Your Source For Edmonton Real Estate Market News | Schmidt Realty Group » Fun stuff!

Local Realtors Make Movie!

schmidt — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:00:22 +0000

Wonder what makes Schmidt tick? Check out this video!

Everyone loves pie… and balloon fairies!

schmidt — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:07:29 +0000

We recently held our annual Client Open House at our office! The weather was great and so were all the hugs and happy smiles We love getting a chance to catch up with our clients and our annual open house is one of our favourite days of the year! For the past few years, we’ve nicknamed this event PIE DAY because we gave away pumpkin and apple pies from Bee Bell Bakery to our guests! Plus we had the amazing team from SERVUS CREDIT UNION (lead by Janice Brown of the Ellerslie Road Branch) cooking up hot dogs for everyone! Our staff was busy keeping the popcorn popping, and the Balloon Fairy was on hand building the most incredible balloon creations – she even made a giant fire breathing dragon! It was fun giving out some amazing door prizes and we also announced our annual team donation to Habitat for Humanity Edmonton. This year we raised $6500 for this wonderful organization!

Click here to see a short video of the day!

Contributed by Kathy Schmidt, Broker Owner, Schmidt Realty Group

Superman spotted in Edmonton!

schmidt — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:32:12 +0000

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s local REALTOR Chris Miller of Schmidt Realty Group rapelling down the Sutton Place Hotel to raise money for Easter Seals!

Chris was one of the brave volunteers who raised a minimum of $1500 each for the privilege of rapelling down 27 stories in downtown Edmonton this past Tuesday morning.

Our team at Schmidt is so proud of you Chris! Whahoo!!!!!
Click here to watch Chris’s adventure on YouTube!

Contributed by Kathy Schmidt, Broker Owner, Schmidt Realty Group

Create your own “Word Cloud”!

schmidt — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 23:09:59 +0000

Here’s a fun website that you can use for work or play! Visit http://wordle.net/ and enter the website URL for any website that has an RSS blog feed, and a “word cloud” will be created in just seconds! The word cloud you see here is what resulted when I input our website www.weselledmonton.com/

You can also copy and past text to create a word cloud from any document! And you can play with colours and layout easily!

Send your creations to Schmidt@WeSellEdmonton.com! We’ll give away a $10 Starbucks gift card to the first five we receive!

Contributed by Kathy Schmidt, Broker Owner of Schmidt Realty Group Inc.

Edmonton breaks into Canada’s Top 10 Livable Cities!

schmidt — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 17:00:11 +0000

Edmonton breaks into Canada’s top 10 livable cities:
City’s rank of eighth of 180 based on affordability, weather, income

By Dave Cooper, edmontonjournal.com
March 29, 2011 1:40 PM

Click here to access the online article

EDMONTON – Edmonton has finally cracked the top 10 list of Canada’s best places to live, according to a survey released Tuesday by Canadian Business/MoneySense magazine. The city was ranked number eight out of 180 cities with more than 10,000 residents, up sharply from its 16th ranking in 2010 and 18th in 2009. St. Albert came in at fifth spot this year, the first time it was included in the review. And all three scores beat out Calgary, which earned a 16th spot this year, 27th in 2010 and 26th in 2009.

The consistent top four since 2009 have been Ottawa-Gatineau; Victoria; Burlington, Ont.; and Kingston, with Ottawa and Victoria exchanging top spots once. To compile its lists, the magazine uses sources such as Statistics Canada and has devised a grading system.

Weather, for example, was calculated as the number of days below 0C, and the number of wet days, factoring in what Environment Canada calculates as ideal precipitation. On weather, Edmonton and St. Albert were ranked 37, but the winner was Oakville, Ont. Victoria was ranked Number 4, not the result most people might imagine. Vancouver’s weather was ranked at 92 — a tally which must bring smiles to Edmontonians still facing freezing temperatures and mountains of snow and ice as April approaches.

Edmonton and St. Albert ranked 120 and 125 for affordable housing, better than Vancouver, which came in at 180 as Canada’s most expensive. Household income in Edmonton was ranked 37th, far below St. Albert’s 7th-place standing and Calgary’s 6th place. Fort McMurray won the top income spot, but the city ranked just 98th overall. When discretionary income was calculated — a reflection of the cost of living and taxes — Fort McMurray fell to number 20, compared with Edmonton at 11 and St. Albert at the Number 2 spot. But it turns out the residents of Whitehorse had the most loose cash in their jeans, and the most new vehicles per capita on the roads.

Edmonton and St. Albert were well above average in the categories of job prospects, population growth and access to health care. But Edmonton was ranked 114 out of 180 for crime, compared with 64 for St. Albert. And while Edmonton was slightly below average for the number of people who walked or biked to work, St. Albert was near the bottom of the list. Oddly, the top-ranked city with most people walking to work (per capita) was Yellowknife, just beating out Canmore.

At the other end of the list, the worst place in Canada to live was New Glasgow, N.S.

MoneySense’s data manager Phil Froats writes that the big reason cities like Bay Roberts, N.L.; Val-d’Or, Que.; and B.C. cities like Williams Lake, Quesnel, Campbell River and Port Alberni “and the rest of the sad-sack lot are at the bottom is because of high unemployment, low average household income, negative population growth rates, a dismal culture industry and, for the most part, high crime.”

Local Credit Union Giving Away Cash!

schmidt — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 20:51:43 +0000

Have you heard of the FEEL GOOD RIPPLE campaign? Servus Credit Union has an amazing program going on right now and they invited Schmidt Realty Group to participate. This morning our team was out on the street armed with $10 bills from Servus and a mission to make someone’s day special. All the recipient has to do is agree to do something kind for someone else today – not with money, but with something as simple as a smile or offering to help someone get their groceries to their car on a cold and snowy day. Thanks to SERVUS and our team of good samaritan realtors, there were a few more smiles in Edmonton this morning. One older lady received money to take a cab home after she bought her groceries. A young girl was helped with bus fare to get back home to BC. A mom with three children received some extra funds to put towards mitts and scarves at Value Village. The staff at WIN House were happy to receive nine pairs of one-size-fits-all gloves from Superstore. Some hard working people received a surprise gift of a Ten-To-Go carton of coffee from Tim Horton’s. And a family in line at Tim’s were given cash towards their family’s lunch on a cold day. Our team had so much fun and everyone was inspired by the experience to do it again!

Read more RIPPLE stories here! Who can YOU help feel good today?

Contributed by Kathy Schmidt, Broker Owner, Schmidt Realty Group Inc

The Doctor Is In!

schmidt — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:36:19 +0000

Schmidt Realty Group is proud to announce we are sponsoring Dr Oz on Edmonton’s newest radio station UP! at 99.3 FM. Not only can you listen to music to make you feel good all day long, you can hear practical health tips from the doctor Oprah made famous! Dr Oz is on daily at 6:30am, 8:30 am and 11:30 am so tune into 99.3FM as your schedule permits for the health tip of the day!

Learn more about Dr Oz and other fun stuff happening at UP!

Submitted by Kathy Schmidt, Broker Owner of Schmidt Realty Group Inc.

Eco-Entrepreneurs launch Edmonton’s first FREE store!

schmidt — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:00:33 +0000

Eco-entrepreneurs launch Edmonton’s first free store

Drop-off fee helps cover overhead in unique venture

By Mariam Ibrahim, edmontonjournal.com September 10, 2010

Click here to veiw the full article

EDMONTON – There’s a new store in Edmonton that won’t have you worrying about maxing out your credit cards after an afternoon of shopping. In fact, you can leave your entire wallet, credit cards included, at home.

That’s because at Edmonton’s First Free Store, located at 8405 118th Ave, just about everything is free for the taking.

“You can take as much as you’re willing to carry out,” said 24-year-old Benjamin Ryder, who co-owns and runs the store with Brandon Tyson, 24, and Russ Armstrong, 56.

“You just walk right in and take whatever you need,” Armstrong added. “Then you are free to turn around and walk right out.”

All of the items in the store are donated by people who no longer have a use for them, the trio explains. The store, open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., makes its money by charging a $2 dropoff fee for each bag or box brought in, which helps pay overhead costs.

Click here to veiw the full article

SOMETHING FUN!

schmidt — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:49:03 +0000

Have you ever heard of WORD CLOUDS? You’ve likely seen them before. Here’s an example of one that I created recently from words on www.WeSellEdmonton.com. You can build a word cloud in just minutes at www.Wordle.net simply by inserting a website url or with any words you choose. It’s a new way to get a flavour for a website or to create a message about a topic. Visit Wordle.net and have fun!

Note: To use a website it must have an Atom or RSS feed.

Contributed by Kathy Schmidt, Broker Owner of Schmidt Realty Group Inc

Work Hard…Play Hard!

schmidt — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:00:18 +0000

The real estate market is keeping us busy and we are working hard! It was time for some fun last week!

Click here to view a video of our fun meeting activity:
Go Like Schmidt!