A Metre of Beer and My Involvement With Rotary

Last spring Linda and I joined about 30,000 Rotarians and a number from my own club in Montreal for our international convention and a celebration of 100 years of Rotary's community involvement in Canada. To paraphrase a popular advertising campaign: 'This is not your father's Rotary'.

The Rotary Club of East York which is celebrating its 60th year of relevance has transformed itself with younger members representing both genders and a number of ethnicities while enjoying the help and guidance of our older members. This year we will have 35 members and will raise over $100,000- to benefit our community and international efforts.

So what does this have to do with a metre of beer? In Montreal Darryl Patterson introduced us to a microbrewery called 'The 3 Brewers' and we had a great time and enjoyed a sampler of all 5 brews featured on a rack a metre long. A little of this, a little of that and good times with good friends. A lot like Rotary.

Last night we met at The 3 Brewers here in Toronto to celebrate Darryl's 40th birthday. Darryl teaches other clubs how to use current technologies and social media to spread Rotary's message. Darryl will also be our club president next year...at 40...not your father's Rotary!

Rotary International is a service club of community volunteers and our motto is 'Service Above Self'. We pledge to run our business in ethical ways and number more than 1 million men and women worldwide. Internationally we are teamed with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in a 3.3 Billion dollar effort to eradicate polio.

Was It Really There All Along?

Have you ever walked through your neighbourhood and noticed an establishment for the first time without realizing that it had been there forever? Linda and I had to attend a visitation last night for a friend who's father had just died and we were getting home around 8:30 without having eaten. We went down to Greektown here in Toronto along the Danforth and decided we'd try a restauarant we hadn't been in before.

Pan on the Danforth has a very unassuming front and is a smaller restaurant for the neighbourhood. I knew of it because Zelinde Kaiser in my office often uses it to cater lunch for her agent open houses. We walked through the door and into a part of the past that I thought was long gone. Pan is an establishment where they actually dim the lights, have candles on the tables, tablecloths and cloth napkins. There was a live bazouki player for much of the evening and a live belly dancer who started with a candelabra of lit candles gracing her head (I hope they were the dripless variety!).

I spent years in the restaurant business having owned three myself and I can say that the service was unlike anything I have experienced in years. It was unhurried and thoughtful. Anyone working the floor would respond to you. The servers were happpy, taking time to dance with the belly dancer and they were all led by co-owner Soula who took a moment for every table in the restaurant.

They have a prix fixe menu for $25-. Linda had mussels, New York steak and rice pudding. I had calamari, crusted salmon and creme caramel. With coffee and wine, dinner was about $100-.

We have a new favourite restaurant!

Pan on the Danforth, 516 Danforth Avenue, Toronto
416.466.8158

*Make a reservation, you'll need one!

The Rise and Fall...and Rise of a Neighbourhood

With few exceptions neighbourhoods go through cycles from being in development to maturity to decline and then through renewal back to being desirable places to live. In the urban centres of Toronto examples of this would be High Park or Bloor West Village in the West, Cabbagetown in Central Toronto and Riverdale and South Riverdale (now Leslieville) in the East. Some neighbourhoods like Rosedale, Forest Hill and The Kingsway appear to have avoided this cycle by virtue of their continued desirability and afflence but you never know - just ask the former mansions of Jarvis Street about that! Some neighbourhoods began as more middle class havens and have become increasingly gentrified as a result of a desirable location like Leaside or the Beach.

I was walking through Leslieville yesterday with fellow agent Sam Soukas meeting and talking to neighbours and was very much reminded of the whole process of urban renewal. 10 years ago Leslieville began an oddysey from a forgotten down on it's luck neighbourhood to one of the most desirable locations for young urbanites. Today it is an eclectic mix of trendy young professionals living in wonderfully renovated old Victorians right next door to the couple who inherited grandma's house. It was truly amazing to see the differences as we walked door to door and the different people we spoke to and met. The perfect example was an older woman living the past 37 years in a grand Victorian semi with stunning architechtural features but definately faded and in need of more than just a facelift (the term gut reno comes to mind) and her next door neighbour living in the other half of the semi who greeted me in her fabulously renovated foyer with her young baby in her arms.

I enjoyed my conversation with both ladies even though they were each at very different points in their lives...much like the neighbourhood they live in. This, to me, is part of the essense of living in a metropolis like Toronto. You can turn around a corner and never know quite what you'll see...or who you'll meet. I wouldn't live anywhere else!

The Toronto Market Going Into March

I have been surrounded by doomsayers for the past three years predicting the collapse of the Toronto real estate market using words like 'bubble', 'over-priced', 'irresponsible' and worst of all saying there is no logic to current home prices. Sooner or later there will be some sort of correction in our market and they will all spring from the woodwork shouting how they were right!

The Toronto market DOES NOT defy logic. There are rational reasons for what is currrently happening with home prices:

1. There is a scarcity of listings, supply is low.
2. Changes to mortgage rules coming this month have spooked many buyers into rushing to buy a home, demand is high.

These are the immediate causes for current sale prices reaching record highs but the Toronto market has been fueled by other, longer and more stable trends:

1. We are the principal destination for immigrants and foreign real estate investment in the Canadian market.
2. Commute times in the GTA are becoming intolerable to many residents prompting them to seek homes closer to the core of the city.
3. Our home prices, regardless of what we may think of them, are below or in line with most primary and secondary world markets (so go ahead and argue whether we are a primary or secondary market)
4. The increase in home values for a number of years in Toronto has been orderly and measured.

People who have been waiting for the 'bubble to burst' are watching as their purchasing power slowly gets eaten away and are rushing to buy 'before it's too late'.

So, what should you do now:

If you are thinking of selling, get your home on the market as soon as possible, demand is huge right now.

If you are trying to buy, be patient and don't get pushed into a rash decision, overpaying by a huge amount for homes currently on the market. Watch what happens in the next month as the '35 year amortization' effect passes and more homes come on the market.

If you absolutely need to buy now, be prepared to get out every day to see new homes, bring your cheque book and be prepared for a fight. You probably won't win your first bidding war so don't let yourself get too high or too low either.

April will be a good month! Relax! :-)