Victoria Market Watch

Last Laugh

Last Laugh

A small technology company from Victoria is getting the last laugh on local bankers after signing an agreement with the world's largest electronics retailer to sell its digital sign platform.

EditNew Inc. produces micro computer packs that fit on the back of LCD television screens to display everything from restaurant menus and airport schedules to in-house advertising and — ironically — lending rates at major banks. The wireless system allows users to change digital content at any time and from anywhere in the world via the Internet using laptop, personal device or home base.

The company was founded by Jeremiah Archambault and Mike Maclean on a $5,000 overdraft after attempts at financing were spurned by big banks. The partners plowed ahead on a shoe string budget anyway, securing their own contracts and re-seller agreements, and then hitting the motherlode late last year with Best Buy Canada.

EditNew signed a vendor agreement to sell its compact flash drives as part of television packages in Best Buy stores across Canada. That deal could expand into the U.S., which would give the Victoria company exposure in 1,100 Best Buy stores across North American.

The privately held company, which operates out of small office on Meares Street furnished with antiques and a warren of busy offices for programmers, does not divulge its financial figures. But Archambault said revenues have vaulted more than 250 per cent over the past year as re-seller agreements roll in and advertising starts rolling over from print to digital formats.

He said the company has 800 active licenses and that number is growing fast.

Perhaps its most quirky application has been on the golf bag of PGA superstar John Daly. Through one its re-sellers, ProBagAds.com, the long-hitter of the professional tour installed a LCD screen on the side of his bag that displays his sponsors and charities.

Users in Greater Victoria ran the gamut, said Maclean, from grocery stores and hotels to liquor stores and bars — and right over to churches and seniors activity centres.

Although most users develop and update their own material, much of the content is created and managed in-house by EditNew staff. The company has 10 employees at any given time working on contract, most of which are now in a vested share program.

Archambault, 38, is "the son of hippies born and raised in a socialist utopian society" on Sointula Island. But he took a decidedly different path than his parents, taking technology courses at Camosun College and later working for RBC Dominion Securities. Maclean, 40, is a Royal Roads University grad who spent years in the restaurant businesses, most recently managing in the GTR Group.

Abridged article:  Darren Kloster, Times Colonist.

Rare Bear

The Kermode bear is a black bear with a genetic mutation that makes its coat white. Tourists spot ‘spirit bear’ in Sooke park First local sighting of white Kermode
SANDRA McCULLOCH
Times Colonist [email protected]

A Saskatchewan couple on holiday came face to face with what they say was a white “spirit bear” in East Sooke Park last week.

 

“I was mesmerized by its beauty,” said Barb Farthing yesterday in a telephone interview from her home in Saskatoon. She and her husband Fred are absolutely certain what they saw was a bear. If so, this would be the first local sighting of a black bear with the genetic mutation that makes its coat white, similar to those found on Princess Royal Island on the central B.C. coast. They’re known as kermode or spirit bears.
 

The couple were on a holiday to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary and attend a nephew’s wedding when, on May 13, they decided to hike the coast trail in East Sooke Park.

 

“We went down to Beechey Head and the petroglyphs and we were actually on our way back,” said Farthing.  It was between 5 and 5:30 p.m. when they saw a flash of white ahead of them on the trail.  “I thought it was people coming along,” Farthing said. “Then my husband said, ‘Holy cow! It’s a bear!’

 

“Sure enough, I saw this big, cream-coloured bear. It turned around to look at us and started to come toward us. We were something like 50 feet away.”
 

The sight of a white bear, with dark eyes and nose, had the couple momentarily frozen in their tracks, said Farthing.

 

“We were just mesmerized because it was so beautiful. I never knew that, besides polar bears, there was such a thing as a white bear.” They scrambled down the cliff to the beach and walked along the rocky shore for half an hour, then climbed back up to the trail farther on. They got back to their car at 6:30 p.m.

The next day, Fred was in a car with another man when they spotted a black bear at the roadside, and he is convinced the white bear he and Barb had seen was much bigger.
“My husband had told a couple of colleagues at work and one of them was a hunter, and he said ‘Wow, I think that’s really rare. I think you should let somebody know you saw it,’” Farthing said.  So the couple sent an e-mail this week to the Sooke tourist centre, part of the Sooke Region Museum.

 

Elida Peers, the museum’s executive director and a lifelong Sooke resident, admits people will be skeptical about the claim, but said she’s “inclined to go with this,” noting “it doesn’t sound like it’s a mistake.”
The Farthings are excited with the discovery of the white bear but Barb said they have one regret: “Darn it, we didn’t take a picture!”

 
Jeff Ward of Capital Regional Parks said he has not had any other sightings reported to his office of a white bear in the park.
“I’m sure that would have been hot news here,” he said yesterday.

2011 Market All About Stability

Victoria Real Estate Board’s new head doesn’t expect major change

Dennis Fimrite may never have actually sold a house, but the incoming president of the Victoria Real Estate Board is not the type to shy away from wading into a little residential market prognostication.

Fimrite, the president of Firm Management, a commercial property management and sales agency, has taken over as VREB president from the outgoing Randi Masters and is predicting 2011 will be a year of stability for the region.

“The word is stability. I don’t think there will be any major changes. It should be a fairly settled year,” said Fimrite, noting that could mean minor swings in selling prices of between two and five per cent.

The board believes the market will remain balanced through the coming year, carrying on from recent months when sales picked up as mortgage rates remained attractive.

Fimrite said the market will again be dictated by interest rates and the overall strength of the economy.

“But Victoria always does a little better than the rest of the province,” Fimrite noted. “It’s a great place to live and there are a lot of diverse industries here.”

A report released Tuesday by ReMax suggested overall market conditions in B.C. will remain healthy and the province is expected to lead the country in terms of percentage increases in sales activity in 2011.

The ReMax Housing Market Outlook report forecasts Vancouver and Victoria to see increases in sales of 10 and eight per cent respectively, while Kelowna is expected to realize six per cent growth in 2011.

The report also noted most major Canadian markets would realize increases in housing values next year, with Vancouver seeing a five per cent increase though Victoria is expected to “hold the line” with the average selling price remaining stable at $505,000.

The housing outlook report characterized the Victoria market as remaining healthy and in 2011 forecasts 6,500 homes to change hands, up from 6,000 forecast for 2010.

The demand was expected to remain stable across all segments in Greater Victoria though it was to remain strongest at the most affordable levels — under $300,000 for condominiums and $550,000 for detached homes.

The report said the overall prognosis for Canada’s real estate markets in 2011 is good.

Nationally, housing sales are expected to mirror 2010 levels, hovering at 441,000 next year, while the average price is forecast to escalate three per cent to $350,000 by year-end 2011.

The ReMax report said 441,000 homes will have changed hands by the end of 2010, a five per cent drop from 2009, while housing values are forecast to continue to climb, up an estimated seven per cent, to $340,000, compared with $320,333 in 2009.

--Times Colonist, December 8, 2010

 

Bridge Over Troubled Water

After months and months of debate and wrangling, Victoria voters have decided to give the city the go ahead to replace the aging Johnson Street Bridge.  This unique bridge allows pedestrians, cars and the train passage over the ocean and can be lifted to allow boats access to the harbour.  The video below gives a somewhat surreal vision of what will replace the old blue bridge, a landmark in Victoria for years.

 

http://www.johnsonstreetbridge.com/the-project/council-videos/johnson-street-bridge-flythrough/