Bob Foster

We have been listening to bad news about the economy long enough now that good news seems to hit us with a bit of a jolt. Can it be true? Has the economic recovery started?

Despite all the caveats in the Bank of Canada announcement today -

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090723/national/boc_economy

The bottom line and the headline are the same - the recession is over in Canada.

But just before we break out the party hats and start to sing, "Happy Times are Here Again ", let's honour the doubts we feel. Things have been really shaky. Many people have lost a good deal of the money they have saved for retirement. All around us, people who have lost jobs, people who have lost their homes. Realtors see the pain very clearly, every day, in our work in real estate.

So, what does this announcement really mean? It mean that, after three quarters of economic losses, it looks like the massive government stimulus measures are starting to work, and we are starting to climb out of the hole we have slid into over the past 9 months. The economy in Canada is now expected to grow 1.3% (annualized) in the third quarter, and 3% in the fourth quarter.

That is good news, but it will take quite a while to get back to anything resembling prosperity.

Until the news is good on the global market, we will be grateful, but we'll definitely have our fingers crossed at the same time.

Forty years ago today, I was a young teacher - 22 years old - and the television set in my classroom was set to one of the most amazing events in my lifetime.

A blurry figure of Neil Armstrong was seen descending a ladder to be the first human being to step on the moon. He has been criticized for perceived variations in what some people see as a missing "a" in the first comment any human ever made on the moon, but as I listened to a repeat broadcast tonight, I wondered if I would have taken any more time than he did to enunciate, "That's one small step for a man; a giant leap for mankind."

He was right, and remarkably so.

Today is not the day to ask what we have done since then, or to question the value of our adventure into space. Today is simply a time to remember the courage of the people who took on a near-impossible challenge in the 60's and succeeded. It is only now, in retrospect, that we can understand how close they were at all times to failure, and that makes their achievement all the more remarkable.

After a strong surge through to April this year, the market appears to have quietened somewhat.






Roy Millar, President of the Quinte and District Real Estate Board, has provided an analysis of this data:

Sales: Dollar sales, for all categories in the month of June, 2009 decreased by 3.0%, going from $66,162,011 in 2008 to $66,119,290 in 2009. The Residential sales for June, 2009 decreased by 7.4%, going from $61,181,661 in 2008 to$56,654,087 in 2009.

Listings: The number of new listings, year to date, decreased 11.9%, from 4,611 in 2008 to 4,064 in 2009. The new Residential listings for the month of June decreased from 620 in 2008 to 506 in 2009.

Again this month, the highest percentage of Market sales (78%) is in the $100k - $300k range, up slightly higher than last month. The under $100k and over $300k market has been decreasing, which seems to be the result of our economic times. Belleville’s Average Sale Price for the month of June is the same as the Belleville overall average for the last 12 months, hovering around $190,000. All the long term indicators seem to indicate that pricing will be going up, as well as interest rates, over the next few years. So now seems to be a very good time to buy, but stay well within your budget. Recession is an opportune time to invest – not just sit back and wait.

Pleaese visit http://yourhomeinquinte.com/real_estate_news.htm

for more information.

I must admit that I have never been a great fan of lawns. Sure they feel nice underfoot, but you have to wonder about the prcatice of growing plants just so you can cut the tops off them every week or so.

All the same, we have a LOT of grass on our property, and a John Deere garden tractor that is very busy trying to keep it under control.

This year, though, we did bit of experimenting and I am delighted with the results. We took one section of the backyard and decided that it would be a natural meadow. Since it hasn't been natural for quite some time, I did try to help nature along by sprinkling some wildflower seeds out there this spring.

Today I came home to find my wife was collecting flowers and grasses from the meadow, and very soon thereafter we had some floral arrangements on our table that were, well ... both delicate and breathtaking.

We both understand that these are not "store - bought" flowers and that they may fade quickly, but we do have a meadow to go back to and to enjoy as the summer season progresses.

No real planning, no gardening .... just one of life's simple pleasures.

Here's a pic from one of her arrangements -

I wish I could provide you with a more flattering angle for my picture of this little guy -

but he preferred to turn away from me.

You will notice that his wings are not outstretched or even in operation. The reason is that he has just flown full force into the window and he is now bouncing back from that impact. He will regain flight again in a moment and be back to do the same thing again - up to 6 or 7 times per minute.

He thinks he sees a rival male sparrow, but all he is really seeing is his own reflection in the window. It's an instinctive behaviour that helped his predecessors to protect their nesting areas in the thousands of years before people arrived in this environment and worked well back then, but it failed to adjust when a new element was added - windows.

It's sad. I will try putting some cutouts of hawks on our windows, but we have many windows and it will not be hard for him to continue this either at our home or elsewhere.

He has failed to adjust to the new reality.

This is a pitiable situation for a small creature, but I wonder if we are sometimes guilty of this as well.

If something worked well in the past, isn't it easier to just keep doing the same thing?

This little guy's misfortune tells us that continuing to do the same thing over and over only works if it works. When the environment changes, we need to change as well.

This is true in real estate too. Ads in flyers used to be a good way to inform people about homes for sale. Do they still work when 85% of the people looking for a new home start their search on the Internet? Maybe not. We need new ways to bring information about homes for sale to those who are looking for them.

The good news is that people are not sparrows. With fewer programmed instincts and a great capacity for growth and innovation, we can learn new ways of doing things.

I would invite you to check out my strategies for marketing in a changing environment and share your own thoughts about this topic below.

Best regards,

Bob Foster

YourHomeinQuinte.com