Li Read

November 8, 2009.

This coming Wednesday is the November 11th recognition of those who have served their country, in the military, who went to war when it was required, and in many cases, did not return.

Those who survived gather to remember, and civilians do the same.

No soldier seeks war.

I've often felt that we are "prisoners of our time".

The First World War, referred to at the time as The Great War, was meant to be the war that would end all wars. It did sever a way of life, completely, and the ensuing despair did bring forth a hedonistic party animal lifestyle in the 20s, often described as a time of largesse.

The 30s, for those who study history, was marred by another time of societal severing...the Great Depression created dissolution of families, businesses, lifestyles.

The Second World War, in the forties, required enormous sacrifices, once again. For those of military age, or living in a country that was suddenly occupied by another country, it wasn't necessarily a "choice" to act in a particular way.

That is what I mean by being a "prisoner of one's time". Things afoot, on a large scale, can certainly get a response from us, but we didn't necessarily create the conditions or put something in place. We are, though, always, in charge of our attitude to events that occur in our finite time span.

No matter what we may think of military activities, no matter what we may feel about evocative words such as "war" and "peace", we can all remember and respect courage.

People in their time, and we don't always fully understand previous time periods from the platform of "today", reacted with patience, with courage, with selflessness, with caring...it is always important to remember valour, an old-fashioned word, yes, but a very real thing.

Locally, the Cenotaph service in Ganges Village, at Centennial Park, is a way to observe sacrifice and valour, and the individual actions that helped to create our way of life, today. If you are able to attend, be there, and show your support.

Another moment in our community's annual life.

November 7, 2009.

Tonight, at Fulford Hall, a fun evening of hot Cuban rhythm and dance with the Jose Sanchez Cuban Party, part of the fund-raiser for Terralingua, awaits your pleasure! Traditional Mexican food plus a silent auction of 50 items supplied by local businesses. Call 250-538-0939 for more information!

Sunday, November 15th, shop locally and support islanders and their home-based businesses -- 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Fulford Hall. The perfect gifts, for family and friends, await your browsing pleasure.

All Saints by the Sea is showcasing the talented Chris Jarrett, in a concert that begins at 7:30 p.m., tonight. Tickets are available at Salt Spring Books. Classical to Jazz is showcased by this unique pianist.

November 13th is the date when Seonagh Odhiambo will be on island, offering a movement development workshop for dancers and non-dancers. For more information about this event and the overall project in bringing artful attention and healing intent to St. Mary Lake waters, check out www.islandinstitute.com (the project will evolve over the coming year, with a grand presentation in June, 2010).

Terrific that Richard Murakami was honoured, recently, as Citizen of the Year, on Salt Spring Island -- very well deserved award!

Don't forget to listen into my Monday Morning radio show, on the new community station. If you're in tower range, you can catch it at 107.9 fm, or, if not, it's streaming audio off the website (www.cfsi-fm.com). It's live, I interview lots of Islanders, and Mark Voyce, of Bocados Bistro, in Grace Point Square, is my co-host/producer. Any glitches get to stay, as it's not taped! 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. every Monday. Thank you!

November 5, 2009.

It remains oddly busy, for the time of year!

July and August were very "flat", and tourism involved mainly daytrippers out of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, according to the Chamber's tourist count.

Although Vancouver reported bidding wars, and diminished inventory, this did not happen in Victoria or on the Gulf Islands or on Vancouver Island or on the Sunshine Coast. This vibrant action was mainly in the lower end residential options, and involved first time buyers, attracted by lower prices and low interest rates, and by investors looking for good rental properties, perhaps seeking "passive income" opportunities.

In a recent newsletter by a well known real estate "guru", in the Lower Mainland, it was noted that 90% of immigration to B.C. goes to Vancouver, with only 4% going to Victoria. Interesting! Surrey and Coquitlam municipalities are looking for expansive options, and are considering allowing developers to create triplexes/fourplexes, where only single family homes were being allowed.

In some recreational/secondary home areas, fractional ownership options are being looked at. It is a way of allowing increased useage, although not increased density (on the Gulf Islands, the Islands Trust prohibits growth).

Creative ways to allow for influx of population. Yes, it's been a downmarket, and for some areas this slowdown actually began in 2006. Yes, it may be slowly crawling out of this. Economic drivers both cause hesitation/fallback, and also propel (fear can be a driver, and in this case, it's the fear that cash may be the next bubble).

Important to be paying attention to "everything" right now, and to be thoughtful, not just reactive, to what we hear.

Also important to practice the attitude of gratitude. We are so lucky that we live in this coastal area, as it is truly beautiful, does offer a sense of the natural world that is missing in so many parts of the globe, and it still offers a "safe haven" lifestyle.

Meantime, in the short term, it's busying up and we need to pay attention to economics, and not to the weather/time of year...it's irrelevant! If sellers were despairing, that time may be over...action is occurring. Inventory remains "thin", and so buyers, (if they haven't acted already), may find that their window of opportunity, on price points, has evaporated.

Stay tuned!

Throughout Canada's main cities, there has been an upsurge in sales action, year to date, in what I would term "low end residential" -- in other words, property that would be in the realm of a first time buyer, attracted by low interest rates, and also by an investor (looking for viable rental options, for passive income opportunity). Undeveloped land, commercial items, and higher end/luxury properties did not easily find action. In rural areas, predominantly secondary home/discretionary regions, this action also did not take place. Such places can be put "on hold" during insecure market moments.

Yes, there is a lot of money, resting in cash, with nervous potential buyers adopting a wait and see attitude. On the one hand, the deflatiion argument has people wanting to remain in cash, so as to benefit from further bargains, particularly in the "move up" properties. I heard from one seller, not in my area, who noted that his property had been shown 17 times in the past five months, all qualified potential buyers, and only one party had "acted" (purchased another home). That left the remaining 16 purposely "waiting"...all of them, according to the realtor, felt that prices would continue to go down, and so they were waiting to benefit from their "clout" as potential cash buyers, when they felt things had "really" bottomed.

Newsletters, read by serious people, who did not experience significant losses in Sept/Oct/Nov. of 2008, and who do have cash holdings, project that there will be further severe drops in real estate valuations. One such newsletter, by a respected "deflation sayer", promises there could be further declines of up to 40%, in some areas. This, after the 20 to 30% declines already experienced, in the past year. While this kind of prediction is targeted to a U.S. readership, we cannot assume we will escape anything, just because we live on the Canadian side of the border. In erasing geography and time, the internet evolved the "global village", and so we are all interconnected.

On the other hand, the inflation scenario notes the continuing collapses of banks and financial institutions, plus the need of large "global" banks for more government help (the Swiss USB, the U.K. Northern Rock and Scottish Bank, among such), which implies further printing of paper currencies, more bailouts, diminishing value of cash holdings...impending hyperinflation as an end result. This kind of fear would seem to propel such potential investor/buyers back into good real estate hard asset holdings. Such, though, could be condos in Vancouver or townhouse in Victoria, or...not, then, necessarily a second or third home property, in an area such as the Gulf Islands or Tofino/Uclulet or Whistler or Osoyoos, or...such discretionary areas can continue to be put "on hold".

However, that very "offset" characteristic of a discretionary area, just a little apart from the potential chaos of a city, if things unravelled, might drive people towards places like the Gulf Islands, with its cap on growth, or to Tofino/Uclulet (same issue of limited inventory), etc. Security, a "safe haven" search, would make such places of more interest than a city market would deliver.

Hmmmm...still an either / or proposition, with no middle ground / no grey area in sight...either deflation/collapse or inflation/erosion of value of cash/currency.

There we all are, then, still sloshing around in the pool of uncertainty, with no clear indication of where to splash forward....towards the deep end or the shallow? Where did we say we could find that crystal ball?

Important, more than ever, to be thoughtful, to practice our peripheral vision (tunnel vision gets us nowhere!) so we can see some movement on the edges that could aid us, to practice our editing function (have to turn all that raw data into real information), and to pay attention to our creative inspiration. There are no real experts...no one "knows". We have to look to ourselves, here, and make some decisions about paths for ourselves.

As Heraclitus reminded us, back in Ancient Greece, the only constant in life is change.

November, 2009.

Although the calendar says that Winter officially begins on December 20th, most of us would agree that it's "here", already!

In the last weeks of the year, one tends to look both back and also forward.

The meltdowns that characterized most of 2008, unleashing economic duress and fear, folded into 2009.

Perhaps, looking back, one could decide that the worst / most fearful months were September 2008 to February 2009.

Locally, on Salt Spring Island, we saw an upsurge in real estate sales around mid-February, but only in the "low end residential" category.

There was no interest in higher end residential options (on Salt Spring, that would be anything over 800,000), and no interest in undeveloped land opportunities. Commercial options were also ignored.

The buyer was either a "first time" person, or an investor looking for a rental investment.

With continuing low interest rates, coupled with sellers in a mood to consider offers, post credit crunch/meltdowns, it appeared a time to buy.

Along with that perception, underneath the slow/consistent sales, the listing inventory remained stable. Most owners preferred not to be sellers, unless they "had to".

Between February and April, there was a further substantial price reduction delivered to a seller at the point of an offer.

Then, between May and August, as the low inventory cleared out, and little new inventory came onstream, sellers were slowly able to get closer to their list price.

In city markets, in the same low end residential category, bidding wars developed due to this low inventory issue. On a Gulf Island, which is a discretionary area, bidding wars are very rare -- sellers getting list price might be a Gulf Island route!

Prices, though, according to appraisers, had reduced between 12 and 20 percent, between 2008 and 2009, depending upon type of property involved.

The Tourist office in Ganges reported that the majority of visitors to the Island, in the summer months, were "day trippers".

That meant they weren't staying at B and Bs, at resorts, renting kayaks, or scooters, or cars, weren't eating dinner in restaurants, or looking at real estate. Yes, they may have picked up information, for a later date, but they weren't viewing. Most of the daytrippers were from Vancouver/Lower Mainland.

Then, around third week in September, there began a flurry of action in the very categories that had been so "flat" -- higher end residential, commercial, and undeveloped land options. This was as sudden an emergence of activity as had been the early Spring flurry.

In spite of time of year/uncertainty of weather, it has become busy. Is this the beginning of the move out of cash positions and into safer hard asset investments? Weather is irrelevant; economics may be the driver.

During the past two years, the arguments for deflation and inflation were evenly balanced.

With the consistent printing of paper currency, as bailouts continued, with nothing backing the paper, is the fear of inflation scenario winning out? Are the whispers of interest rate increases a sign of this worry?

The lack of sales action in the higher end properties has resulted in many huge price reductions, in an effort to bring forth buyers.

If those resting heavily in cash decide to return to hard assets, then there are attractive "deals" out there.

Is this what's creating activity right now, so late in the year? The concern over inflation? Fear creates hesitation, but it also propels -- if this is what's underway, a flight to safe havens, to preserve capital, then this activity will continue into early Spring, and beyond.

It is interesting to note that all categories of properties/price points are now finding activity, even though so late in the year.

The other Southern Gulf Islands have noted slower sales activity than has been experienced on Salt Spring.

Vancouver Island, Sunshine Coast, Gulf Islands have not experienced the briskness seen in Vancouver or in Victoria. They are primary residence/city markets.

Secondary home/discretionary markets, such as the Gulf Islands, can be put "on hold", in uncertain times.

The Islands Trust, in place since the mid-1970s, capped growth on every Gulf Island. No matter the real estate trend in play, then, there will always be a low inventory of available properties, as a result of the government's Trust zoning restrictions, to cap growth.

Already, Salt Spring Island and the Southern Gulf Islands are pretty close to "max", re development.

The Islands offer a wonderful lifestyle, with privacy but not isolation. It is buyers that set markets, not sellers or realtors.

In creating an enclave area, with their government mandated growth controls, via the Islands Trust, a recipe for price escalation, over time, was set in place in 1974.

The economic meltdown created a small moment in time for a buyer to maintain a modicum of control over the sales process.

If the inflationary scenario is the one that comes forth, then that "buyer's market" moment may be evaporating. The Islands Trust cap on growth created a protected investment area, with their "no more" policy.

The next three to four months will be interesting, indeed, as we seem to be balancing on a rocking/rolling ball, again.

More info about opportunities on Salt Spring Island and the Southern Gulf Islands? I welcome your call!

How may I help you to discover your Island dream?

There is always opportunity!