Yearly Archives: 2012

The boomerang generation – a title freely used to describe most people who were born in the late 80′s and early 90′s, who are now in their 20′s, have gone to college or university, then moved straight back home. One of the main causes of this ‘boomerang generation’ phenomenon are the lack of available jobs...

Every once in a while we run into some houses that have been personalized, adjusted, tailored, or whatever else you'd like to call it, just a little bit too much to the owner's liking. In fact, most of these "little changes" become a pretty "big deal" when you're trying to sell your property. This is...

As it turns out, the housing market is reportedly stabilizing as we, among many others, have been talking about for the past couple months. The interesting portion about this is where the stability is being derived from. From what we can see, there's a large number of investors putting their money into luxury real estate...but...

We've got to clear the air about something that's been frustrating us for quite some time now. As of late, it's come to our attention that some agent website and marketing providers have been passing along pretty hokey information to their clients, which we think is pretty un-fair.What we're referring to is the passing-along of website traffic...

The world of real estate is riddled with interesting websites, to say the least. We're not going to dive into everything that an agent website needs to have, because we'd be here forever, but we will however point out an obvious part that we find missing A LOT: footers! As an agent or broker, your...

It's no mystery by now that the property market has been...questionable...since the middle of the past decade, and is only just starting to finally sort itself out. By no means has the market recovered, however it seems apparently stable, and is starting to show slight improvements over the past few months. We may not be...

Some strong numbers are showing for unwed females in the North American real estate market. In fact, the stats say about 20 percent of homebuyers are single women, breaking down the old-fashioned way of committing to a husband before committing to a home (as reported by the National Association of Realtors). In the Lower Mainland...

Real estate agents have a list of things to worry about: legal issues, neighbours, indecisive buyers, overzealous sellers... squatters? Stories have come up more than once where unauthorized individuals have taken up residence in homes on the market. Cases like these have popped up in Texas where a Manitoban couple’s vacation home was overtaken...

Many wonder how we can start to cut down on paper with all the faxes, manuals, receipts, invoices, memos, and post-its floating around our offices and homes. Granted, it’s incredibly difficult to remove every speck of paper, but there is a way to reduce your usage enough that the recycling bin will start to feel...

A new type of home is making its way into society’s awareness which, although a regular polygon, is quite irregular. Shipping containers, once only used for transporting goods overseas, are now being repurposed for living. Many of these containers measure between 20 and 40 feet in length, the latter offering inhabitants a total area of...

This picture was taken at the RE/MAX No Limits Convention in Victoria in February. Pretty awesome, right? We’re launching a nationwide search for the names of these gentlemen (we assure you, they will not be harmed). We are offering a FREE You-Build website for anyone who can correctly identify their names. Email us at socialmedia@estatevue.com...

Alright Agents, listen up! Facebook will be updating their "Pages' soon, to the new Timeline that has been in a testing mode for approximately a month now. Changes to the "Pages" layouts will be permanently changed within the next month, and here's why you shouldn't waste any time jumping on board with this great new...

Thirteen hotels in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside are getting renovated to transform the buildings into social housing, costing the federal and provincial governments a total of $116 million. The new single-room units will provide housing for 900 of Vancouver’s homeless or soon-to-be homeless.This project also offers an added benefit of ‘restoring the heritage value of the...

EstateVue is all about connecting with people (or pretending to like the for PR’s sake). So when connecting with our clients (and potential clients) we really prefer the face-to-face interaction. We of course have mastered the art of anonymous digital communication, free of awkward pauses and those gross sweaty handshakes, but if given the option,...

After 21 years of waiting for this industry to make its splash on the coveted Super Bowl adspace, our prayers have been answered (okay, might be a slight exaggeration). Celebrating its 40 year anniversary, Century 21 Real Estate will be running a spot during the much anticipated event, featuring Donald Trump. As one of the...

Most of us remember the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and the neighborhood of Bel Air where a young Will Smith "sat on his throne". Well, it turns out there's some new blood on the block. Friends star Jennifer Aniston has just purchased her new home in Bel Air for a...

If you’ve gone through the list up until now and established that you’ve mastered every tip and trick… first of all, congratulations. Secondly, if you’re interested in ramping it up to ‘real estate agent of the future,’ think about some of these options which are far from essential, but pretty darn cool:Video blogs: If you...

So by now you’ve hopefully ticked off some essentials and added extras: great real estate website, fabulous pictures, maybe even a blog. If you’re interested in going that extra mile, make sure you’re securely fastened on the social media optimization train. Now we say ‘ extra mile’ a little tentatively because we are...

Over the past little while it seems as though we keep throwing pieces of advice or insight into posts without really allowing these posts to be themed. So, now that we're into a new year, let's make that change happen. We now present you with our first official edition of Agent Tips; a segment focused...

What will make you stand out and distinguish yourself as an active player in the online world of real estate? The website is nice yes, but enriching it with more content that is interesting and relevant to your clients will set yourself apart. Consider starting a blog on your website which will establish a strong...

We hope that everyone's holiday vacations (or not) were enjoyable and that you are attacking 2012 with some rested spirits and fresh ideas! It's amazing how this time of year works, because it is a time of reflection while also being a time of refreshment. We are all focusing on the best part or highlights...