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Heritage Pointe Real Estate Blog - Homes Property and Houses For Sale

In this section of the site we are featuring news and information about Heritage Pointe. It's our goal to show the market that we are the best agents and have extensive knowledge of the area.  Read our blog which will be updated frequently, and please feel free to call us at any time on (403) 278-8899 with your questions about Heritage Pointe.

Heritage Pointe Real Estate Blog - Tuesday March 9th, 2010 - Hospital Fundraiser’s Luxury Home is a Real “Wow”

With an astounding luxury home as the grand prize, Foothills Hospital is pulling out all the stops in its eighteenth yearly lottery fundraiser.  Matt Reiser, Calgary Health Trust’s director of events and lotteries, said that the home, built by Thomson Luxury Living, truly delivers on the “wow” factor.  

The residence is a posh estate property located in the Lakes of Heritage Points.  The lakeside community is located on Dunbow Road in Calgary’s south area.  The property includes a water feature two storeys in height, a floating catwalk in the home’s upstairs area, as well as an entertainment-focused lower level.  

The home has a three-car garage, with one side of it serving as a glass viewing area to accentuate the owner’s upscale vehicles.  Currently, the garage’s guest is a 2010 Aston-Martin V8 Vantage Roadster, which is the fundraiser’s early-bird prize.

Thomson’s VP of Sales and Marketing, Dan Hippe, said that while the home is magnificent, it also contains practical elements, such as a jack-and-jill playroom between two upstairs bedrooms.  He said that the house is completely furnished and is decorated professionally.  The lot is meticulously landscaped, and as an extra incentive, the deal includes $10,000 in cash.  The entire package is worth $2.3 million.

Two other grand prizes include homes constructed by Motion Homes, which is one of Thomson Luxury Living’s divisions.  These homes are located in Royal Oak, which is in the northwest section of Calgary.

Tickets for the lottery are priced at $100 apiece, $250 for three and $400 for five.  They may be purchased by calling 1-888-541-5540.  Tickets may also be bought online, at: www.foothillshospitalhomelottery.org.  They are also available at the hospital, the home locations, or at any of the other sites of major prize contributors.  The early bird prize drawing will be on May 13, and the final drawing will be on June 8. 

Heritage Pointe Real Estate Blog - Friday February 26th, 2010 - Calgary Leads Canada in Commercial R.E. Investment Returns

Of all major Canadian cities, Calgary exhibited the largest decrease in commercial real estate investment returns on an annual basis.  The decline of 7.4 percent contrasts sharply to an increase of 7.4 percent seen in 2008.  Some $90.9 billion in commercial real estate that is directly held appear in the results for 2009 in the ICREIM-IPD Canada Annual Property Index.  The severity of the fall of local commercial real estate value is demonstrated by previous years’ statistics, which indicate healthy increases of 26.5 percent (2005), 29.9 percent (2006) and 20.2 percent (2008).

The biggest losses are in office space, which saw a decrease of 11.2 percent.  Other problematic real estate areas include industrial, down –6.5 percent, residential rental properties, down –1.2 percent and retail space, down –0.1 percent.  According to Calgary Economic Development real estate business manager Richard Pootmans, the office market in downtown Calgary is the main driver of the decline.  He noted that the present weakness should be viewed in the overall context of the investment scene consisting of investment funds that have been financing new office towers.  He said that the investments were initiated with a long-term vision of continuing energy-sector vitality.  

A report issued by CB Richard Ellis Ltd. shows that by December 31, 2009, vacancies in downtown Calgary rose to 15.5 percent.  The overall downtown inventory consisted of 35.7 million square feet.  As a comparison, the vacancy rate at the end of 2008 was slightly over four percent.

CBRE is optimistic that the last has been seen of corporate layoffs.  The report notes that capital markets are returning, and with the exception of any mega-mergers, normal office space demand should resume in 2010.  CBRE predicts that the vacancy rate will climb to more than 21 percent in the next two years, due to the addition of 2.5 million square feet of new office space inventory.

Heritage Pointe Real Estate Blog - Saturday February 20th, 2010 - Provincial Government of Alberta Takes Over Dispatching Duties, Was it Ready?

It seems the new call dispatch centre in Calgary for Alberta Health Services may have opened before all the bugs were out. As a result of that a MD Foothills resident located a few minutes west of Okotoks, had to wait 45 minutes for an ambulance to respond to take care of her husband, a victim of two prior heart attacks.  Luckily the man was taken to Foothills Hospital and is now OK, but if he had really been having a third heart attack, chances are he would not have made it.

The province of Alberta will be taking over the dispatching of ambulance services in March of this year.  Last October, a new dispatch centre was opening in Calgary, designed to service all of southern Alberta. Before that centre opened, calls were dispatched by the Foothills Regional Emergency Medical Services locally in Black Diamond.   Other government operated call centres in the province are located in Peace River and Edmonton.  Local dispatching is being phased out.

The problem with the Calgary centre is that it was opened too soon.  Only 10 of the 108 dispatchers have had training on how rural addresses work. The computers have not been updated to be able to handle the rural addresses and won’t be until the fourth quarter of 2010.

Other problems include communication issues between the call centre and emergency service personnel.  The ambulance firms have handed in their computers to be reprogrammed.  They have been waiting since October to get them back, and are still waiting. Instead of being able to pull up a Google map, paramedics are using paper maps to find where they are going.

Radio communications are also being hampered.  The Mike radio system, which the ambulance companies have had to switch to, does not have coverage west of Highway 22.  In these black out areas, paramedics must use their old systems to talk to the FREMS dispatch center, which forwards the messages to the Calgary centre.  This means calls take at least twice as long to be dispatched, at best.

Jim Garland, dispatch director for Alberta Health Services admits there have been problems but denies they have affected patient service and care. After meeting with FREMS officials he is promising to address the service and communication issues plaguing the system in a timely manner.

Heritage Pointe Real Estate Blog - Tuesday February 16th, 2010 - Plans for Solar Panel Project Rejected by Provincial Government

After planning on installing solar panels on the municipal administration building in High River, the plans have been stalled by the Province because the government refused to grant the funding for the project.

The partnering schools and businesses applied for funding for the project through Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation (CCEMC) last year.  The participants were simply applying for matching funds for their collaborative solar energy project, but it was turned down.

The CCEMC only has $120 million of funds to grant for proposed solar energy projects. High River Environmental coordinator, Kylana Rogers-Hambling, said that the news of the rejection is a huge disappointment because the project was designed to help the environment by saving energy.

She explains that the rejection is quite disheartening because the majority of the money has been granted to corporations, for mainly carbon-capture and storage projects.  She says that they should not have been so naive about the direction of the program.  She thinks that the design process, along with the application process, was a huge waste of time since it is now obvious that they money will only be granted to corporations.

Heritage Pointe Real Estate Blog - Wednesday February 3rd, 2010 - Government Denies Application for New Arenas

MD public works manager, Tom Gillis, recently announced that an application to build two new arenas in the MD foothills will the support of a private constructor has been turned down, but the project is still a possibility.

The MD has applied for a federal grant to help build the two event facilities using a public-private partnership model.  For now, the project has been put on hold.

The proposed projects would be to build two single-rink arenas, one in Priddis and a second facility at Heritage Heights School.  If approved under the public-private partnership model, the federal grant would pay twenty-five percent of the cost.

From the beginning of the application process, the Province did not believe that the proposal to build the arenas would succeed. The Province actually did not agree with the rate at which the MD expected to be funded.

The MD wanted an interest rate of seven percent, but the Province responded by stating that a more likely interest rate would be 11%.  The federal government has yet to believe that the project is viable.  Project supporters have began a fund raising campaign with the Calgary Flames to raise the money for a new arena in the Heritage Pointe area.

Heritage Pointe Real Estate Blog - Friday December 18th, 2009 - Bringing Value To Heritage Pointe

We are very happy and excited to bring a new method of communicating our knowledge about Heritage Pointe to those in the area.  It's important to us to let everyone know we are experts in the area.  Read our first newsletter with useful tips and information.  Happy holidays to everyone!

Click Here For Our Christmas Newsletter

Heritage Pointe Real Estate Blog - Wednesday November 25th, 2009 - Just Like Mom Event

We were extremely privelged to take part in the Just Like Mom event in conjuction with Simplee Serene.  Here is a video we made from the event and posted on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtTYWNU2qWU

Heritage Pointe Real Estate Blog - Monday February 19th, 2010 - A Look To The New Year

2010 promises to be an important year for the Heritage Pointe area.  We are continuing our tradition of providing information via our newsletter.  Click on the link below for our first quarterly newsletter of 2009.

Click Here For Our 1st Quarter Newsletter

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