Canmore real estate for August was yet another month of consistent sales throughout town with a total of 26 properties selling this month.  Read the rest of this entry »

Another month is in the books for Canmore real estate and again we had a consistent month of sales in town even with what I perceived to be a quieter month for showing activity. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Summertime in Canmore

The 2010 Canmore real estate market is officially six months old, or six months complete for the year, so I thought for my post this month I’ll outline the stats for the month of June and then tally up the results for the 6 months ending June 30th to show how our market has performed so far this year.

Canmore real estate sales in June started at a steady pace and seemed to dwindle as the month went on, the same can be said for real estate activity and showings.  At the end of the month we had 30 sales in total and the breakdown was as follows:

Apartments: 3

Half Duplexes: 2

Recreational: 4

Single family: 9

Town Homes: 11

Triplex: 1

The average square foot selling price for a property in Canmore in June was $376 a square foot and the average selling price in Canmore for property was $604,000.  The range of properties sold in Canmore this month was incredibly varied from $100,000 recreational property all the way to a $2,250,000 estate home and everything in-between.

As a reminder of previous months I’ve listed each month and the number of sales that were made for the month in the Canmore real estate market: (to see full reports on each month click on Canmore real estate and scroll through to find the month)

January: 26

February: 25

March: 37

April: 32

May: 27

June: 30

As you can see the numbers show a fair amount of consistency in the number of sales month over month and I think it’s fair to say that level in the Canmore real estate market is the new up when it comes to sales this year.  So the big questions everyone is asking still relates to sales prices.  How have prices changed when compared with 2009 and have we finished correcting as a market yet?  Below I’ve outlined the average selling price per housing category for 2009 and compared it with the average selling price for the first 6 months of 2010:

2009                          2010

Apartments:    $387,000                    $370,000

Fourplex:         $578,000                     $572,000

Half Duplex:   $744,000                      $783,000

Town Home:  $509,000                      $502,000

Single Family: $758,000                     $827,000

Land:               $699,000                       $419,000

Recreational:  $242,000                       $212,000

(All figures rounded to nearest ’000)

Canmore real estate in 2009 had an overall average selling price of $569,705 and we sold 314 properties for the year. In 2010 the overall average selling price of property in Canmore for the first 6 months is $586,251 and we’ve sold 173 properties year to date – almost one home a day.  If we compare the first 6 months of 2009 to the first 6 months of 2010 we see a very comparable picture.  The first quarter of 2009 was an incredibly tough few months for real estate in Canmore, nothing was moving, but in the second quarter we started to see the market slowly revive and by the end of June 2009 we had 117 sales on the books at an overall average selling price of $582,190.

So, apples to apples the first 6 months of 2010 were busier for sales and activity in Canmore but the average selling price of property remains consistent with that of the first 6 months of 2009.  Going forward I see July as being a quiet month for sales and activity, the number of Canmore home showings that are being booked by Realtors has fallen dramatically over the past couple of weeks – a sign that summer has arrived and people are turning their attention to family vacations rather than property purchases.

I believe we are still correcting as a market, the properties that are being priced aggressively are winning the battle to find Buyer’s willing to purchase them and price is the driving factor for a Buyer’s decision making process.  As long as our inventory continues to climb, as it has the past two months Buyer’s are subject to great choice and the Sellers that are showing value for money to the Buyer’s will continue to sell their homes.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the Canmore real estate market, as always you can leave your comments below.

Boxes, Boxes and more Boxes

Over the last few years I’ve helped numerous clients sell and purchase homes in Canmore.  Throughout the sales process I help them organize their affairs that relate to the transaction such as property inspections, condominium document reviews, marketing the property on-line, showing the home and numerous other services.

When I was in the hotel business I’d organize my departments to run efficiently and effectively.  To ensure the hotel stayed ahead of it’s competition I’d go to other hotel’s and restaurants to experience for myself the services and quality of product they offered.  By immersing myself in new experiences I found I became a better manager and leader and the hotel became a better property.

Why do I bring up my previous career? well, I’m currently experiencing a side of the real estate business that all my clients go through, that I’ve never really thought of before – packing and the actual move itself.

I’ve lived in the same home in Canmore for the past 7 years and when we moved in to our current home the Hotel chain I was working for at the time paid for the moving company to pack and move all our personal property, so I haven’t experienced ‘the move’ in a good 10 years.

When I help clients sell or purchase a property I rarely, if ever, think of the stress that the actual move brings.  I understand the stress of the transaction – negotiating a price, working through the conditions, finding financing and the nail-biting tension of a Seller when waiting to see if a Buyer will remove the conditions.  I see that stress and work through it with clients daily.  I don’t necessarily see the stress that comes with packing boxes, organizing moving vans, calling all the utility companies, ensuring you have the right insurance, finding boxes large enough to fit your possessions in (this is big one for us!) and living with the mounds of boxes in the house while preparing to move.

Well, all that is currently changing, last week we sold our home and bought a new one.  A few days after all the deals had gone unconditional my wife took the boys on a 10 day vacation to see her family in Ontario – a vacation that was planned a long time in advance of us even thinking about selling or purchasing a home.  When my wife returns from vacation we have exactly 5 days before we move, so most of the packing and all the above list has fallen on my shoulders, much to my wife’s discomfort. My wife has always been the better organizer in the family and is more than a little worried that nothing will be done when she returns from vacation.

Experiencing how stressful the actual move can be for people is something I think as Realtor’s we tend to forget, we all know that purchasing a property is a stressful experience because it tends to be the largest financial purchase we make in our lifetime, but we hear little about how stressful the organization and execution of the actual move is on a person, couple or family.

I have 11 days of packing and organization left before we move in to our new home, which in the long run is going to decrease our stress as a family as we have twice the room we have now, which is good for everyone. But, for the next 11 days I’ll try and remember all the experiences I go through so I can keep them fresh in my mind so when my clients are going through the same stressful situation I can better relate to them and help them further through a very tough few weeks.

Moving house is so much more than the transaction of purchasing or selling a property and just as I sought out experiences to help me become a better manager and leader in the hotel business this experience is certainly going to make me a better and more compassionate Realtor.