Salt Spring Island news the Commodores Ball is tomorrow night. The Salt Spring Island sailing club is having the gala event at the harbour house hotel on Saturday night. It is always a fun event. This year the racers are going to come on mass. We are going to present 3 racing trophies at the event. Last Sunday was the racing season wind up and awards ceremony but we thought we could combine a little with the Commodores Ball.There are really never enough gala events on Salt Spring but this is the season for events. I guess I would go out to a big event once every week if I could but I just like to get dressed up and go out on the town. 11/23/2007

Salt Spring Island sailing at it's best. The wind was blowing the sails where full and the boat was flying. It was a great work out being on the helm of Alacrity for this part of the four day race. This is winter on the west coast of Canada. The weekend of November 11 was very windy that night the winds hit over 70 knots. It is a good thing we where in the pub playing pool.The next four day race / Boyz cruise will be in February 08 and I might just take my boat but on the other hand it is really night to go on a boat that has a heater. 11/22/2007

Salt Spring Island real estate news. It has been so busy in the last two months. One Percent Realty is just starting to pick up steam on Salt Spring Island. My phone is really ringing a lot. With all the calls and emails it has been great. Not to mention the sales. I think I have a new hook that I'm going to release soon to the public. It will be a great sale hook that will benefit buyers who buy through me. The thing is it is just not fair that when they buy a mls house through me that I make the full commission.Wait and see what is coming in the next week or so. The big announcement will be made hear and in the local paper. 11/15/2007

Salt Spring Island real estate news. Sorry for being so tarty and not blogging for a few week but it has been so busy. I have had so many customers here I have been run off my feet. I'm not complaining it was fun but a very tiring three weeks of none stop showings and sales.Yes sales three in fact and more in the pipe line. It seem like the market is very active on Salt Spring at the moment. I believe all the smart buyers are buying when the number of listings are so high. If they are buying now they are very astute. If the pace keeps up until spring we will not be in a buyers market for long.152 Mountain View Dr property is sold and Salt Spring is about to had one very sweet lady, who has called Salt Spring home for 13 years, move to Sidney. Salt Spring is about to be blessed with a ne... 10/17/2007

Salt Spring Island real estate buying tip. Talk to the neighbours. That's the big tip. For those of you that have been here cruising around the island with me you will know how well this works. There are 260 listings on Salt Spring. No one can now everything about all the listings. I go on the weekly tour but I have only been to 1/4 of the houses. After a while they all start to look the same, if I see 6 houses in one morning it is overload.I can get the data on a house via the real estate programs but not the real info. The who, what, where, when and how. This is where the neighbors tell all. It is like magic if I knock on a door and say I have a customer looking to buy the house next door and do you know anything about the house. The usual response is a 20 minute dissertation on all t... 09/19/2007

Salt Spring Island real estate reality check. Every morning I like to do the same routine, we are all creatures of habit. I like to have a coffee in my morning chair and check on my wi fi phone the Gulf Islands real estate market. I log in and have a look at what is happening. I just had to laugh out loud this morning. A listing had come up expired last week and I had called the customer to see if they would like to have a fresh start with a new agent. It seemed to me like they needed it, the house had not sold in two years. I recommended looking at the street and look at what has sold and re evaluate the price. The prices peeked in 2005 and if it has not sold since then they are over priced.Any way they told me that they had a good agent and where very happy. Today they re listed at a ... 09/18/2007

Salt Spring Island real estate news "the dollar" The Canadian dollar is at .97 to the US dollar. It has not been this high since 1977.This is great for Americans selling there island properties but not good for Americans buying Salt Spring Island homes. The reality of it is not that the CAN $ is going up but the US$ going down or devaluing. The good news is that the Canadian government can not afford to have a $ higher than the US$. Especially since they are a minority government and will want to get votes in Ontario. The economy of Ontario is very reliant on the auto industry and the high dollar will shut down car factories.   The solution to this problem is very simple increase the money supply and devalue the currency. It is the race to the bottom for all currencies. Low dollars make... 09/15/2007

Salt Spring Island sailing news.. a huge schooner sail by island. This was no ordinary sail boat, this was a full sized schooner under full sail. I have lived on the coast for 6 years and have only seen this ship under sail once before. I believe it is the Pacific Grace. It is just cool to see. It was in about 1850 that the big schooners sailed here for the first time. We have a tree on our land that must be five hundred years old and it would be interesting if it could talk. I imagine it saw the first explores sailing up the channel. Little did the tree know that other ships would come with Europeans carrying saws. The reason great grandfather (our name for the big Douglas fir) was spared was because it has a crook in it.   09/14/2007

Salt Spring Island real estate news... I had it all explained to me yesterday. The difference between full service and what I offer at One Percent Realty (supposedly less than full service). I had a nice realtor point out my down fall in service. This is such as oversight on my part I don't know what to do.The thing about it is that it was pointed out to me that I had no office in town and the other agent would not have the chance to pick up a brochure on my listings. Like WOW I have missed the boat on this one. That's the difference that your would get with her. It is just so huge I don't know what to do. Even thought I pointed out I can send an email from my phone to any of my customers information and an electronic brochure on any listing in BC. That any real estate agent can just pr... 09/13/2007

Salt Spring Island honey pure real honey. The honey is flowing on the island it is that time of year. Fall is great with the apple harvest in full swing and now the beekeepers are extracting the honey from the bee hives. My friend Deb had lots of spectators when she extracted the honey today. It was so cool, another first for me, it was so interesting. To think man has been doing this for thousands of years. We think we are so advanced yet some things have not changed. I shot the video clips today so have a look. The smell was unreal, like a light sugar smell. 09/12/2007

Salt Spring Island at it's best. There are more types of apple trees on Salt Spring than anywhere in the world. There are over 350 types of apple grown on the island. Juice or cyder it is so good for you, it's pure organic and it's delicious. Just watch it flow out off the press. I made 400 quarts yesterday and let me tell you it was a good work out. All winter we will have pure apple juice to drink. As soon as it is made you put it right into the freezer. 09/11/2007

Salt Spring Island is a magical place...I have had the most unreal week on the island. Starting with a celebration of life, a day of making apple juice and a sailboat race through Montague harbour.The celebration of life was a moment in time I will never forget. My friend Brian died of cancer and we had a funeral that was so warm. His friends remembered his wit and charm and sent him off in a glorious celebration of his wonderful life. I was such a nice gathering of his co workers, family and salt spring friends. 200 people where gathered at the sailing club like one big family. It was a unreal magical moment I'm sure Brian would of had a great time.Apple juice what the heck am I writing about now. As some of you know my wife bought a U brew business that makes fruit wine, cyder, juice,... 09/10/2007

Salt Spring Island wine news the big wine news you have been waiting for.... Bishops Brew House has a new owner and the new owner is June Simmons my wife. It is a great business that has been making wine for Saltspringers for 12 years. June is going to keep it the same. No changes and no price increases. I warned her she would loose me as a customer if she starts to charge more.With the fruit wine season in full swing it is busy days at the Brew house. On Monday we will have the apple press set up and running at full speed. I have been informed by the management that if I would like to keep my present sleeping arrangement going I will be running the apple press. So start picking and I will start pressing. I'm picking it up in the morning and will be doing trial runs all weekend.So with ... 09/06/2007

Salt Spring Island things to do on a rainy day Geocaching. If you have never been Geocaching you should give it a try. It is a new high tec game that uses the Internet and GPS. If you find it to be fun you can take it to the next level and set up your own cache.Visit the official web site and check it out http://www.geocaching.com/ once you log in and set up an account you will find that there are thousands of caches world wide.All you need is a GPS which can be bought at walmart for less than $100 and a map and some gas in your car and you are off.  09/03/2007

Salt Spring Island news the big party is tomorrow at 8:15am. All the island parent will be whooping it up once that beautiful yellow blue bird swoop down and picks up the kids. The days of summer are over today is the last day so enjoy it.Summer is fun but by the end of August every parent is dreaming of seeing that big yellow blue bird bus. The joy of not having them at home... Ya what to do...we could clean the house and not hear a moan...we could pretend we where on our honeymoon...we could just sit and listen to the silence...we could save our voice no more "stop hitting your brother"...23 hrs and counting until the parents of Salt Spring can rejoice... yippy, woo hoo, cheers.. it's going to be a long day excuse me while I "stop hitting your brother it the last day of summer is this... 09/03/2007

Salt Spring Island real estate news "I want to be green". I had a funny phone call the other day about a house I have listed. Now I must say I have lots of friends who are from the UK and English accents are not that uncommon on Salt Spring. This call was from a lady in London who said she was looking at the listing and liked it and wanted to know how far it was from town and how do you get to town?The thing about Salt Spring is that we have a very low population density. It is rural farmland with some built up areas of 20 -30 homes in little town areas but all the services are in Ganges our main town.The lady said in the strongest English accent "I don't want to use any petrol I want to be green man green" can I walk or ride a horse? Sure no problem my neighbor has an old mule that he ... 09/02/2007

Salt Spring Island real estate news "The Lock Box" situation.Lock boxes where invented 50 years ago and are used in many places around the world but not here on Salt Spring. I'm the only agent that has embraced this simple device on all listings.How it works it that the homes key is put in the lock and the lock it attached to the house. The box is opened by either a combination or a master electronic key. The think about lock boxes it makes viewing of you house just so much simpler. The agent does not have to go to town and drive around and look for the key. It is impossible to get a key for a house for a viewing on Saturday. How do you park on a Saturday in town? If a agent cannot get a key to view your home they can not show it.Insist on a lock box if you are selling your home. 09/02/2007

Salt Spring Island real estate destroyers if you have kids you gotta luv letting them be kids. In this day of over sanitization and pasteurization of kids I'm proud to say my kids are getting to be just that...kids and do fun and dangerous stuff and why not.A child that has never set a fire will become the neighbour hood pyromaniac. So if you have kids just let them have some fun... 08/27/2007

The listing total listing numbers are about 271 today plus a few for sale by owners and a few temporally off the market. I put the actual number of places for sale on Salt Spring at about 300. Now with a population base of 10,000 that is a high number.I like to compare Calgary to Salt Spring, Calgary has a population of about 1,000,000 and about 6,000 active listings and everyone is crying that the market has tanked. They have 6 listings per 1,000 people. So with their ratio we if they had 10,000 people they would have 60 listings.We have 300 per 10,000 this is 5 times the listing ratio. We have a buyers market. We have a buyers market. Do I need to say it again Salt Spring is a buyers market it is time to buy and find the Salt Spring house deals.    08/27/2007

Salt Spring Island waterfront homes are in a buyers market, now is the time to buy. Right now we have a huge amount of waterfront homes for sale (over 100) and very few buyers. Don't be a lemming don't buy next year or the year after when we will have a shortage buy now while there are deals to be had.With the boomers retiring on mass in the next few years there will be a shortage of places and prices will go up. Right now it is a buyers market and the sellers are getting scared so the timing is right to buy. The problem is people like to buy in a rising market but that is wrong the time to buy when prices are going up. Buy when prices are down or not moving, this is now, when there is a big supply or supply glut.This post will be on my blog as a reference for 2008 and 2009 customers wh... 08/26/2007