Nova Scotia

Wishing all of our friends, family, clients, co-workers, bloggers, tweeters, facebook'ers, & the Active Rain Community a Happy & Joyous New Year. May you feel love, happiness, & accomplishment in 2012.

Merv Edinger & Associates

Remax Nova

http://www.MervEdinger.com

Yes, the Christmas holidays have past. The hussle & bussle is coming to an end. Hopefully, you & yours enjoyed a happy celebration with many memories to cherish for years to come. So know its coming to a time when we start packing everything away for another 11 months or so. What are your plans for the tree, the crumpled gift wrap, the boxes, ribbon, etc? Here are some ideas that can also make the putting away of Christmas a memorable event.

• Make little Christmas boxes for next year. You will find the instructions here(but beware, this is addictive!). These work particularly well as little gift boxes on a Christmas table, with a tiny present for each guest tucked inside. This year I made 24 boxes for an advent calendar for the kids, filling each box with chocolates!
• Make a card stacking game which everyone - adults too - will enjoy! Use our template to cut down your Christmas cards into a set all the same size, and very carefully cut the slits as marked. Stack them in a box or tie with a ribbon. You can use these cards to build all sorts of "structures" - castles, sky-scrapers, whatever takes the kids' fancy! Save the template with the cards and you can add to your stacking game every year.
• Cut shapes out of the cards in matching pairs. Hearts work nicely, as do simple Christmas tree shapes and even plain squares and circles. You may find some inspiration on our template pages. Stick the cards back to back and laminate them, then punch a hole in them and use to make a colourful and child-friendly mobile or “string” to decorate next year. You could add to this every year. As a variation, you could back each shape with a plain-coloured piece of card or construction paper and write on it the date and name of the person who sent the card.
• Cut playing-card shapes out of the cards, stick a piece of plain card over any writing if necessary, and use to make a game for your children to play next year. Laminate to protect. Look for inspiration on our learning games pages.
• A traditional activity, but one which never fails to amuse the kids, is making gift tags for next year's presents. Use pinking sheers, a hole punch, and leftover ribbon
• Make gift bags for next year by saving smart paper bags. Cut a nice shape out of each card and stick it to the front of the bag (covering any shop labels if necessary). Add a little ribbon bow just above the card and wrap your present in tissue paper before putting it into the bag. This looks lovely with brown paper bags and tartan ribbons.
• Some designs can be cut and folded into miniature Christmas cards for the kids to give next year, or for decorating the dolls house.
• Scan your favourite cards into the computer – and some of your favourite messages from inside the cards as well – and make them into a Christmas wallpaper or screensaver with a photo program. Children love this and it is a great memento if you do it each year.
• Cut out the pictures on the larger cards, punch holes around the edges with a hole punch, add a shoelace or brightly coloured wool (with sticky tape wrapped around the ends) and you have a cheerful and cheap lacing card for little ones. If they are particularly popular you could laminate them to make them last longer.
• Make some Christmas confetti to use next year. Use either a plain hole punch or a special Christmas one (both together look great) and choose the most colourful areas from each card to cut. Gold and silver looks very effective, especially mixed in with red and green. Small scraps of left-over wrapping paper can be used too. You can keep the children busy with this for hours! The confetti is useful on New Year's Eve,
• Use to make Christmas decoration for the tree next year such as angels or garland ( by cutting into strips & gluing the strips end to end to form a loop.Interlace the loops to form a garland.

Last Year at this time I set a goal of 100 ends. Normaly my goal is 50 ends. It had been a difficult market in 2010 and I realized I had to work harder and smarter if our small firm was going to survive what was turning out to be one of the worst economies in my career. Government had tightned the lending rules and buyers were scarce. I work with one assistant my daughter Natasha. My sales people were struggling and cash flow was down. As with most small brokerages the buck stops with the owner. I am writing this article to emphasise the importance of goal setting.

Once you set a goal and committ it to writing you can sometimes amaze yourself. I certainly do not mean to brag as 7 days a week of 10 to 12 hour days is nothing to brag about. Smart people do not have to do that. The truth is self employed hell some times demands that.

I have a white board in my office where I track my progress and remind myself evry day of my goal. So how did I do. I was involved in 168 listings or sales and closed 90 ends. No I didn't reach my goal but I did 40 ends more than I normaly set my goal at. That increased production turned our cash flow around and it looks like I will be pounding in signs for a few more years. The lesson here. Don't limit yourself. Set your goals high and you too will amaze yourself. I know many markets are tough but we have all heard the saying "When the going gets tough the tough get going." If an old 60+ year old man can do it you can do it too. In closing all the best for 2012 and remember set your goals and set them HIGH !!!! Here is a photo of my white board. Note The positive quotes written along the top. HAPPY NEW YEAR Larry

Private For Sale By Owner

Recent changes to the Canadian Real Estate industry has opened up the MLS™ system to private for sale postings. Different versions of these private for sale companies are taking advantage of this change. The listing still has to be posted by a licensed Realtor™ member but the selling commission can be shown as $1.00 if the owner is unwilling to pay a selling commission. The unlicensed private for sale companies pay the licensed member a fee for posting the listing on the local MLS™ system.

The most well known private for sale company is PropertyGuys but they are starting to get some competition both from traditional brokerages restructuring to offer fee for service and other private for sale marketing companies. One of interest is homesbyowner whose local website is
http://www.homesbyowner.com/halifax . Homesbyowner is North America’s largest private for sale network operating since 1995. They claim their network receives over 1,000,000 visit’s a day which is impressive in today’s reliance on web site traffic to sell property.

While PropertyGuys have aggressively criticized Realtors™ and their fees the local http://www.homesbyowner.com/halifax web site actually allows postings by Realtors™ on their website and recommends private sellers offer Realtors™ a selling commission to realize the full benefit of MLS™ exposure. I have posted quite a few of my listings and received some inquiries.

As a licensed Realtor™ for 37 years I know the amount of work that goes into making a living selling real estate. I understand the value a licensed professional has to offer and resent some of the advertising directed at under mining the public’s opinion of our industry. How ever I also understand the consumer has the right to try and save a dollar.

I think forward thinking brokerages will adapt to the recent changes and work to supply an affordable alternative to home selling along with the traditional full service most presently offer. Challenging times for both brokerage’s and sales agents as revenue’s shrink and costs continue to go up. In Canada 2012 will be an interesting year in the real estate industry as commissions become tighter or more competitive and mortgage lending continues to tighten making financing more difficult. My advice as always embrace change. Try and manipulate and direct it in your favor. Innovate and persevere . Hard work and a positive attitude will go a long way to success in 2012.

All the best for 2012

Larry