Abbotsford, BC

Property tax due date is coming soon. Owners eligible for the Homeowner Grant must apply for it by the due date of July 2nd 2009. As permanent resident of the Province you qualify for the basic homeowner grant on your principal residence. People over 65 years of age, disabled/handicapped persons and a war veterans you qualify for additional homeowner grant.

For futher information about homeowner grants in BC call Home Owner Grant Administration Branch at 1-250-356-8904 or 1-250-387-8166. In abbotsford you can apply online at abbotsford.ca or complete and submit the application located on the front of the property tax notice. Full payment of taxes is not a requirement to claim the Home Owner Grant. A penalty of 5% will be applied to the grant, in addition to any outstanding taxes after July 2, and a further 5% penalty will apply to any outstanding amount after September 15.

A new shopping mall is planned @ the site near Abbotsford's Mount Lehman interchange across from the Fraser Valley Automall. The project, which has been given approval in principle by Abbotsford city council, will have access off Trans Canada Highway (# 1) and is expected to draw shoppers from Hope to Langley. It is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2011. Shape Properties developments is behind this 600,000-square-foot shopping mall. It is estimated to cost $170 million. Some new papers suggest that a Wal-Mart Supercentre could be the anchor tenant in the new development.

Just wanted to take a minute to let you all know that there is a new shopping center called Abby Lane coming to the Mt. Lehman interchange, it will be massive in size.

This is great news showing signs of a steadying economy as well as a strong belief in the Abbotsford community. Being the in the top best 3 cities to invest in Real Estate in Canada it only goes with out saying it is high time for this project to get underway.

Here are a few links from other new media on what's going on with this shopping center.

Abby News

Vancouver Sun

Hope you enjoy and keep your eyes peeled for the buildings that will be coming up soon.

Cheers!

I was sitting down having coffee with a friend of mine Owen Greaves who happens to be heavily involved in social media, technology and IT strategic planning for business. We got to talking about how in all reality most business over the next 3-7 years will move to online at home business, this is will exclude big box stores like wal-mart, best buy, etc. just because your overhead is lower and people just naturally go to the Internet anyway.

86% of home buyers start there search online, the stats might have even climbed since the last time I looked, and a large number of sellers look online to determine what there home might sell for. So this is where my article really begins.

If you are interviewing agents for the job of selling your home or trying to find a agent to help you find a home. You need someone who is using these tools. If you aren't familiar with them or don't use them your self, don't worry they are still extremely important to the sale of your home or helping you find a home.

Real Estate is largely based on the size of network that a person is connected too, in Abbotsford, British Columbia (my local market) has 500 Realtors in it at this time, which is great because 92% of homes sell because of agent connections, mostly through other agents. This 92% also includes personal network, and referrals. This is why using social media to grow ones business is absolutely vital in this market place.

Ask your agent if they are activley using tools like Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, YouTube, Blogging, etc. because if they aren't they are already behind the 8 ball. If you want your home exposed to the mass in a hurry and bring the the ability to have your home found 24/7 this is the only way to do it.

If you don't think internet and social media is important in the sale of your home. Guess again and ask your agent when the last time they sold a home off of a newspaper ad, why tell your Realtor to spend your hard earned dollars on print advertising, when they could be using it to get your home sold.

I know I use these tool and if you want to see more just click on the links and see what I am doing. If you want something different that works, chose the extreme difference and call me today to see the difference this is making for my clients.

Cheers!

For the Realtors reading this post I will do an article geared toward the Realtor community regarding similar info.

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