Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Easter Printable

Last year, I made these printables so that E could pass out favors to his class mates. Each little favor had two Peeps inside of a sandwich bag with this tag attached.
Both kids will be making these and taking them to their friends at school.


To print these out, go

I'll share the finished bags with you all tomorrow.
Have a great Wednesday!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

REBGV news release

HERE

Here is the meat and potatoes...

The MLS® HPI benchmark price for all residential properties in Greater Vancouver currently sits at $679,000, up 5.3 per cent compared to March 2011 and an increase of 1.1 per cent compared to February 2012. The benchmark price for all residential properties in the Lower Mainland is $607,700, an increase of 4.8 per cent compared to March 2011.


Sales of detached properties on the MLS® in March 2012 reached 1,183, a decline of 34.1 per cent from the 1,795 detached sales recorded in March 2011, and an 11.5 per cent decrease from the 1,336 units sold in March 2010. The benchmark price for detached properties increased 9.2 per cent from March 2011 to $1,056,400.

Sales of apartment properties reached 1,191 in March 2012, a decline of 26.6 per cent compared to the 1,622 sales in March 2011, and a decrease of 4.9 per cent compared to the 1,252 sales in March 2010. The benchmark price of an apartment property increased 2.2 per cent from March 2011 to $375,100.

Townhome property sales in March 2012 totalled 500, a decline of 24.6 per cent compared to the 663 sales in March 2011, and an 8.9 per cent decrease from the 549 townhome properties sold in March 2010. The benchmark price of a townhome unit increased 0.9 per cent between March 2011 and 2012 to $480,900.

............................

Big drop in sales. SFH benchmark up a good chunk from last year, but attached and apartments flat and could be down YOY next month. Can that be possible? down YOY in Vancouver! We won't bet the bank on it (they are already doing that themselves), we will just keep our fingers crossed.

BTW- check out the link I put up in the comments sections in the previous post, about the games that Royal Bank may have played, if the allegations are true, and they have undertaken these huge 'wash sales', then the biggest loser could be the tax-man ie us. Not enough that we have to carry the burden of the CMHC....

Monday, April 2, 2012

50th Birthday Celebration

This past weekend, we celebrated my mother's 50th birthday. It was supposed to be a surprise, but you really can't pull the wool over my mother's eyes...she knows all:o)
Anyway, we put on a party to honor her. I was in charge of the decorations, and as most of you know, that is one of my favorite parts of a party:o)

We had a "memory table" with pictures of her when she was younger.
Here is the birthday banner I made that was supposed to be hanging. Unfortunately, the twine I was going to use to hang the banner was left at home..2 and a half hours away....doh!

 This was a dress my mother wore when she was a little girl. You can see her in it in the picture frame. **Back Story of the Dress**My grandmother made this dress for her. My great-grandmother used to work in a dress factory and she would bring the scrap fabric home. My grandmother pieced this dress together, and everywhere you see the black lace, that is where a seam was, joining the scrap pieces together.

 The gift table
Here my parents are walking into the festivities as we are singing Happy Birthday to my mother.
 My mother and me...

As part of the fun, we had a photo booth... 
My parents...being good sports:o)






The party food...gluten free and sugar free(except for the sugar cookies) My mother is a gluten intolerant diabetic, so a regular birthday cake wasn't part of the plan. The cake I made her, made with almond flour and agave, was a huge hit. I intended for her to be the only one eating it, hence the itty bitty size...but everyone had a taste, and were raving over it. Had I known it was going to be such a hit, I would have made a much bigger one:o)

 For the tables, I sewed 12 foot long table runners, and we laid them over the top of plastic table covers. I really try to stay away from those things, but because we had so many tables to cover, we needed something very inexpensive...thank goodness for the Dollar Tree:o) For the centerpieces, we had mason jars with pink and green glass beads, with a tea light inside, and twine wrapped around the mouth of the jars. The flower arrangements were in large pink goblets. 
There was a playground outside of the community center where we had the party, so all of the kids were out there running around...can you tell that it was unseasonably warm?:o)
As the guests left, they were to take home a packet of flower seeds.

Since it's very rare that we are all in the same place, and dressed nicely with camera in tow, we made time to get a quick shot of the five of us. My poor brother was doing his very best to stand upright. He threw his back out last week, and had been hunched over like an old man. He was a really good sport:o)
Everyone seem to have a great time, and we really enjoyed putting together a great party for our wonderful mother..
Happy Birthday Moma!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

I'm back and so it would seem is the Housing correction

Average SFH prices down 6%.

Lets see what the median brings.

This is exactly what we want, a minor drop, which will not panic the Federal or Provincial government and lead to more catastrophic financial decisions.

I will look at the MOI's for different areas in a day or two.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Spring Break Happenings

Hello there! Been a while, hasn't it? Things have been busy around here, so that's the reason for my absence. No time for talk. I thought I would share what we have been up to with just pictures.








Before....

After...





We are having a great Spring Break! See you all here next week! Lots to share with you:o)

Friday, March 23, 2012

Frankly disgusted...

The circus between the banks and Flaherty which I have been reading about is totally nauseating.

Here we have CEOs paid many millions a year saying...regulate us!

Like a obese glutton unable to control his appetite. Some on th blogosphere even have an excuse for the banks. They have to be easy or lose business. That is the same bs that chuck prince at Citi said before the US collapse. 'while the music plays we have to keep dancing'

BS !! - the result was huge tax-payer bail-outs. Not all banks did this. Not New York Bank of Mellon. This is the junkie's excuse. Would we excuse a barman from giving more and more drinks to a drunk until he died!

Of course not. Why can't the stupid banks self-regulate???

Then there is Flaherty who wants to shun responsibility too. It's not my market- he says!

Duh.... It is bozo. What about the CMHC.?

No CMHC, no bubble.

Nobody wants to take responsibility for what is going to happen, not the over-paid debt pushers, nor the windbag politician.

E are in a bind.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Checking in from my holiday

I see increasing calls for Christy Clark to ´do something´about our housing bubble.

Cristy is in a tough spot....If she tries to put the breaks on Re she will dealing with a huge bubble and help middle class families who are priced right out.

However she will also upset current owners, the housing lobby (developers and Realtors) and also take away a major economic driver ( short-lived and speculative yes, but that never stopped a politician)

In fact there is very little she can do. She has no control over the CMHC or the Bank of Canada rate or lax bank lending and if she speaks against Chinese off-shore ownership she risks alienating China and risking their investment in other areas, and I can assure you- that would lead to a major recession in BC. Tough bind.

The TD bank is the latest bank begging to be regulated more.

http://www.canadabubble.com/bubble-watch/2339-tighter-regulations-needed-against-overheating-real-estate-household-debt-td.html

This is turning out to be a weak spring for sales. Sales haven´t blossomed and are on track to be amongst the lowest in the last decade.

HOWEVER listings haven´t exploded either which removes the housing crash scenario. This is perfect. As I have said if we had a quick correction the Federal Government would lose it´s resolve and their would be no changes.

Excuse any errors or mistakes ( and I cannot make the font bigger). I am paying $$ for the internet connection.