It seems like just yesterday I was writing my inaugural post to announce the start of Toronto FC’s 2010 season…so I guess it’s only fitting that with this one I announce the end of it as well!  On October 16th, 2010 “the boys in Red” will be playing against the Columbus Crew for their final regular season game (fingers crossed that they make the  playoffs).

If you’ve yet to make it down to BMO and catch the team play, I highly suggest you take advantage of the deal the UBC and U of T Alumnus have put together:

Tickets are $52 each and gets you access to the exclusive Rogers Club, let’s you mingle with fellow UBC and Uof T alumnus, watch the soccer game at BMO Field, AND most importantly… help the Regent Park youth! For every seat sold, the two alumnus will donate $5 to sponsor Regent Park youth from the Pathways To Education™ program. The goal is to raise enough funds to bring at least 5 students to the game!

You can purchase your tickets and read more about this great intiative at the UBCTO Alumni website.

Goooooooooooooooooooooooooo REDS!!!

Looking for the 530 St. Clair sales centre? Try across the street!  The old sales centre on the North side of St. Clair has closed down to allow for demolition of the remaining structures.  The new sales centre is now located in the old TD Canada Trust building on the South side of St. Clair (521 St. Clair Ave West, next to Shoppers Drug Mart).

It’s been a little less than a year since sales started at 530 and already construction is starting to begin!  On my last visit to the sales centre, several units were still available for those wanting live at 530. The building is scheduled to be built by Fall 2012.  For those looking to move it a bit sooner, 500 St. Clair is fully complete and selling on the resale market! Whether your plans are long term or short, if you’d like to live in either of these great condos…give me a call or send me an email, I’d love to help!

It’s not everyday you get see your home featured in a music video….but thanks to Arcade Fire and Google, you can!  The Wilderness Downtown is an interactive film by Chris Milk featuring Arcade Fires latest song – We Used To Wait. Check it out at The Wilderness Downtown dot com.

Visitors are asked to input the address of their childhood home, what happens next is one of the coolest/creative video experiments I have ever seen!  I don’t want to reveal too much, so try it out for yourself, and when you’re done put in a few Yorkville addresses for fun ;)

If you’re still living in your childhood home and would like to experience the wilderness downtown for yourself… send me an email or give me a call I’d love to help!

TechTip – Best viewed with a Google Chrome browser!

Do you remember Dave? I do.  He was that poor fella that bought a home under a flight path!  He was also the fictional character that stared in the “How Realtors Help”  commercials (well actually it was him and that catchy Tiny Tom song that helped to make it memorable). Then there was that stressed out lady who took  her anger for those complicated legal forms on her unsuspecting plant!

Embrace yourself people because the Canadian Real Estate Association is about to deliver a new version of the commercial.  The 30 second spot should be hitting the airwaves just in time for the fall market…and thankfully, no furntiure was harmed in the making of it!  Look for it on a TV near you, or check it out today at the  How Realtors Help website!

Don’t be like Dave.  Use a Realtor (Me)…we can save you time, money, and broken furniture.  Best of all, our services are free for buyers!

In this weeks edition of Photo Friday, I’ll be posting and describing photos from my latest trip to Italy!  Earlier in the month, my family and I took our first trip “across the pond” to spend two weeks travelling throughout beautiful Italy. Our ventures started in Rome and continued through Sienna, Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Venice, Assisi, Sorrento, Napoli, and finally a few days of relaxing on the Amalfi Coast!

My first day in Rome resulted in over 400 photos being taken…and believe me, if you saw what I saw, you would too!!! Even a simple “entrance door” had more architectural merit than half of the buildings going up in Toronto.  They put so much detail to every little thing, it completely blew my mind!  I would never suggest Toronto adapt the style and architecture that Rome has, but I would suggest they borrow their approach to “green living”.

Everything I  saw was very efficient, from the traffic patterns (ok, to be fair they were more crazy than efficient) to the hallway lights.  For example, the lights in the corridors would not turn on unless the motion detector was set off. EVERY toilet had dual flush options to conserve water. Solar panels were seen on many of the roofs.  The showers had a temperature reading so the user can set the heat to the desired amount all in an effort to conserve hot water… and what I most liked was that they didn’t make a big deal about it.  In North America I feel as if there’s more emphasis on saying you’re “green” as opposed to actually living green.  It’ll be awesome to see more condo developments implement these sort of changes as many would help lower maintenance fees!

Green living aside, check out some of the “awe-inspiring” sights Italy has to offer!

Leave it up to the good folks at ART Condos to come up with this smart purchasing incentive!  Not only is parking available for every suite purchaser…it’s also available with a SMART Car!  As mentioned in their latest blog post:

“Any purchaser who buys a unit at ART has the option of buying a car parking space for a fee of $3o,000. We are giving another option however. Instead of purchasing a space for $30,000, you can pay the same amount to get HALF a space, and a brand spanking new Smart Car.”

I like this idea for a few reasons…For starters, if you’re currently paying lease payments on your car, chances are you’ll qualify for less when applying for a mortgage.  Under this incentive, you can get rid of the clunker, qualify for more condo AND get a new car out of it!  Toronto isn’t getting any smaller so as traffic becomes even more busy, you can zoom around in this compact car while reducing you carbon footprint (compared to bigger cars). Most first time purchasers often debate between buying a new car or putting the amount towards the down payment of a place… with ART Condos latest incentive, you can do both!

ART Condos will be an excellent addition to the West Queen West area, and if you’d like to be apart of it send me an email or give me a call…I’d love to help!

In an effort to bring even more content on a consistent basis, I’m pleased to announce PHOTO FRIDAYYY!

I’ll be posting a new photo every Friday from my Savel And The City PhotoBlog.  With the photoblog I post a daily photo from my travels around the City.  It’s typically just a picture with very little description.  With Photo Friday I’ll be picking my favorite shot from the blog and describing the image further!

For my inaugural Photo Friday post I picked a picture that I took a few weeks back from the newly completed Maple Leaf Square!  Taken from 40+ stories above and looking down at Lanterra Developments latest project “ICE Condos”, the picture captures the condo during it’s earliest stages of development…hence it’s title “From Soil to ICE”

This southern part of the City is really starting to take shape! In anticipation of this, Longo’s grocery store is opening up a location at the base of Maple Leaf Square and across from ICE condos this fall!  Both condo’s are minutes from the Air Canada Centre and Union Station!

If you’re thinking of moving into this growing part of the Toronto Send me an email or give me a call…I’d love to help!