Breaking down how it looks, from the inside out

When Jaime and Jocelyne Holland of Holland Design meet with their clients, they ask them not to design what their neighbours have in their homes.

"We ask them to instead think about how they live and what's important to them," said Jocelyne, partner and business development of the interior design company,

Added Jaime, partner in charge of design at the firm: "Real luxury is very personal and customized to the homeowner's lifestyle."

Luxury buyers want it all including the (second) kitchen sink

Today's homebuyers want more for less – a pattern that is also starting to manifest in the luxury market, say local industry experts.

"There's no question that, like everybody, we've felt the pinch," said Danny Raposo, general manager of Astoria Custom Homes, which is building in Watermark at Bearspaw, just outside the city limits.

Still, Raposo describes 2016 as "a decent year," noting an increased interest in Astoria's Watermark product during the eight weeks prior to mid-September.

Opulent housing segment continues to show staying power in 2016

The highest end of the home market is a unique beast. It's a sector in which a small percentage drop in price can equate to hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings – and where a minimal increase in sales volume can look like a huge boom.

Year to date the number of $1-million-and-up homes sold in Calgary and area has increased 30-plus per cent over 2015. But in real numbers, the growth was just 99 sales, from 329 up to the end of August last year to 428 for the same period this year. (To put those numbers into context, overall about 14,000 homes changed hands in that period.)

RECA recognized for education, communication

The Real Estate Council of Alberta (RECA) was recently recognized for its educational and communications efforts with two awards from the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO).

RECA, a non-government agency responsible for governing the industry under Alberta's Real Estate Act, won an education award for its pre-licensing education course, the Practice of Rural Real Estate, and a communications award for the 2016 edition of the Advertising Guidelines.

The awards were presented at ARELLO's annual conference in late September in Vancouver.

Visitable housing offers more than accessibility for disabled individuals; it could be the future of single family homes in an increasingly aged society. So why isn't it catching on?

Carla Berezowski looks at many of Calgary's new neighbourhoods from the last decade and sees missed opportunities.

A specialist in barrier-free design, the consultant works mostly with aging Calgarians, retrofitting their homes to accommodate mobility needs.

"People are usually reacting to a situation like, 'My mom fell' and they want to make their house accessible to accommodate aging parents," said Berezowski, owner of Aging in Place Calgary.

CREB® Charitable Foundation increases Investing in Hope donations to $180k

For almost 30 years, Calgary real estate professionals have been making their communities a better place through the CREB® Charitable Foundation's Investing in Hope program.

This year, they're going to be doing even more.

In response to overwhelming need in Alberta, the CREB® Charitable Foundation has upped its annual donations through the popular program to $180,000 from $150,000. That means three additional charities, and a total of 18 organizations, will each receive $10,000 in 2016 to put toward their annual budgets.

Second career was a natural transition for 2001 CREB® president Marlene Swinton

After years of managing her late husband's architecture practice, Marlene Swinton was looking for a change.

"I wanted to do something different and my cousin said, 'why not real estate? You know buildings.' I thought it might be really interesting, so I took a course and I loved it," said Swinton, who went on to fulfill a 27-year-long career in the industry that included a term as CREB®'s president in 2001.

Proposed bylaw looks to add stricter regulations

Airdrie's decision to follow suit with other municipalities in the province and regulate controversial ride-sharing services is redundant, costly and unnecessary, said opponents to the proposed amended taxi bylaw.

Earlier this month, the City of Airdrie unveiled the amendment that would require app-based ride-sharing companies like Uber to follow similar regulations as traditional taxi companies.

The change would require all vehicles to undergo 134-point inspections, more involved licensing upgrades requiring Class 1, 2 or 4, background/criminal records checks and hefty commercial insurance rates.

Net-zero technology promises to revolutionize homebuilding

As provincial and federal building regulations become more focused on sustainable development, BONE Structure founder and CEO Marc Bovet has seized the momentum and is helping to reshape the way we think about homebuilding.

After a personal homebuilding project went sour 10 years ago, Bovet, fuelled by frustration, took it upon himself to innovate a better way to build.

He talked to people, researched and looked at the ideology behind Lego, eventually coming to the "aha moment" that formed the premise behind BONE Structure.

City revisiting inner-city development

Almost 15 years ago, Naz Virani made the shift from chef to homebuilder and developer. Since then, he has been one of a handful of builders at the fore of Calgary's gentrification.

In the early 2000s, Virani founded Sarina Homes, and began what he describes as a journey to transform the inner-city, one infill home at a time.

"A lot has changed since we started the business," he recalled. "We started out building single-family homes, then moved into semi-detached and then fourplex designs."