It's been ten years today since I wrote the first post on the TeamFisher real estate blog.

Since that time, we've published 1280 times and moderated 15,911 comments from readers. I've learned a lot from the experience. Here are a few of my takeaways.

1) Aaron Levenstein was quoted as saying, "Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital." While impossible to do on a weekly basis, I've done my best to provide as deep a look at the stats as I can from time to time.

2) It's difficult to call the market. As we came out of 2006, major Saskatoon brokerages were predicting price gains of three to five percent for 2007. Prices nearly doubled. Across the years, a couple of booms and more busts that I could count on two hands have been predicted. While we've had our ups and downs most of those bumps have been fairly unremarkable, at least when they're viewed over a few years time.

3) Hard work and consistency do pay off. Having written an average of 2.5 posts per week for ten years with no major failings I like to suggest that I am probably the most consistent real estate broker-blogger in the world. I'm sure you can appreciate that I don't always feel like contributing a portion of my weekend to the "week in review." It's hard work keeping it up. A local talk show host once suggested that a real estate blog on a REALTORS® site is "a bit of a mistake" and suggested I should take it down. I'm glad I didn't. It took hours and hours and hours of work with no payoff in sight but blogging turned out to be the best decision that I even made professionally. Exchanging thoughts and doing business with you over the years has been a great honour and a privilege.

Thank you so much for reading. Here's how the market has changed from our first post until now.

Norm

I wrote to you last week about a special fundraiser that I was scheduled to participate in on Wednesday, September 19 and I wanted to let you know of the results.

A group of sixty agents, assembled in Vancouver for our company’s national sales conference joined forces to raise funds for the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation by hiking the Grouse Grind. The event was organized by my colleague Sebastian Albrecht and his wife Bess. Sebastian happens to hold the world record for the most ascents of the mountain in a single day. He climbed Grouse Grind fourteen times over sixteen hours back in 2010. Having now climbed it just once, I have some appreciation for the magnitude of Sebastian’s accomplishment. I found a single climb to be a huge challenge, one which I will never forget and one which I hope to experience again. My thanks to Sebastian and Bess for organizing the grind and for bringing this wonderful experience to my life.

I had hoped to chronicle my climb in video snips. I didn’t get too far in before I realized I just couldn’t do that without dramatically affecting my climb time. It very quickly became difficult to operate the camera without stopping for a rest, something I really didn’t want to do. I came to give the grind my best effort. Here are the before and afters in a brief video.

My time was 1:01:13. Speaking of time, it’s not too late to donate to this great cause. You can do that here if you’d like to. My friends stepped up and contributed $2,400 to the event. Collectively, our group raised over $25,000 for the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation. Thanks to all who contributed.

While I am appreciative of every bit of support, financial and otherwise, I am especially touched by the generosity of those in the Saskatoon real estate community (my competitors, essentially) who helped with the cause.

Thank you all.

Pauline Perpick

Pat Tymchatyn

Patti Haubrich

Daryl Miller

Brenda and Calvin Taylor

Ed Wojcichowsky

Riel Syrenne

Lana Stark

Becky Laliberté

Regan MacNamee

Kim Newransky

Kevin Goyer

Chris Dagenais

Lyndon Neher

Kelly Kowalchuk

Lionel Betker

Maria Trakadas

Jacqueline Dolynny

Jerry Andreas

Grace Tuck

David and Julie Cortens

Heather Daverne

Dave Scharf

Brian J Taylor

Kevin Cross

Caroline Bickle

Darwin Dolgopol

Don McIvor

Barry Willick

Dean Hartley

Ron Thompson

Leo Morrison

Diane Crawford

Kerry Clarke

Joseph and Charmaine Taylor

John and Norene Penner

Sharon Cybulski

Derek Watson

Cec and Richard Willick

Don Garvie

John Stickel

Thanks again to all of you. I appreciate it so much and I promise that your contributions will be put to good use.

Norm Fisher

Good morning! I'm doing something later today that has me kind of excited and I'm hoping that it may be of interest to you. If it is, great!. If not, no worries.

Later this afternoon I, with a group of friends, will take the grueling three-kilometer trek up Grouse Mountain in beautiful Vancouver, BC to raise money for the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation, the largest charity of its kind, dedicated to supporting shelters for women who are suffering abuse, and violence prevention programs. They call this trail "the Grind" as it's well known for tearing legs apart. It should be fun! I feel prepared physically.

Did you know that violence against women is still a major problem, even in Canada? Every year, hundreds of women are victims of domestic violence. Some of them stay in that messy and very dangerous situation because they simply don't feel that they have a safe place to go to get away from it. Should you choose to support my effort today, every nickel of your donation will end up at a shelter that provides safe haven to women facing these challenges.

So whaddya say? If you have anything left in this year's charity budget I'd sure appreciate the consideration. If you want to give big, do it! If you want to throw ten bucks our way we'll be super proud to carry it to the top of Grouse Mountain on your behalf and put it to work changing lives.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Here's what I need you to do.

Click this link http://www.tinyurl.com/chv4j59

Click the "make a donation" link on the left side of the page

Fill out the form and click the "next" button at the bottom of the page

Confirm how you'd like your name to appear and write a really encouraging note to help me up the mountain, then click next.

I promise it doesn't take nearly as long as it might seem.

If you've already donated to my campaign, thank you so much for the support.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Norm

Last week, I asked you for a product donation to Royal LePage’s National Garage Sale for Shelter. Many of you came through and we ended up with piles of great stuff to resell on Saturday at the local Royal LePage office .

Thank you!

The wind presented the odd challenge and the odd bit of breakage, but the sun shone and people arrived to buy. Thanks to those who participated in that way as well.

Those of us who were working the sale had a great time meeting people who generously paid for the few items they wanted to take home. By the end of the five-hour event, we were about $3,700 in the black, not a bad haul when you’re dealing with revenue that comes in as quarters, loonies and toonies. That money will be donated to the YWCA Crisis Shelter and Interval House where it will go to work helping woman and kids who have experienced abuse at home make a fresh start in a safe place. Again, thank you so much.

Similar efforts were conducted at Royal LePage offices across the country. When we have a total tally of proceeds raised, we’ll let you know.

The Royal LePage Shelter Foundation is Canada’s largest public foundation dedicated exclusively to funding women’s shelters and violence prevention and education programs. Administrative costs of operation are underwritten by Royal LePage so 100% of proceeds raised through commission-based donations from agents, and community events like our garage sale and our fun spiel go directly to the shelters we support. Since its inception, Royal LePage agents and brokers have contributed or raised over $14 million to help end family violence for more than 30,000 women and children who take refuge in a shelter each year.

If you missed out on the sale and would like to make a financial contribution, however large or small, you can do so at the Shelter Foundation website.

Thanks again,

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra

Congratulations to our lucky winner and thank you to all who chose to connect with us on facebook.

We'd like to do more of this, so please, visit TeamFisher's Saskatoon Real Estate Page.

Who knows?  You might "like" it.

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra

You’ve heard the old adage, “The three most important things in real estate are location, location, and location.” A location is of utmost importance because it’s essentially the only thing about real property that can’t be changed. You can buy new carpets, add a coat of paint and even improve a floor plan but you’re definitely limited when it comes to improving the location of your property. You can’t take a home which is in a poor location and move it closer to schools, or further away from negative influences. It is where it is, and it always will be.

Location is of equal importance in the world of “virtual real estate” and the criteria that we use to judge the quality of a “location” is very different. When purchasing residential real property, we tend to associate quiet, low traffic locations with quality. When you market real estate online, you look for locations that boast high levels of traffic. You want your home to be situated in a busy place to maximize the level of exposure to active home buyers and having your home marketed “on the internet” doesn’t necessarily mean that it is being seen.

Every real estate agent will market your home on the most predictable online real estate websites. The real value that an agent brings to the process is found in what they do differently. The real question is; what will you do to make my home stand apart from all others which are for sale.

Unfortunately, many real estate websites exist is a baron wasteland. They attract few visitors, and those that do come, never return. They are little more than an electronic brochure promoting the services of an agent. They can be boring and irrelevant at best; definitely not the kind of location that brings you much value as a home seller.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that my passion is online marketing. I’ve worked hard to build a website with quality content, which is well-positioned in the major search engines. Each month, thousands of people visit the Saskatoon Real Estate Resource Centre. We recently joined the Point2 Network, the largest real estate network in the world. For the fourth week in a row, our website has ranked in the top 100 of over 100,000 real estate websites in the network. Our association with Point2 also provides us with the opportunity to syndicate your listing and send it to some of the highest traffic locations available to web marketers.

If you’re looking for a quality location to market your Saskatoon home, our website is hard to beat. I’d love to show you how we can expose your home to thousands of potential buyers.

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra