On Thursday evening we close down main street Canmore and start to pile snow all over the road for two blocks, once we have enough snow to pack down we track set it and get the street ready for cross-country skiing all weekend.  There are children’s races, adult races, fun races and even dog sled races for everyone to take part in.

If skiing or dog sledding is not your thing there are plenty of other activities to take in from ice carving and snow sculpting to log sawing and photography shows.  If you missed out this year be sure to mark it down on your calendar for 2013, it’s one of those weekends you really don’t want to miss!

Just another great reason to live in Canmore!

I thought I’d write a quick post regarding Title Insurance and how it may help you as a Buyer or a Seller when purchasing a home in Canmore.  I’ve had two clients recently, one that bought a home and another who sold a home where title insurance potentially saved them both a lot of money and future aggrevation.

What is Title Insurance?

Title Insurance is an insurance that you can purchase, typically through your lawyer, that protects your ownership or title against losses incurred as a result of undetected or unknown title defects for as long as you own your home. 

Why would you want title insurance when buying a home in Canmore?

The purchaser I had recently was buying a property that had been foreclosed on by the banks.  When the bank sells this type of property they make no representations or warranties and in doing so take no responsibility for the asset you purchase from them.  This home had been vacant for many months and had a detached single car garage at the rear of the property.  When an owner in Canmore sells their home they have to provide a Real Property Report to the Buyer to show that the home and any other permanent buildings on that land are located in the correct set backs and do not encroach on to the neighbour’s land, town land or utility right of ways.  When the banks sell a home in Canmore they do not provide the real property report to the Buyers so by purchasing title insurance the Buyer is providing themselves with peace of mind that if the garage was encroaching on any of the aforementioned areas and had to be demolished, the insurance would cover the costs.

It turned out that the garage was in fact erected in the wrong location and encroached on two utility right of ways, one by 11cm’s and the other by 3 cm’s.  If these utility companies ever need to dig up their lines on this part of the street the Buyer may be forced to “move” his garage in order for them to have access to the lines they need.  in this case, title insurance is a godsend.  It should be made clear though, that title insurance will only insure you against unknown title defects, so if, through your own due diligence when purchasing a home you find out that the garage is encroaching on to a utility right of way, you may not be able to purchase title insurance, be sure to ask your lawyer about all the details of title insurance as you perform your due diligence.

Why would I need title insurance if I was selling a home in Canmore?

The Seller’s I recently worked with own a town home in Canmore that is registered as a Bareland Condominium.  As part of the sales process the Seller of a Bareland condominium has to provide a the Buyer with a Real Property Report again to ensure the property is properly located on the lot.  Title insurance is a great product to offer potential Buyer’s.

My Seller has been in the Canmore town home for several years and did not have a current Real Property Report in any of their documentation.  In order to have new Real Property Report prepared and have a stamp of Compliance issued by the Town of Canmore it sometimes takes a few weeks and around $1000 to complete.  The Seller, instead of ordering and paying for a new Real Property Report, decided to purchase title insurance for the new purchaser, at a cost closer to $200, saving the Seller substantial money and time while also providing the Buyer with peace of mind that the new title they were purchasing was insured.

Title Insurance may not work in all situations and it’s always a good idea as a Buyer or a Seller in Canmore to discuss the full details of title insurance with your lawyer as part of your home buying and selling process. These past clients certainly benefited from it and you may too.

For more information about title insurance visit first canadian title or down load their borchure for a full explanation of benefits by clicking this link: D252BenefitsofTitleInsurance(4)

To recap the Canmore real estate market for 2011 – we saw our second worst year on record for sales volume with only 283 properties selling in the year.

So how did the real estate market in Canmore fair in January? Well, it was on par with the sales recorded in December of 2011.  Last December we had 18 homes sell in Canmore in the month, this January 20 homes were sold Canmore.  Below is how those sales broke down:
Apartments: 6 sold at an average square foot price of $294

Four Plexes: 2 sold at an average square foot price of $381

Half Duplex: 1 sold at an average square foot price of $447

Single Family Homes: 7 sold at an average square foot price of $399

Town Homes: 2 sold at an average square foot price of $271

Lots /Land: 2 sold at an average square foot price of $67

The average price of properties sold in Canmore for January 2012 was $494,210 while it’s way to early to start comparing this to the year end average price for 2011 ($576,786) I think it does show the mindset of the buyer’s currently purchasing in Canmore.  Half of the twenty homes sold in Canmore this month were under $450,000 and ALL properties sold were sold under $775,000.

As the Canmore real estate market moves into February we have 8 conditional sales and only 278 active listings.  The number of active listings is similar to the number of activities we saw on the market at this time last year.  Last year we saw that number rise drastically as the Spring listing season hotted up so it will be interesting to see if we have a similar phenomenon happen again this Spring.

Time will tell and this is always a very interesting time of the year for the Canmore real estate market, will we have the overwhelming amount of properties listed this Spring or will we start to see more Buyer’s looking to purchase a home in Canmore over the next several months keeping our inventory in check?

Thankfully the temperature the week of January 9th in Canmore was mild so the 5 hour ski in was an absolute joy.  From the lower Kananaskis Lakes you head up hill and up Elk Pass for about 7km.  It’s a fairly gentle slope with a few steeper grades for almost 7kms straight out of the parking lot until you reach the top of Elk Pass.  Once you hit the top of Elk Pass it’s a 4.2km ski down to the hut.

The hut itself becomes our home away from Canmore for two nights, as soon as we arrive we have to make sure we chop enough firewood to keep the hut warm and find the closest water hole and start boiling water for drinking, cooking and washing the dishes.  Elk Lake Cabin is maintained by the Alpine Club of Canada and is stocked with all the pots, pans and dishes dishes for your stay.  It also has a wood burning stove to heat the cabin and a propane stove for cooking.  Elk lake cabin was renovated this Summer and now sleeps upto 16 people and we made great use of the space – Our party put this to the test with ten kids all aged between 6 and 12 and six adults (ages withheld!)

The greatest part, I find, about these trips is the way the kids adapt so quickly to their new environment. There are no ipods, no tvs, no video games and no electronics of any sort.  All the kids have to occupy their days are their skis, toboggans, winter coats and snow pants and a few packs of cards.  No sooner than we arrived – it took us 5 hours to ski in the 12kms to the hut, the kids were outside again building toboggan runs, building snow caves and having snowball fights.  Once it was dark outside and dinner had been cleaned up they were hanging out and playing cards for hours with each other, teaching each other new games and chatting away like they were long lost friends that haven’t seen each other in years.

Canmore is great town to live in or spend time in and get away from the City, but when you want to get away from Canmore for a couple of days and give your kids a wonderful winter experience a weekend in a back country is a great option.  The Elk Lake Cabin is a work-out to get in to, and out of, and I wouldn’t recommend it for the first hut you take the kids to, especially if the kids are 7 or younger.  If your kids are up for a challenge though – or you want to show them a  true back country winter experience I would (and my kids would too) highly recommend giving it a go.  The memories we have from our past two experiences will stay with us for a long long time and also motivate us to keep the tradition going.

Then January hit and the market came to a standstill.  If you can remember back to last January and February I’m sure you will remember the battering we got from all the storms throughout those two months.  Every weekend, starting on Friday, we’d receive a wicked snow storm that basically made the highways unsafe for travel and stopped all but the most determined skiers from making it to Canmore for the weekend.  Once the storms stopped and the weather slowly improved it felt as though Buyer’s had lost interest in the process, gotten busy with life and all of a sudden we were left wondering what would happen to our real estate market once again.

2008 was the slowest year on record for Canmore real estate sales (volume) with a total of 238 properties sold.  In 2009 in Canmore the real estate market recovered slightly and we posted 314 total properties sold.  In 2010 we grew the volume once again and finished the year with 339 sales.

So how did the Canmore real estate market fair in 2011?  In a word, Poorly.  We had our 2nd slowest year in the past decade with a total of 283 properties sold in Canmore.

Before I get to the year end sales stats, lets take a look at the sales for December 2011.

December 2011:

Apartments: 6 sold at an average of $391 a square foot.

Half Duplex: 1 sold at an average of $312 a square foot

Single Family: 8 sold at an average of $411 a square foot

Town Home: 2 sold at an average of $275 a square foot

Hotel Condo: 1 sold at an average of $239 a square foot

The total sales for Canmore real estate in December were 18 properties at an average price of $610,138 with an average days on market before selling of a whopping 187 days.

As for the yearly real estate stats for Canmore the sales broke out for 2011 in the following way:

Apartments: 61 sold at an average of $337 a square foot

Half Duplex: 26 sold at an average of $375 a square foot

Single Family: 89 sold at an average of $442 a square foot

Town Home: 63 sold at an average of $340 a square foot

Tri Plex: 2 sold at an average of $390 a square foot

Four Plex: 11 sold at an average of $319 a square foot

Hotel Condos: 16 sold at an average of $290 a square foot

In total for 2011 there were 283 properties sold, they sold for an average of $367 a square foot and stayed on the market for an average of 103 days.

So what’s in store for 2012 for the Canmore real estate market?  If you think I’m going to answer that after the completely random past four years your crazy!  What I can say is that so far this winter the weather has been very mild, Canmore over the Christmas week seemed as busy as it ever has with lots and lots of people in town enjoying the festivities of the season and we did see people stopping by the real estate offices, looking at properties in the windows and generally showing mild interest.

I always judge how busy the real estate market is by how much my phone rings and the only day my phone didn’t ring in 2011 was Christmas Day. Every other day I received calls, both from people ready to list their homes for sale and from people looking to purchase in Canmore and asking questions about the Canmore real estate market.

If I’m put on the spot about the health of our market, I would state that 2012 is another full year of recovery, our market will continue to be driven by Buyer’s looking for a deal and Sellers will have to price right and be willing to negotiate on the Buyer’s terms if they want to generate a successful sale.