Newsletter March 20, 2009
Issue 2
March 20, 2009
Development Update
Debra Waluk
A month has passed since my last newsletter and I wanted to update you with our progress at Studio NA. We’ve now poured half the lower garage floor and most of the concrete walls throughout the site. We are standing formwork above the garage floor for the floor of the commercial and live/work units along Chapel. We’ll start pouring concrete for that floor and the remaining garage floor as soon as we get a break in the rain, hopefully this weekend. Once the commercial floor is poured we can start framing, and with framing crews anxious to get going I think we will see the structure of the building come up quickly. We’ve had some unexpected weather delays and have hit some large rock formations that were not expected, but we believe our contractor has dealt with these challenges as quickly and as well as possible.
Studio NA continues to generate lots of excitement downtown. The site gets lots of onlookers and purchase inquiries right at the site office. We expect to have two webcams overlooking the site 24/7 up and running very soon and anyone logging into our website will be able to see what’s going on.
Watch us grow over the coming months and stay tuned for further updates.
Discovering Nanaimo
Malcolm Johnson
I always get asked about how the real estate market is doing in Nanaimo. I answer that as a REALTOR I’m very fortunate to live here. Real estate has been most affected in Canadian cities that are heavily dependant on industry. Nanaimo has been gradually moving away from its dependence on the forest industry, which has made the current economic situation easier for us to weather. Secondly over the past few years we at Coast Realty have seen a great number of people from other parts of Canada “discover” us and they are interested in moving here. The largest portion of our out of town purchasers are from Alberta, Ontario and other parts of BC, and they are coming here with money to spend on housing. Most of these people are amazed at the value here and approach buying like “kids in a candy store”. So, yes sales volume is down and prices have dropped slightly, but it’s our opinion that the future of Nanaimo and Vancouver Island is bright, that interest rates are at historic lows that can’t be sustained and will rise, and that it’s a very good time to buy real estate here.
