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New Website features # 1 – THE INTERACTIVE MAP
By now I hope most of you have had a chance to browse through my new website and see what’s on offer. The next few blogs are going to be about the new features I have added and how to best use the site to learn about Pender and also find the perfect property on our beautiful island. I operate in a very specific market so wanted my website to reflect this. I want prospective buyers to learn about Pender Island first, to see if this would be a community they may like to join or buy into, before deciding on the perfect property. So this first blog post will look at:
The Interactive Map – Google mapping technology is both amazing and extremely useful. Luckily for Pender, we have a high resolution image of about 90% of both North and South islands, so you can really see the detail. To start with, the whole site is best viewed in the Firefox browser. Firefox is by far the best and most secure browser anyway, but the site will work well in IE or Safari too.
Open the Interactive Map and it will load in a new page. I made it nice and big for easy viewing. Please wait for the colourful icons to load as well. Once finished, you will have a detailed satellite image with the roads marked and the icons showing points of interest. In the top right hand corner of the map are 4 smaller buttons;
1) Map – this removes the satellite image but keeps the road, icons, and the low detailed map. Useful for a quick reference.
2) Sat – stands for satellite. This is the default view for the map when first opened.
3) Terrain – This is a great feature that provides a 3D representation of the contours of the island. This allows you to see if a property you are interested in is on a hill, in a valley, or mostly on the flat.
4) Earth – By far the best way of viewing the map. Click on Earth and a 3D Google Earth image will begin to load. Wait for this to finish loading. Now the map slants at a 45 degree angle and is draped over the contour model of the island. It’s just like looking at Pender from an airplane.
You can navigate the first 3 maps by using the ‘+’ and ‘-‘ buttons to zoom in and out and the directional arrows to move left and right and up and down, although better way to move in these four directions is just to click and drag the map around, it’s easier and more fun. On the Earth view, the best way to view is to click and drag the map as before, but this time use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Now you have full control of the map from just the mouse. Try it, it’s a lot of fun.
Icons – Each of the icons represent a feature, viewpoint, photo op, public beach access, and any other useful island feature I can think of. I’m trying to be selective as you could clutter the map easily. I haven’t placed my real estate listings for example, they are on a separate map for clarity (see under the MLS listings tab for the ‘Map of my Listings’). Each icon is clickable and I’m in the process of adding links, pictures, and video to these icons. When this process is finished you will have a multi-media Virtual Tour of Pender Island all from this one map and controllable with just a mouse.
So that’s it, I hope you all have fun with the Pender Island Interactive Map and if you have any comments for improvements on this or about homesonpender in general, I’d love to hear from you.
Avoid listing your property too high in a local market
The first quarter of 2010 is coming to a close, as have the Olympic Games, so let’s have a look back over the last three months regarding the real estate business on Pender.
As I have mentioned in previous blogs, the real estate market on Pender has been fluid in the last couple of years. Many sellers, thinking that the Olympics would bring potential buyers to BC, started off the year listing their properties high and most of these are still on the market without offers. In fact, of the 10 sales so far this year, 80% were either listed last year or were listed after a sale had already been negotiated. The two remaining sales were listed in 2010 and have sold for fair prices, but less than list.
Since the beginning of 2010, some sellers on Pender have been telling us that they ‘want to test the market’ when they list at a price higher than we recommend. This is one strategy, and can work in cases where the seller is not in a hurry to sell, or has a property that is unique within the market and therefore has no competition. The problems arises when this ‘let’s test the market’ strategy becomes the norm within a local area. If one market becomes overpriced, and buyers have choices, they will go somewhere else. Either that or it will only be low ball offers that come in, resulting in hard negotiations that most of the time go nowhere. With a tightening in the financing requirements to purchase all real estate, particularly rural bare land with existing structures such as trailers or other structures that have no occupancy permits and where at least 50% down is required, banks are going to want appraisals and are not going to finance a buyer if a property is listed for way more than the appraisal. A better strategy for sellers would be to listen to your realtor and list your property within reason of the existing fair market value, being prepared to reduce slightly if a good offer came in but holding close to your list price when negotiating. This way, the local market reflects the fair market value of the real estate inventory at the time and will encourage more buyers to the area.
Creating real estate bubbles in local markets is easy to do and it affects all aspects of that market. Sellers have to wait longer for offers, those offers are generally are a lot lower than the list, and the final sale price ends up close to the original realtor valuation. In the meantime, however, it has taken months to sell an overpriced property when it could have taken weeks or even days. 80% of buyers look to the internet to find property nowadays and the way they do it is by searching. If you list a property too high within search parameters, for example the buyer is searching online for properties between $300K to $400K, and your property is really only worth $275K but listed at $320K, you will get not get any interest because there will be better options for the buyer within that searched price range. It’s as simple as that. Real Estate markets are changing quickly at the moment, so a house down the road from you that sold at a certain amount last year will not necessarily sell for the same amount this year because of the fluidity of present conditions.
In an up market, a seller’s market, the same rules apply but in reverse, the danger then being under-listing a property and not getting the fair market value. Pricing properties is what realtors do. We eat, sleep and drink the market we work in and know within reason either what price a property will sell for or what it is worth to a buyer. When I list a property I want it to sell as fast as possible for fair market value, a bit more if I can get it (there are always buyers that fall in love and will pay over the odds to secure the deal but these are rare), but most sellers want to move on as fast as they can when they put their home up for sale. Price it right and it will sell, price it low and of course it will sell even faster sometimes with multiple offers driving up the price (one strategy in a seller’s market), but price it too high and it’s almost a certainty that it will sit there until that price is reduced and reduced to what it should have been in the first place.
It can be an expensive lesson to learn. So trust your realtor, we do have our client’s best interests at heart and are most happy when a deal is brokered where both parties are satisfied by the transaction.
Howard on Pender Island – Call 250-222-4663
Welcome to My New Website
A good internet presence is vital for today’s successful real estate agents and, while I have been generally happy with the Point2 system of realty websites, it’s time for a change. I operate in a tight local market, so in future I’m going to concentrate on promoting Pender Island and the real estate market here and on the other Southern Gulf Islands. To do this, I have been working with an excellent local web designer to put together a site that is both HTML and WC3 compliant, and can also adapt to the ever changing world of available web tools.
I’ve been looking at the technology that’s available nowadays and it’s quite exciting what can be done. My new site will be driven by Google Mapping, social networking, multimedia presentations, more accessible and useful information for potential buyers, and a better, more professional showcase for my sellers. I wanted a site that was easy to navigate, had relevant information for the Gulf Island market, and which could expanded by the use of custom plug-ins and widgets. Thanks to islandsinteractive.ca for making this happen.
I hope you will all continue to visit my site and this blog. Nothing will change in terms of web address or bookmarks as the old pages with their URLs will still be intact. I hope having this new site will allow me to serve you, my valuable clients, that much better.
Soon, I will be posting various short blog entries on its features and how they can be used to discover beautiful Pender island, and find that perfect piece of property that will make you part of our wonderful community.
Hope Bay Pender Island (VIDEO)
Hope Bay Pender Island (VIDEO)
Below is a video that the local TV did of Hope Bay on Pender Island, location of Howard Sanders and Dockside Realty Ltd. Enjoy!
An interesting start to 2010
Pender Island real estate information and local insights into the people, community events, and unique culture that make Pender Island, BC, Canada a vibrant place to call home
It’s been an interesting start in our local real estate market so far. Since 2010 began we have had a rush of new listings (nearly one each day) but not a huge amount of sales (4 in total - 2 homes and 2 bare lots). Most of these new listings are also at the top end of the range in terms of list price. So what is going on here?
Buyers and sellers are puzzled because for many their property’s assessed value went down and in our secondary rural market there was no evidence of an obvious rebound in the local market at the end of 2009. However, there are a few circumstances which are applying upward pressure on house prices at the moment. One is the Olympics, the benefit of which is doubtful (that’s a whole other blog post). Another is the proposed introduction of the HST in July 1, 2010, that will apply to real estate commissions and new house sales. Some buyers are getting into the market now before that has an effect on new homes or makes sellers more reluctant to negotiate. Another is the tightening of mortgage rules announced today and taking effect on April 19, 2010.
According to CTV.ca; “Finance Minister Jim Flaherty Tuesday announced tighter lending standards for mortgages, saying that while the housing market is healthy and there’s no solid evidence of a bubble, the moves are needed to “help prevent negative trends from developing.”
Under the new rules, all borrowers will need to meet standards for five-year fixed-rate mortgages regardless of whether they’re seeking a loan with a lower rate and shorter term.
Also, the government is lowering the maximum amount Canadians can withdraw when refinancing to 90 per cent of the value of their homes, from the current 95 per cent, and requiring a 20 per cent down payment for government-backed mortgage insurance on “speculative” investment properties.
“There are no definitive signs of a housing bubble,” Mr. Flaherty said. “We think we’re being proactive in the three steps we’re taking today.”
Scotia Capital economist Derek Holt said the tighter criteria for mortgages could cause the housing market to “really heat up” over the next few months as buyers try to get approved before the stricter rules come into force.
“This all leads to short-term price scrambling,” Mr. Holt said in an interview, noting that the Harmonized Sales Tax due to take effect in Ontario and British Columbia on July 1 is already causing some buyers to rush into the market in a bid to close deals in advance. “It could really heat up in the near term and then cool off in the back end of the year. With the HST in Ontario and B.C. and these changes, they have dramatically altered the home-buying decisions of Canadians.”
Real Estate markets are very volatile at present and easily affected by exterior forces. The same is occurring in the stock market, with large swings up and down over very short periods of time as it reacts to daily global changes. For sellers in rural secondary markets this can mean an uncertain time as it will be easy to price yourself out of a market. My advice recently has been to position a listing strategically for a faster sale. The higher priced listings will just not sell at present, that is what the market is showing us. It is the more reasonably priced properties that are getting interest and that will, ultimately, get offers. So listen to your realtor if they advise you that your expectations for a sale price are a little high. List strategically and you will get interest that will eventually sell your house faster and for a realistic and fair price. Right now for buyers, real estate is for the long term. The new mortgage rules are being introduced to cool the market off before another bubble can form and to temper speculative borrowing. So keep an eye on the current market. In three months or so, when these higher priced listings are still sitting on the MLS, that might be a good time to come in with a reasonable offer.
Don’t wait to buy property, buy property and wait!
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