July is almost here, bringing with it more great Edmonton festivals! Here are just a few of the best arts and culture events Edmonton has to offer this July.

Edmonton's Capital EX

Edmonton July Festivals and Events

Edmonton Celebrates Canada Day
When: July 1
Where: Alberta Legislature, City Hall, Old Strathcona, Winspeare Centre
Edmonton celebrates Canada’s 143rd birthday with barbecues, family events and birthday cake, all leading up to a spectacular Canada Day fireworks finale in the river valley. This year’s display is going to be bigger and better than ever before as Edmonton will be launching the biggest fireworks shell in Canada – don’t miss it!

International Street Performers Festival
When: July 8 thru July 17
Where: Sir Winston Churchill Square, 100 Street & 102 Avenue
From musicians to jugglers, acrobats to unicyclists, the festival features over 1500 outdoor performances from an international cast of amazing street artists. And there’s more! Indoor Late Night Madness performances, daily Troupe du Jour group shows, artistic face-painters, colourful rovers, Be Your Own Busker workshops, and Kids’ World activities for the young and young at heart, all add to the whimsy and wonder that electrifies downtown Edmonton for ten days each July.

SOSFest Sounds of Old Strathcona Music Festival
When: July 10
Where: Whyte Avenue, Old Strathcona
Edmonton’s newest summer festival, featuring some of the best and wildly diverse national and home grown talent on Edmonton’s popular Whyte Avenue. An outdoor street party with an outdoor stage and high energy music that attracts a diverse crowd.

Taste of Edmonton
When: July 22 thru August 2
Where: Sir Winston Churchill Square, 100 Street & 102 Avenue
Great food and live entertainment: what more could you ask for? Edmonton’s finest restaurants come together in Churchill Square to create menus that allow you to sample their culinary skills. These samples will leave you wanting so much more. The Taste of Edmonton also features restaurants from different backgrounds reflecting Edmonton’s diverse multiculturalism.

Edmonton Indy
When: July 22 thru July 24
Where: Edmonton City Centre Airport
Gear up for three days of wild at the Edmonton Indy! The dynamic 3.154 km racetrack at the City Centre airport in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada makes this one of the most thrilling stops on the IndyCar Series calendar. Come see these awesome aerodynamic machines reach up to 320 km/h.

Capital EX
When: July 22 thru July 31
Where: Edmonton EXPO Centre, Northlands Park
Summer thrills, action and fun are all on tap at this year’s Capital EX. Edmonton’s must-see event on the summer calendar, Capital EX delivers big value for all ages with live entertainment, familiar favourites and plenty of exciting new attractions. A carnival atmosphere electrifies the city’s longest running summertime exhibition with its parade, casino, free entertainment, thrilling midway and nightly fireworks. Every July, the biggest live community experience in Edmonton takes place at Northlands!

Is there any better place to be than Edmonton during the summer? Festival season kicks off in Edmonton this week, beginning the summer-long tradition where Edmontonians celebrate the arts including theatre, dance, visual arts, sports, film and culture. From our internationally renowned Fringe and Street Performers festival to local arts and film fests, Edmonton is brim full of things to do this summer.

St. Albert's International Children's Festival

Edmonton June Festivals and Events

International Children’s Festival
When: May 31 thru June 4
Where: St. Albert Place & The Arden Theatre, St. Albert
The Children’s Festival provides an opportunity for children to become directly involved in arts activities and presentations, and is both entertaining and educational. A celebration of cultural excellence that promotes performing and visual arts to children and adults of all ages.

NextFest
When: June 2 thru June 12
Where: Theatre Network, The Roxy (10708 – 124 Street)
Over 80 performances in multiple venues throughout the Edmonton downtown area, celebrating new theatre, dance, cyber-art, music, painting, photography, filmmaking, and poetry. NextFest encourages local, emerging artists to explore inter-disciplinary work, multi-media, and new technology.

Heart of the City Festival
When: June 4 thru June 5
Where: Giovanni Caboto Park in Little Italy
Back for its 8th season, the Heart of the City Music and Arts Festival is a two-day family-friendly festival with non-stop live entertainment, artisan tents, face painting for kids, food vendors and roving artists.

Improvaganza
When: June 15 thru June 25
Where: Varscona Theatre
Canada’s largest improv festival. Every year local improv troop Rapid Fire Theatre hosts improvisors from across Canada, the United Stats and beyond. Program includes a full roster of improv, comedy shows, radio shows, workshops and social events.

Freewill Shakespeare Festival
When: June 28 thru July 24
Where: William Hawrelak Park, Heritage Ampitheatre
Locally known as “Shakespeare in the Park”, this is Shakespeare at its best. The outdoor Hawrelak Park Ampitheatre is the perfect setting. Shows featured this year on alternating days are Othello and Twelfth Night. The ultimate summer Shakespearience!

You don’t always have to make massive, huge changes to your home to make an environmental difference. Often it’s the little things that add up fast to make a big difference. Having an eco-friendly home doesn’t mean you have to install solar panels: there are plenty of quick changes you can make that are both cost-effective and green. Many environmentally-friendly, energy-efficient home strategies will also save you money in the long run. Here are just a few suggestions to get you started.

Add Insulation

Making sure your home and attic are property insulated helps keep the heat in and the cold out, especially in the middle of winter. If you live in a cold winter climate like Edmonton, adding extra insulation can save you a ton of money on your natural gas bill.

Block Off the Fireplace Flue

If you have a real fireplace and chimney in your home — especially one that you don’t ever use — consider blocking off your flue and fireplace opening. Better yet, improve the value of your home by adding a natural gas or electric fireplace and kill two birds with one stone! Properly inserted gas fireplace inserts are designed to send warmth into your home rather than up the chimney.

Check Your Seals

Inspect the calking and weather stripping on all your doors and windows. If they’re in need of repair, adding calking and weather stripping is a simple and low-cost eco-improvement anyone can do themselves.

Low-Flow Faucets and Fixtures

Replace your sink and shower fixtures with low-flow equivalents designed to limit the amount of water you use. Many of these work without reducing your water pressure, and they’re easy to install.

Put Your Thermostat on Auto Pilot

Buying a programmable thermostat can save you money and make your home more eco-friendly. The best part? Once you set it, you can forget it! Programmable thermostats allow you to customize your furnace’s heating activity to be warmer when you’re home and cooler when you’re away or sleeping.

Energy Star Appliances

If it’s time to buy new kitchen appliances make sure you purchase ones with high Energy Star ratings. Appliances marked with the Energy Star label use up to 40% less energy than their unmarked counterparts, and often use significantly less water. Also keep an eye out for the Energy Star label when you’re buying a new TV or computer.

Replace Your Furnace

If you have an old furnace it may be time to look seriously into a new one. Modern furnaces that score a high Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) percentage can save you piles of money in the long term on your heating bill, and are significantly better for the environment. Older furnaces usually have an AFUE rating of 60% while newer, high-efficiency models have a rating of 90% or higher.

Going Green isn’t just a feel-good exercise: it’s well known that investing in eco-friendly changes to your home will save you money in the long run. And in an Edmonton Real Estate market where being green is seen as a real advantage by prospective buyers, making your home energy efficient will protect your investment for years to come.

The Paranych Team is excited to announce a new mobile-optimized version of www.paranych.com that lets you easily search for Edmonton Real Estate on the go, from anywhere!

This completely free version of our website is immediately available on all the most popular smartphones including iPhones, Blackberry and Android phones. Just visit www.paranych.com from your mobile browser and you’ll be instantly taken to the phone-friendly site, streamlined to be fast and easy to use on the small screen.

The best part about our mobile site is the new GPS MLS® System Listings Search. This new search tool is only available on your mobile phone and uses your GPS coordinates to find Edmonton homes for sale near your location. You can also use search filters to narrow down your search to only homes that fit your criteria, including price, square footage and number of bedrooms or bathrooms.

Edmonton GPS Listings Search is a fantastic new way to explore Edmonton Real Estate for sale in your area. Take your phone with you for a drive by or walk the streets of the neighbourhood yourself. If the location of your new home is critical, there’s no better way to get a feel for the area than using our GPS search.

There are two additional searching options for home buyers on our mobile site: browsing for listings by Edmonton community, or by entering a specific MLS® System number.

No matter which way you decide to search, you can still access additional details and pictures connected to each listing easily. And once you’ve found a listing that captures your interest, you can bookmark it with a star icon to come back to later.

Try out the Paranych Team Edmonton Real Estate Mobile Website from your smartphone today: we’re sure you’ll love it as much as we do.

It happens to every parent eventually: children grow up and move out on their own, leaving parents with an empty nest and extra space. If you’re considering downsizing now that your children are out on their own, remember that you don’t have to make your mind up immediately. Always investigate all your options, from condos to walk-ups and even houses with smaller footprints. Don’t rush to put an offer on the first thing you see: you’ve invested 20, 25 or even 30 years into your current home, so take the time to transition to a place you’ll love just as much.

The Terry Paranych Team would like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season. We wish you luck in the new year and the next decade, and look forward to another successful year of helping our amazing clients buy and sell Edmonton real estate.

Prospective Edmonton home buyers continuing to hunt for a new home over the holidays still have access to up-to-date Edmonton listings, and should check out our recent blog post about buying homes at Christmas for seasonal house hunting tips.

Happy Holidays, and we’ll see you in the New Year!

Moving to a new city or neighbourhood can be tough for kids, especially when the move requires they change schools and go through the process of making new friends. Terry shares some strategies and tips for homeowners to make moving to a new community easier for school aged children and teens.

People often ask what will happen with the new legislation regarding real estate fees in Canada. The truth is nothing has really changed.

Individual sellers have always been able to negotiate their own commission. The only difference now is you can choose to put your home on the MLS® System for a specific fee instead of using the full spectrum of real estate agent services.

Think of it like walking into a really great buffet that charges $19.95 for all you can eat, and then having someone in your party ask the price of one spring roll: “75 cents,” says the owner, “but you don’t get a napkin, fork or spoon and you’ll have to eat it outside.”

The fact of the matter is a full service Edmonton real estate brokerage is the way to sell your home. In the United States when new legislation came in four years ago it only changed the market by 7.8%: that means only 7.8% of consumers chose to go on what’s called a “fee for service” basis to sell their home.

Of course you can have a real estate agent put your home on the MLS® System for a fee if that’s the only service you want. But what happens after, once your home is on the MLS® System? Real estate agents will start calling you. You’ll need a sign on your lawn, and a lock box. What about additional marketing to keep your home for sale top of mind? Who’s going to show the house to prospective buyers? And who will pay the real estate fees to the agent that brings the offer?

The truth is the menu of services makes our market competitive and fun. The Paranych Team loves competition, and we think it’s a fantastic idea to give the consumers more choice. The real estate market can be a confusing and intimidating place, and we believe what we offer as a full service brokerage is highly valued by our clients and the public. The Terry Paranych Team offers peace of mind, sale guarantees, and constant support which most people ultimately choose over fee for service systems.

A few days ago we discovered some old Edmonton Visitors’ Guides from the 1950s filled with photographs, information and statistics from the era. What better way to show the changing face of our great city over the last 60 years than through the lens of real estate?

Edmonton Today vs. Edmonton in the 1950s

The population of the City of Edmonton in 1955 was 209,000 people. The 2008 Edmonton census shows we’ve grown to over 752,000 people since then. If we include the greater Edmonton area, we’ve grown from 232,000 people in 1955 to over 1.1 million today!

Edmonton has expanded to over 6 times its 1950s size: in the 1950s the city covered 110 km2, and today we’ve grown to over 680 km2. What’s most impressive is how well our ratio of parks and green space has remained high: in 1955 Edmonton boasted 2,500 acres of parkland, and today that figure has increased to over 27,400 acres, including the Saskatchewan River Valley parks system which is the largest stretch of urban parkland in North America and is 22 times larger than New York City’s Central Park.

Downtown Edmonton circa 1955.

Taking a look at real estate in particular, in 1955 Edmonton contained around 58,000 homes: today that number has increased to over 353,000 homes including single family houses, condos, townhouses and apartments. The average cost of a home back then was around $13,000; in 2009 a single detached home in Edmonton sold for an average of $366,000. A search shows the size of homes has increased as well: in the 1950s homes in Edmonton were an average of 900 square feet, while today the average house is closer to 1,400 square feet.

The Alberta Legislature Building and High Level Bridge, circa 1955.

Interested in more current Edmonton statistics? Take a look at our Edmonton real estate news page for the most up to date real estate statistics. You can get stats for the city as a whole or drill down and look at the numbers neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

If you’re interested in demographic information, you can explore the most recent Edmonton census data at the new Statistics Edmonton website.

It’s amazing to look back at the numbers and these old photographs and realize how much Edmonton has grown over the last sixty years. What will our city look like in another sixty years?

I am proud to call myself an Edmontonian! One of the many reasons is because Edmonton is recognized world wide as “Festival City”, a city that offers world class event opportunities and fosters community pride. There is always something to do in Edmonton – Especially in the summer!

4 Happenings This Weekend:

Honda Indy Edmonton – Action Packed Excitement

The Honda Indy Edmonton races back from July 23-25, 2010, as the world’s fastest drivers tackle one of the most challenging tracks of the IZOD IndyCar Series. Gear up for 3 days of wild at the Honda Indy Edmonton as the 3.154 km racetrack makes this a thrilling stop on the IndyCar Series calendar. Anyone who loves cars and movies like “Fast and the Furious”, this event is for you!

A Taste of Edmonton – Gourmet Delights

Looking for an entertaining way to taste a plethora of Edmonton restaurants’ best dishes, while enjoying local entertainment – then A Taste of Edmonton is for you! This year, from July 23rd to August 1st, the Taste of Edmonton will return and over half a million people will indulge their palates with some of the best food and beverages that Edmonton restaurants have to offer. The Festival features a daily  line-up of entertainment on the Taste Main Stage from 11:00 am to 11:00 pm.

Capital Ex – Something For Everyone

The list goes on and on and on. From concerts to rides to shopping to eating; there’s just so much to do in only 10 days.

- For the younger kids, there is Family Fun Town with interactive construction building, option to catch fish, as well as a firefighter zone where kids can learn how to create their own escape plan and more.

- For a full 10-days, TELUS Stage comes alive with daytime Family Entertainment and every evening, TELUS Stage Concerts showcasing some of the hottest musical acts in Canada.

- For adults only entertainment, Capital EX presents “Sip, The Wine and Food Experience” – Cool atmosphere, dim lights and plenty of character makes this the perfect place to meet up with friends or make new ones.

- For Everybody – Every evening the sky above the EX comes alive with a spectacular fireworks show that will be sure to dazzle you. Don’t miss a night of the excitement.

For more info – visit Captial EX’s Website

Forkfest – Locally Inspired

Take Edmonton’s tastiest independent restaurants, feature an affordable multi-course menu, spread the love over 10 days and what do you have? A reason to celebrate! And a reason to leave your belt at home…

Fork Fest is:

• A 10-day festival of fabulous food celebrating Original Fare’s independent restaurants in Edmonton

• Not in one location, but all participating Original Fare locations – Fork Fest happens simultaneously at each member restaurant.

• A culinary treat! Each Original Fare member restaurant is offering a multi-course meal for $25 or $45 —a great opportunity for newbies to surrender their taste buds to the difference an independent restaurant has to offer. It’s also a fantastic way to say ‘thanks’ to the regular customers who choose to keep Edmonton’s palate diverse by supporting independent restaurants.

• An affordable way for people to try many of Edmonton’s most flavourful places to eat. There’s no guessing what the bill might be, you’re assured there will be a menu of either $25 or $45 (some restaurants will offer both).

• When: July 18 – 22 & 25-29, 2010

These are just a few of the many options Edmontonians can enjoy – take time out of your schedule to experience your own city!