa, the long standing event hosted by RE/MAX in both Canmore and Banff is being held December 17th in Canmore and December 19th in Banff in support of the local food bank.  I took some pictures of the Bluebird day we had in Canmore today that I wanted to share with you.  If you have more photo’s of Canmore that you’d like to share please post a comment with the link to the photo’s at the bottom of this post.  I look forward to seeing you at Skate with Santa in a couple of weeks.

WOW, that’s all I can say about the Canmore real estate market for the month of November.  I don’t think any Realtor in town saw that month coming.  The Canmore real estate market for the month of November was the busiest sales month of the year….who’d have thought it?

The Canmore market, in a typical year, is quieter in November and December as we are ‘between seasons’ so to speak – summer has given up the ghost and the skiing, again typically, hasn’t had the greatest of conditions for the start of the season.  2009 however continues it’s trend of bucking the trend as the housing market sets a new sales record for the year and the ski hills have near record amounts of snow for the start of the season.

So, how did the Canmore real estate market fair.  Well, in the month of November we saw 47 properties go to to firm sales – double the amount of sales we saw in October.

Of those 47 properties sold they broke down into the following categories:

353 Eagle Heights (Click here for more information)

Apartments:  8 :: Average Sale Price: $352,218

Fourplex:  2 :: Average Sale Price: $593,125

Half Duplex:  5 :: Average Sale Price: $713,860

Lots:  1 :: Average Sale Price: $866,500

Recreational:  1 :: Average Sale Price: $165,000

Single Family:  14 :: Average Sale Price: $763,635

Townhomes:  16 :: Average Sale Price: $468,275

The Average square foot price for real estate in Canmore for the month of November was $398  and the average sale price for all Canmore real estate in November was $614,600.  Canmore real estate continues it path to recovery with a strong month, heading in to December I expect to see it taper off as we move closer to Christmas (But I thought that for November too!).  Currently we have 10 conditionally sold properties moving in to the final month of the year and our inventory of properties on the market is holding steady at 320 re-sale properties.  As always, if you have any questions about the Canmore real estate market you can leave comments at the bottom of this post, or connect with me via e-mail, phone of social media channels.  I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and All the best for 2010.