My name is Karen Carter, I'm with Sotheby's International Realty, Canada. I've been a Vancouver realtor for 19 years and I'm a local. I was doing a career shift. I just got knotted to businesses with a partner and a friend of mine said, you should really try this. I think you'd be amazing at it and took the course. And now I'm still here, 19 years later, it's just such a joy to help people get to what they want in their dream homes change.

Scares the heck. Out of most people, it's all about helping the people navigate their emotions, their dreams, their fears and being there for all the little minutiae so that they can get what they want when you get into the real estate World. There is so much to learn. You go through this course that in essence is like going through kindergarten and then you're thrown into the real world and expected to be able to do a whole lot of things that you know, nothing about yet. So the first couple years is just learn, learn learn. Yep. Hopefully, you have a chance to

Up with an experienced realtor to can help you and guide you and give you advice, what I chose to do having come from a business background already, is I chose a niche to run with and I chose to work with first-time buyers for the first few years only. So that I could build a database knowing that most people move in five years. So that way I would have recurring business if I treated my clients. Well, and they wanted to work with me again. So, for the first two years, I worked non-stop on the weekends. I would do back to back.

Back open houses it's being the advocate for everybody. That's what gives me joy feeling. Like, I need to protect the underdog comes from me, feeling like boys had to protect my little brother. So my younger brother had horrible Asthma as a child. And now, this is my perspective. He might have a different reality to all of this, but it felt like in grade school. He was always being bullied. And so, I was always the one screaming across the schoolyard to push the bully. Awesome to give him a chance.

To have a, you know, recess and so it's interesting. I didn't hit that and realize that till I've been in the business for probably seven or ten years. And it's like, why do I click helping the underdog? And it was the sense that I'm protecting my little brother and I still go through things 67 times with clients and they'll still say, I don't remember this, I understand it, I do it every day. I understand that these little pieces of information will slip your mind, but just repeating it reinforcing. Educating is a huge part of what I do.

So most people do, you know, maybe in the first few years by a place upgrade to a one-bedroom from A1 to A2, they might upgrade to a town house or a house but once you're in a home that you've been in for a long time and you have not done a real estate transaction in over a year things change, I broke it down one day to take a listing from the day that I meet with the client to list a property to the day, we're passing keys off to the new owners. There's actually a hundred and eighty three steps. So there are so much that a person doesn't

Ain't no coming down the pipe and if you are thinking, I'm just going to list it. I'm going to hit the market next weekend and I'm going to be sold in a month. We've got to have a conversation because there's a lot more to it than that. And if you don't know what I'm doing in the background as your realtor, you thinking well she's not calling me what she doing. I'm doing the 183 steps in the background that need to be done to make sure your house sells being authentic, showing who you are. Why you do what you do, how you do your process of Real Estate.

How you service your client is so important for the other person to know what's coming and what they can expect. And without that, I don't know if I could do any business.

Shove it is how I like to think of what I do. My goal is to see my clients truly here, truly what it is, they are wanting what their needs are, what their desires are, what their fears are, what their concerns are, and figure out how it can help that understand all the concerns. I need to understand everything that's going on for them. I need to understand where I can be of service, where they need service, because everyone's needs something different in a real estate transaction. And

You can have two people side by side in theory, looking for the same product, but they have different needs sweetheart of lady barb. She was selling her place in east Vancouver and but she was moving back to the west side where she had grown up. And the one we first saw was fully renovated, other than some carpet. She wanted to replace, it was lovely, but she's like on paper, it's right, but it doesn't feel right. It's not the place a while later. The mirror image property came up for sale and she says to me, she has care. And I already saw that floor plan. I didn't like it that I don't know what it is but trust me. We're going.

To go and she's walking through and she's like, I don't understand. She's like the other ones in way better condition that did not feel like home, this feels like home. Why? I'm like, I can't answer to you, why it feels like home, all I can tell you is when you walk into a property, if you turn to the left and you see a kitchen, your shoulders come down, she phones me up the next day. She's like, I got it when I'm working with families, it's so important to engage the children and educate the children as we go through the process and make it playful and fun.

I have always assumed when the house is sold. That is when the real estate agent, then says, peace out.

First time, the four kids were in this house, they were just all over it. What's not special about East Van?

You've got Trout Lake, you've got East Commercial Drive. You've got an upcoming Brewery, small businesses or blooming in east Vancouver. You've got everything from the River District. If you want to have that feel right up to, you know, character homes up around the peony. The neighborhood has everything that anyone who wants to live in a city would want? The question, is what part of it do you want? I think East Vancouver has such diversity that

everybody belongs versus some neighborhoods that are much more established. There's not as much diversity if I was looking to move into East van today. What options are available to be? There is everything under the Sun, so you've got everything from the Vancouver. Specials were built in the 1960s through the 1980s. You can obviously luxury homes for four million dollars or you can have a character home that is, you know, might need some updating for two and a half million, so it just depends on what you're looking for. So, at the moment, there's a lot of inventory.

But the buyers perspective right now is well there's a lot of inventory but I'm hoping for the deal. So we have this very interesting situation right now where people would love to sell but we don't have the buyers because so many people moved during that two-year period, Then buyers that are out there are being very selective, nothing wrong with being selective. It's just also a reality of what East Vancouver has to offer. So if you're expecting to find the

You know, luxury house that you find in west Vancouver, in East van. It's not there. We have lovely character homes, we have fabulous, condos and townhouses. And there are some new modern properties. Absolutely. But they're not going to be the homes that you will see on the million dollar listing shows. I'm a believer that our housing is too expensive for an average person with an average job. This city is very hard to get into unless you're lucky enough to have wealth transition from your family, or your extremely successful in a career.

It's a lot of money. So it's one of the situations where density will help people be able to stay in the city. If you're thinking of moving it to East Vancouver, the one thing you need to know is that the communities are going to change. So you've got to be realistic if you are buying on a tree-lined street because you think this is a great 1950s Bungalow and I'm going to make it beautiful. Make sure you do the research on the development coming down. The way each of the pockets and walk around have coffee, I go back and have dinners walkthrough on a

Saturday afternoon to see what is there, because each Community Health for so much with 19, distinct communities and sub communities, like, souter Cottage or my gosh. You know, the Main Street strip there is so much to offer. It's just what really makes you smile. What makes you happy? Because you'll find it in this pan, you just got to find the time to find the neighborhood that works for you.