Purrfect Properties Blog

Archive for December, 2015

Christmas Decorating, Cookies and Crafts with this REALTOR®

Friday, December 18th, 2015

Hi Folks,

A few days away from Christmas now, and the time I have is speeding by me.  I still haven’t mailed my Christmas Cards and clients are still viewing, buying and selling homes.  This year has brought its’ challenges and accomplishments.  Overall, I’ve busted thrugh a few milestones and marked performance levels for myself.  I was ready for some serious Arts and Crafts time as we entered this season.  I’ve had my decorations up for some time, been christmas baking, wrapping and sending out cookies in the mail and I managed a heck of a lot of personal pride in the decoration of our dining room chandelier.  Seriously, I could stare at it all day.

I’m the kind of person that I don’t just do things.  I do things with all of my heart and soul.  This is the first home that I have gone all out for decorating.  Our friends say that it is decorated like a showhome.  It’s probably because I spend a lot of my time in showhomes or homes that are staged.  I come from a Design and Visual Background and I could easily say that decorating; whether for Christmas or not, is a hobby of mine.

Here’s a peek into some of my christmas crafts and therapy time for 2015:

Prep for all my Christmas Decorations began back in November.  Dollarama is one of my major targets when I decorate.  They always have the basics.  These Window garlands are one of my favorite decorations in the home.  After looking at a bunch of window decorations, I decided that the colorful ribbons made all the difference in the world for this project.  They add the whimsical flavour of whoville that I desired to recreate!

The best window garland I made this year is on our main floor.  I love this one.  The white/silver deco mesh really added to the fullness of the garland. Those big 4″ ball ornaments – Dollarama, $1.25 each.  Seriously.

If you know me, you know I love critters, all sorts of animals.  As you can see, in our home we have an Owl as a tree topper and little owls and birds all over the tree. There’s more decorations on our tree now than when this photo was taken.  I can’t seem to stop putting more ornaments on the tree.  The hubs says its’ really full.  I say, so will the garage be, come spring. lol  Shout out to the Hubs here.  He literally had to hang outside our window to get all our exterior lights up.  You’ll also never believe how much he wanted those Deer on our front lawn.  More crittters… lol

   

The stockings were all hung by the chimney (ok fireplace) with care…

 

Then came the Christmas baking.  There were some top shelf favorites right out of the gate this year.

 

The dark cookies you see in the above two photos were a serious hit with our family.  My hubs barely left any on the cooling sheet the first night they were baked and within afew days I was baking more of them.  I think in total we must have make 18 dozen or so cookies.  The Chocolae Peppermint Brownie cookie was the big leader, quickly followed by the Egg Nog Rum cookies you see in the photos, with the white icing.  The pink icing are peppermint melt aways.  They did exactly what they say, melted as soon as they were popped in your mouth.  Yummy.

 

I found a Martha Stewart recipe I wanted to try for Gingerbread Men.  This was a honey Gingerbread man, and it turned out just fine.  The decorating of these little guys was the best part.  Unfortunately I didn’t plan ahead and I didn’t buy a girl cookie cutter.  I haven’t shown you a good angle on the girls in the photo for one reason.  They look horrid.  Actually they look like they grew underpants or something… You can use your inagination here, no amount of icing cleaned up the patch I inserted between the boys/girls legs to fill it in like a dress.  Epic fail here. lol

 

Prep to mail out the sets of cookies to our family was a little more complex than I thought originally.  6 sets of family getting cookie boxes.  Luckily, my Mom got hers without a single cookie broken.  ALthough to note, in the future I would use a buttercream icing on all the cokies and not a Royal Icing version as I had put on some of them.  But a person learns, don’t they?  Next year, it’s  buttercream, buttercream all the way.

Below you will find some links to some fun Edmonton Chrismas activites still to come.

For now, take care and remember… he’s knows if you’ve been good or bad, so be good for goodness sakes.

Jeanine

Strong Results from a Sturdy and Stable Market

Thursday, December 17th, 2015

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and soon, a Happy New Year to You All.

What a year this has been.

Rewind your mind to a year ago; Alberta has changed so much and yet stayed the same.  The NDP’s, the Liberals, the tax changes, new mortgage rules, property tax increases and changes in municipal, provincial and federal expenditures.  Edmonton has seen a lot of changes this year and so have its’ residents.  The overall feeling shows movement.  This was the year of listings.  All year, we’ve talked about more homes being on the market than we are used to.  Almost double in fact.  Last December (2014) we had 3,059 listings for sale.  Right now, there are 6,043.  People want to move, they want to change, perhaps they want to spread their wings and their horizons just a wee bit more.

Last November (2014) a total of 1,236 homes sold in the Edmonton area.  This November 1,104 sold.  Not that much of a difference.  Modest gains overall at 1.59% for the year, but they are gains during a time when not every City in Alberta can say the same.

Last November (2014) a total of 1,416 new listings came on the market, this year 1,914 new listings arrived.  Compared to last year there are 35% more new listings, and I predict new listings are going to keep high in numbers all through 2016.

Average Days on Market – 59, down 8.5% from last year

Odds of Selling – 1,104 out of 6,043 listed, down 41.95% from last year

Average Selling Price:

Condo: $253,618

Townhouse: $339,454

Single Family Dwelling: $432,82 and the

Average selling price in the City of Edmonton is $369,559

Home Sales by Price Range: The highest percentage of properties are and have the tendency in Edmonton to sell in the $300,000-$399,999 price range, and this year 34.01% of homes have sold in this price range. Second position goes to the $400,000-$499,999 price range at 20.70%.  Third place is the $200,000-$299,999 and 20.18%. These haven’t changed very much from month to month as this works in with Edmonton average earnings per family.

54 Years average of price increase for the City of Edmonton is 6.98%.

Prices have not gone down in Edmonton since 2011, when we saw a decrease of 1.40%. Prices are up by 1.59% this year.

Talk to a professional today, and get help with your move.

Cheers,  Jeanine