BECAUSE LIFE IS AN ADVENTURE

World Cup Rugby…and timing!

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 19:15:20 GMT

You may, with considerable validity, ask yourself what on earth the Rugby World Cup 2007 has to do with Red Point or real estate for that matter. You may not even be aware that there is a Rugby World Cup (RWC) being played at the moment – even more outrageous is the thought that you may not be aware that Canada (and the US) had teams competing in the tournament! And that they actually played quite well – given the fact that they’re made up of mostly amateurs, competing against the powerhouses of South Africa, New Zealand and Australia (OK, and France, England).

Back to where this is all going – in a minute…if you want to find out more about what’s happening at the World Cup (and a true gentlemen’s sport and quite possibly the greatest sport in the world) check out www.rugbyworldcup.com.

In the mean time back to where this is all going: I was experiencing quite a conflict of interest and had not resolved in my mind how to deal with it. The timing of the tournament coincided perfectly with the final release of Red Point, the net result being that I was having trouble finding time night or day to actually watch any of the playoff games, of which there were many – I was going to be hard pressed to even carve out time to catch the quarters or semi’s AND to add insult to injury we had scheduled our private Selection Event on October 20th…the very same day as the RWC final. You see what I’m getting at? A difficult situation for a South African to be in.

Here’s the unfortunate news: I’m going to be able find some time to catch the Semi’s and the Final! How did this turn of events come to pass? Well, we’ve experienced a minor delay in our approval process, which has in some respects, allowed me to clear my desk a bit. It’s really interesting how sport reflects life sometimes (I think that’s supposed to be art reflects life, whichever). Let me get to the point: Red Point’s Third Reading was rescinded by Council. This is very unexpected and unusual for this to occur at this stage of the process. Actually it’s about as unexpected as Australia being beaten in the quarter-finals by England and France beating New Zealand (tournament favourites) all on the same day! (My bit about sport reflecting life, but obviously somewhat different in scale – I’ll let you decide which is of greater importance).

Although this seems like a setback, it’s not quite on the same scale as the RWC upset. Our little speed-bump (let’s call it) is under the recommendation of the District Staff and is being viewed as a lateral move in order to examine and gain a more suitable access to and from highway 99.

The net result of all this is that we are unable to offer our final phase for sale until we have resolved the access issue. We feel confident that the issue will be resolved within a few weeks and look forward to being back in the market soon. Please stay in touch and let us know your thoughts. In the mean time I’m going to enjoy watching my team (Springboks) reach the RWC final and reclaim the title of World Cup Champions! (Spoken by a true optimist!).

Red Point VIP week is upon us…

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 22:17:24 GMT

It’s midpoint through Red Point’s VIP week – we hope you’re having as good a week as we are (despite the sudden deluge of rain). Last night we hosted a great group of current owners, reservation holders and potential buyers at the Wildwood Bar & Grill in Calgary – thanks for coming out. We hope you had a good time and learnt a great deal more about Red Point and caught a bit of the buzz that we’re experiencing here. Tonight we host a group of Edmontonians in their great city and on Saturday we’ll be hosting our Open House on-site at Red Point in Squamish.

If you hadn’t planned for it, come and join us for a west coast-style BBQ laid out by the Howe Sound Brew Pub, some tunes by "Bluesberry Jam" (a local band well worth the listen) and an opportunity to meet the developer and architect to ask any questions you haven’t had answered yet.

Don’t let the weather forecast scare you away. I was told when I moved here that there was no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear…?! Needless to say we’ll have a nice heated and dry tent to warm you up after checking out the site!

I’ve had a few questions about what this Open House is all about: are we writing contracts? Will pricing information be available? What can I expect to get out of it? So here are some answers:

No, we won’t be writing contracts on Saturday – that is reserved for the private Selection Event to which only reservation holders are invited, in mid-October.
Pricing – we will be able to release full price ranges by floor plan type.
Reservation Program: if you are not currently a Reservation Holder you will be able to make a reservation on Saturday.
Site tours.

What it’s really all about is walking the site and re-acquainting yourself with the location, the finish level, the interiors and all aspects of the developement. If you haven’t seen the presentation centre for a while, the quality of the finishes will blow you away – remember, with most developments this level of finish is only available with expensive upgrades.

It often surprises me how few people actually walk the site of the community/building/development they’re going to buy into, after all it’s a piece of dirt you’re buying, that’s where the real value lies. So, we’ve had the site surveyed, staked out and had some of the brush cut down so you can stand at specific points on the footprint and get a good feel for different areas on the actual site. Come check it out.

We look forward to seeing you out here – details again are:

Location: Red Point in Squamish (on-site)
Address: 1500 Scott Crescent, Squamish, BC
Time: 10am to 3pm

RSVP: tmartin@sothebysrealty.ca

ATTIRE: appropriate boots for walking an undeveloped site… (weather-dependent: an umbrella and/or seriously water-proof jacket!).

Live life large!

Barrett Sprowson

Participant or Spectator?

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:01:43 GMT

In keeping with our philosophy of Living Life Large, I’m on a “participation” kick. I made the decision a few months ago to be done with the “should of, would of, could of” crowd (about life in general). I’m not sure if it’s healthy to be driven by a negative goal (I’m sure Zig Ziglar would have something to say about that…) but there it is, fortune favors the brave!

Sometimes however it is unavoidable – we’ve all heard the story about the guy who should have bought in Whistler in the ’80 but didn’t – truth is he/she probably didn’t have the resources, that’s not really what I’m getting at. What I mean is that I decided to err on the side of participating, rather than “spectating”. I’ll leave spectating to the Superbowl – is what I thought. I’m not suggesting that we should throw caution to the wind, but we’ve all been in a position where we could have and should have acted on something – getting up early to go skiing for example (chose to sleep in and it turned out to be a legend day with a foot of fresh snow and blue-bird skies…) but alas, didn’t and regretted it. (Can you tell I’ve been there…)

On September 13th (Thursday) Red Point will be accepting reservations for our final offering. Here’s a classic example: You can participate in the most successful project in the Sea To Sky corridor this week or you can be a spectator and watch the opportunity pass you by. Your call. The way to participate is to get into the reservation program, that way at least you can make an informed decision after you’ve reviewed the facts. If you choose not to buy that’s fine – at least you’ve participated. But if you let the opportunity pass you by without participating, you’ll one day be able to say, “I had the opportunity of checking that project out and buying there but didn't…”

If you’re not clear about how the Reservation Program works give your sales associate at Red Point a call ASAP and they’ll walk you through the details. (1.877.892.4702). It’s a process designed with you, the purchaser in mind – giving you the ability to fully research the offering before making a buying decision.

Live life large!

Barrett.

The Top 100

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:47:39 GMT

What springs to mind when you think of the “top 100”? Probably, the top 100 companies, the top 100 money earners on the PGA, the top 100 travel destinations…

Whatever it is, it’s probably not the top 100 things you have to do before you die. Well that’s exactly what motivated four crazy 20-somethings to quit their jobs and school, and with no money in their pockets set out to accomplish a list of the top 100 things in life they to achieve or accomplish and help people they meet along the way to do the same.

So how are they doing? Well, check it out at: www.theburiedlife.com

I’m not suggesting you quit your job, throw in the mortgage and go ride a giant bus across the continent, but I tend to agree with these kids – life moves fast and we should all slow down to enjoy it. As they say, it’s easy to lose sight of your dreams when all you look at are the obstacles.

So, here’s a challenge: Big or small, write down some things you want to do before you die, plan it and do it. Then, let us know how it goes – maybe we’ll post your story!

Barrett.

Living Life Large

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 23:47:31 GMT

Some definitions of Red Point:

To persist from sheer determination of will;
Not to resign when confronted by obstacles or discouragement nor to give up or abandon what is undertaken – and to accomplish this with no falls, aids or rests on your gear.
A clean ascent; to lead a climb without weighting the rope or gear. (In the 1980's German climber Kurt Albert marked those climbs he had completed with no falls with a red point at their base.)

“What’s that got to do with Real Estate?” you might ask. Well, not much. It does however represent a lot of what everyone involved with Red Point is all about; from the principal of Kingswood Properties, Lorne Segal, down to the sales assistant who rescued a dog from the highway last weekend…

Here are some causes and organizations that some of our team members are involved with…check out how mostly ordinary people are doing their bit to take over the world in true Red Point Style.

Free the children (children helping children – established by Craig Kielburger at the age of 12) (www.freethechildren.com)

The Kelty Patrick Dennehy Foundation – a foundation founded and run by our very own Kerry Dennehy dedicated to fighting the terrible disease of depression in our youth (www.thekeltyfoundation.org)

Courage To Come Back Awards – our very own Lorne Segal is the Chairman of this astounding initiative.

World Vision Canada - hailing from Africa I have seen a lot of “aid” projects started (normally in a first world “ivory tower”) and abandoned in a small village in Africa leaving a community bitter, untrusting and nowhere closer to being self-sufficient. Here’s an organization with a difference – they teach a community to fish rather than handing out fish… The first child we sponsored from Ethiopia 5 years ago is now on his own two feet and doesn’t need us anymore – and that’s cool. (www.worldvision.ca)

Live Life Large,
Barrett

*Note: all messages and opinions expressed in the above websites and links are not necessarily those of Sotheby’s International Realty Canada, Kingswood Properties Ltd. or any of their representatives or associates.

To wait or not to wait? That is the question...

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:37:06 GMT

Sound familiar? As a potential homebuyer that is probably the number one question on your mind in the current market. Well, here’s a story for you, inspired by two events occurring in close proximity to each other. The first one being my annual dose of culture while attending a Shakespeare play (and the reason for my inspired heading). Shakespeare first posed the question “to be or not to be” in Hamlet (or was it Macbeth…? I’m a bit rusty). Anyway, a bit of poetic license notwithstanding, this is now the question: to wait or not to wait…?

Now to the other event inspiring this week’s post. A little background: I have these friends who have been holding off getting into the market in North Vancouver. They had their sights set on owning a single-family home (expanding family and all that) and when they decided to finally get serious about their search a year ago, entry-level homes (read: ancient, needing significant work and located a block from the upper-levels highway; essentially a teardown) were starting in the low to mid $500,000s. Fun times. “But, if we stretched our budget a bit to the mid $600’s we could get a lot more bang for our buck”, they said. So, they decided to continue renting their two-bedroom basement suite while saving their hard earned cash, so they could just stretch a bit...

So here I was this past weekend, at a BBQ with them, almost exactly one year later. We were relaxing and our kids were destroying the garden of their basement suite. Over a cold Corona, my friend (we’ll call him Joe) mentioned to me how frustrated he felt – the same “teardown” he had looked at a year ago was now up in the mid $600’s and the homes they really wanted were in the mid $700’s. At this rate, he confessed, keeping up with the real estate market was a feat of similar proportions to man’s first trip to the moon! They had effectively wasted a year of potential equity and put their dream that much further out of reach. The solution, they had decided, was to simply get into the market now with what they could afford…so they are currently looking at condo’s since they’ve been living in what is essentially a two bedroom apartment for the past year anyway…

He further informed me that in an attempt to figure out what might happen to our market (another feat of similar proportions to moon-walking), he and his wife (we’ll call her Mary), had been looking at global markets to see how Vancouver’s affordability ranked. Well that brought no comfort to them, as Vancouver ranks 89th out of 120 countries in affordability while being the third most desirable city in the world to live in. Amazing.

The moral of the story: As a wise man once said, “it’s better to buy real estate and wait than to wait and buy real estate”

I had suggested to Joe last year when we started getting involved with Red Point that they should consider Squamish. With the demographics of the Sea To Sky corridor being what they are and what they’re projected to be, Joe & Mary would have been smart to look more closely at and act on what this market has to offer from both a lifestyle AND a real estate perspective!

By the way, the final phase of Red Point will open for reservations in early September. If you can, be a participant in our market…and not a spectator, like my friend Joe.

Introduction

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 22:15:13 GMT

Welcome to the Red Point blog!

This is a place to get to know your future community and get up to the minute updates on what's going on in Squamish and around the Sea to Sky Corridor. You’ll hear from us a lot; from the interior design crew, the architects, the development team; construction updates, details and insights expressed in more of a conversational tone than you would find on the average real estate website.

In the spirit of 'living life large', we are going to share stories with you ranging from the inspirational to the quite ordinary, of regular people like us out and about living life.

We also want to hear from you, our current & future homeowners;
-    why you chose to make Squamish your home base, or
-    why you’re thinking about making Squamish your home base,
-    what drew your attention to Red Point and what you’re looking for in the ideal home
-    send us stories (adventurous or not) of your activities in the Sea to Sky Corridor – we’ll showcase a different story from time-to-time

We hope you’ll visit the blog often, send us your thoughts as we progress down this exciting path of researching, buying and then watching Red Point take shape. We look forward to seeing you out and about in Squamish and be sure to drop in when you’re in town …

Live life large!
Barrett Sprowson
(Director of Sales)

Photo Album: Red Point

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:02:06 GMT

Red Point