Happy holidays, and best wishes to you and your family!

This year has brought great things into my life.  I was able to close a new personal record of sales for my clients.  Which has also allowed me to focus more time and energy on building

my business.  I decided to take some time and finish schooling for my carpentry apprenticeship, which I started way back in 2007!  I am now a ticketed carpenter, which will help me tremendously with real estate, and construction.  Ultimately, helping to serve you better! This year, I was able to help many individuals, couples and families achieve their goals, which allowed me to achieve many of the goals that I set for myself at the start of this year!
 Taking some time to enjoy the wonderful world and myself we live in, I went on a few short trips, as far as Ontario and for a week to Jamaica!  Down in Jamaica, we were able to enjoy a friend of mine getting married.  My brother, Greg, and his girlfriend, Jennifer, were on the trip with Ashley and I. There were 55 guests for the wedding, all staying at the same resort for the week.  We had an excellent time!
 My girlfriend Ashley, and I moved into a cozy little home in the Lower Mission area of 

Our backyard!

Kelowna, where we grew a beautiful, all organic vegetable garden.  Our first harvest out of this garden was tremendous.  The soil made for excellent growing conditions.  Some of the tomatoes grew taller than me, and we almost had too many to handle.  Everything from the beets, to the zucchini, and butternut squash turned out big and tasty. We are still eating from it!
 The Kelowna housing market continues to be strong.  Sellers are benefiting from slight price appreciation around the valley.  As well, the buyers are taking advantage of the historically low interest rates.  Investors are also taking advantage of the extremely low vacancy rates, with residential vacancy rates below 1%.  This is causing rents 

Jager and some zucchinis from our garden!

to slowly increase.  New home construction is also seeing an increase in activity, which means for an all round good real estate market to be in right now!
 Clearly, I don’t get enough opportunity to say “thank you!” even know I am thankful everyday.  Yet at this special time of year, I want to express my deepest appreciation for placing your confidence in me, and supporting my business with your friendship and referrals.
 Looking forward to many new exciting endeavors this upcoming year.  I will be challenging myself to improve my skills in real estate marketing and contract negotiations.  As well, I will be trying to find as many people as possible to serve and help with everything real estate!
 I always enjoy hearing from family, friends and clients, whether it’s simply to catch up, or if you have a real estate question or “need”.  As always, if you, a friend, or family members are thinking of selling, buying, or renovating a home, I would be happy to help!
 Wishing you very happy holidays. May the joy of the holidays extend to you and those close to you, now and throughout the coming year! I’m looking forward to hearing from you!
 Your Personal Real Estate Agent,

 Derek Weatherhead
 PS, You can call me at 250 864 3325, or email me at derekweatherhead@me.com

Top Reasons to Buy Real Estate Over the Holidays

11 Reasons To be Buying Real Estate over the Holidays!

SOLD!! 1822 Cardinal Creek Road.
Contact me today for more great homes.

1. There is little or no chance of multiple or competing offers for the buyer.
2. Buyers can expect better service from all service providers like the agents, banks, insurers etc. Most are not as busy this time of year.
3. Sellers are very motivated at this time of year if they're still trying to sell from summer or fall.
4. Sellers are willing to negotiate, especially if they've been on the market for some time now. Give and take.
5. Buyers can shop the expired listings market, which has the largest selection this time of the year.  Many home owners try and sell during the summer, and take they're home off the market in the winter.  When contacted, most of these sellers are still very interested in selling.  Which can turn out to be a great deal for the buyer.
6. Good time of year to make an offer and do the due diligence, buyers can move at their own pace, and have the flexibility to create a smooth closing.
7. Easier for sellers to find alternative housing, there is not as much pressure finding a rental vs. trying in  the really busy spring and summer season.
8. Perfect time for buyers to make contingent “Subject to the Sale” offers, and get them accepted and movement on the price.  This way coming into the new year, you can be in a great position.
9. Easier time for a buyer to move and find help and services like movers, cleaners, storage.  Most service providers are slower during December, which gives them the opportunity to give better quality service.
10. Better timing for buyers on completions with lawyers, banks land registry. Not that busy and they have time to attend to you now.
11. December generally has less competition for the same property from other buyers on the deals that pop up this time of year. Some people really need to sell, and this means you really need to buy!

If you're thinking of buying a home now, or in the future, or have questions regarding our real estate market, give me a call @ 250-864-3325 or send me and email to derekweatherhead@me.com!

12 Reasons to List your Home During The Holidays!

5508 Lakeshore Road, Kelowna BC - MLS #10092535

1. People who look for homes during the holidays are serious buyers!
2. Serious buyers have fewer houses to choose from during the holidays and less competition means more money for you!
3. Since the supply of listings will dramatically increase in January, there will be less demand for your particular home! Less demand means less money for you!
4. Houses show better when decorated nicely for the holidays!
5. Snow makes your hard look beautiful and fresh with little yard work during the holidays!
6. Buyers are more emotional during the holidays, so they are more likely to pay your price!
7. Buyers have more time to look during the holidays than they do during a working week.
8. Some people need to buy before the end of the year for tax reasons!
9. January is traditionally the month for employees to begin new jobs.  Since transferees cannot wait until spring to buy, you must be on the market to capture those buyers!
10. You can still be on the market, but you have the option to restrict showings during the six or seven days during the holidays!
11. You can sell now for more money, and we will provide for a delayed closing or extended occupancy until early next year!
12. Buy selling now, you may have the opportunity to be a non-contingent buyer during the spring, when many more houses come on the market for less money! This will allow you to sell high and buy low!

If you're thinking of selling your home now, or in the future, or have questions regarding our real estate market, give me a call @ 250-864-3325 or send me and email to derekweatherhead@me.com!

World Without Worries

Hello there, and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by my blog.  I know you time is the most valuable of all of your resources, so I'll make sure to bring you content you receive value from.  This way I don't waste your time, and you will want to come check back in the future :).

This here is a speech I presented at our January 15th Peachland Toastmasters Meeting in which I am VP of Education at.  Toastmasters is a club in which each week we meet to develop public speaking skills, self confidence, personal and leadership growth, and learn how to properly plan, orchestrate and evaluate formal meetings.  I'll be sure to tell you more about our club in future posts.  Feel free to contact me if Toastmasters is something you would benefit from.  I know first hand it has changed my life in positive ways I could have never imagined.

World Without Worries

Don’t worry about the future.  Or worry, but know that worrying is about as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.  The real troubles in life are the things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you, at 4 pm, on some idle Tuesday. 

According to Wikipedia, worry is thoughts; images and emotions of a negative nature in which mental attempts are made to avoid anticipated potential threats.  As an emotion it is experienced as anxiety or concern about a real or imagined issue, usually personal issues such as health, or finances, or broader ones such as environmental pollution and social or technological change.

Interesting. 

For me worry is a linier pattern that my thoughts follow.  After speaking with many family members, and friends, and after reading books and articles on the subject I have found that many people go through the same thought process without even noticing it.

We gather our thoughts and experiences from the past and use them in the present to project what we think the future is going to look like.   We try to predict our future before it happens.  Why? Well because we want to be sure to avoid any problems or possibilities of failing or getting hurt.

Is this a good process to follow?

I think it helps us as long as we look at all the possibilities.  We have to look at the positive as-well as the negative.

Can this be distracting or even detrimental?

Yes it can.  I know so, first hand.

Being a real estate agent I have made a lot of telephone calls.  Cold calls, as they are called in sales.  And I know that 9 out of 10 time I call a prospect about listing their home for sale they are going to be uninterested, grumpy, or outright rude when I call.  But if I never made a call, I would never make a sale, and if I never made a sale, I wouldn’t have food on my table to eat.

To be dramatic, I know first hand that 10 out of 10 times, a human being is born, at some point that human being will parish.  Therefore, me being alive right now I know the worst thing that can happen is I can pass on. 

To be light, I know I have rode my snowboard down hundreds if not thousands of runs, and I rode 8 runs on Friday.  Out of all those runs I have passed thousands if not millions of trees.  If I were to focus on the one time I tried to pass a tree and hit my face on it hard enough to give me a shiny black eye, I could possibly never want to go snowboarding again.

Focus on the positive. 

I know worry affects almost everyone almost everyday.  We worry about ourselves our family and friends.  We worry about our health and our finances.  We worry about environmental pollution and social and technological change.  We worry about repeating the past.

I have a great quote for you:  History does not repeat itself; people repeat history.

Another great quote to banish worry: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift.

I have three effective ways in which I have adopted to help me solve my worry problems.

The first is a magically formula for solving worry.

1.     I first ask myself what is the worst that can happen? 

2.     Next I begin to prepare mentally to accept that fate.  Once I came to grip with the ultimate worse fate is death I found it a lot easier to accept other easier fates like getting rejected on the telephone when trying to make real estate sales, or hitting my face off of a tree while snowboarding.

3.     Then I go ahead and begin to focus and improve on the worse possible fate.  If it is death I begin to focus on the fact I am still alive and that I most likely have a long life ahead of me.  If it is getting rejected on the telephone I try and get a yes or a follow up appointment.  Something that might lead to a sale.  If it is hitting my head on a tree snowboarding I focus on how wonderful the snow is and getting down the run safely.

A second technique I use to solve worry problems is simple again.  I heard this quote a long time ago and have used it ever since:  I kept six honest serving men, they taught me all I knew, there names are What and Why and When and How, and Where and Who. 

If you catch yourself playing the tapes again, and you are stuck on repeat, worrying about some possible situation that could be your fate, use this technique to analyze your worry.

What and I worrying about? What can I do about it?

Why am I worrying? Why do I feel the need to worry?

When will this situation take place? When will it be over?

How will it come about? How can I improve on the worse?

Where will it take place? Where can I improve?

Who will it involve? Who will need to take initiative?

The third and final technique I use to solve worry problems is to simply work away my worry.

I have noticed that it is impossible to worry while you are distracted and immersed in your work.  Can you think of a giant elephant and what you want to do tomorrow morning at the same time?

If you are worrying about something in the future, make a list of things you can do in the mean time and start working on them.  If there is a choice you have to make next Tuesday, don’t even try to make a informed decision until next Tuesday.  Until then go ahead and work on gathering all the information and working on everything you can in the mean time.  This way you will be so distracted and busy working you will have no time to worry.

Focus on the now. 

Living in the now is the easiest way I know how to get rid of worry.  If you are constantly focused on what you can do now, you can live in world without worry.

The Probable Future

This week, I would like to share a powerful message from Dr. Don Osborne. How many times in your life have you experienced an undesired outcome. If you are like me, probably more than you care to admit. Dr. Osborne's message gives us some practical advice on how to avoid those undesired outcomes and experience a probable future.

Have you ever played chess? The winner is usually the player that can plot the most moves in advance. The great Russian grand master and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov was once asked how many moves he calculated in advance. He replied that three to five moves ahead was pretty normal but, depending on the situation on the chess board, he could think up to twelve or fourteen moves ahead.

Remember that each move was dependent on the moves that his opponent might make. Therefore, he could think of twelve or more moves that he would make based on the numerous choices of moves that his opponent would likely make. If his opponent considered three different moves each time he had a turn, then Mr. Kasparov was planning his next move based on each of his opponent’s choices. He was, therefore, actually thinking about the possibility of perhaps fifty moves. You have the ability to think ahead, too. Do you usually think ahead far enough? In sales and in every other area of your life, thinking ahead is essential for success.

While working as a counselor with troubled kids in Michigan I was approached by a boy about fourteen years old who defiantly announced that he was going to run away. He came to me and volunteered that information. He said that he had not told anyone else, and his announcement to me seemed like a challenge. “Let’s see you talk me out of this one,” he seemed to be saying. I knew from years of experience and training that if I tried to talk him out of his decision, he would just become more resolved to run away.

Instead I simply asked him to tell me about his decision. He was in a foster home, the most recent of a long list of placements by the state because his parents were incarcerated for drug dealing. The boy, I’ll call him John, acknowledged that the couple he was living with were nice people and were kind and even affectionate toward him, but they wouldn’t let him run the streets, smoke or do as he pleased.
John was used to an unstructured, undisciplined life and chafed against even reasonable rules. So, he said, he had a cousin about his same age that lived in Texas and John had investigated the cost of a bus ticket from Michigan to the town in Texas. He seemed quite proud that he had thought out such a bold plan. He had acquired the bus ticket money somehow. After school, instead of going home, he was going to go to the bus station, buy a ticket and ride the bus to the town in Texas where his cousin lived. I congratulated John on thinking things through and he smiled smugly.
I then asked him, “What will happen then, John?”
He looked a bit stunned, thought for a moment and said, “I’ll call my aunt and uncle and they’ll come and get me at the bus station.”
“Okay, John” I said, “What will happen then?”
Puzzling for a while, he then replied, “They’ll take me home but they’ll probably be really ticked off, ‘cause they won’t know I’m coming.”
“So what do you think will happen next, John?” I asked.
“They’ll call the authorities back up here,” he said.
“So, then what?”
“The Michigan juvenile authorities will come and get me and bring me back up here.”
“What do you think will happen after that, John?”
“They’ll put me back in the same foster home I’m in now.”
“Then what?”
“They’ll all be really ticked off at me.”
Then John said, “This isn’t going to work, is it?”
I said, “John, I think you’re right.”

For perhaps the first time in his life, the 14 year old boy with the deck stacked against him thought something all the way through. He arrived at his own conclusion, and rightly decided that running away was not going to work. Two lessons are important here. I didn’t tell John that he was being stupid or that his plan was faulty and therefore didn’t give him more to rebel against. He thought it through without criticism, so it was his own ultimate decision. Secondly, without being judged, he simply was encouraged to think of what would likely happen next, and then what would happen after that.

Fervently do I wish that I had someone asking me that simple question, “What will likely happen next?” at many points in my own life. In sales, in your personal life, in your organization’s strategic plan, is anyone asking, “OK, what’s probably going to happen?” and then, “What will happen after that?”

If you roll a ball on a level floor, it will follow a straight path. Before it reaches the other side of the room, you can see where it is headed. If you don’t want the ball to continue in that direction, you can tap it and send it veering off in a different direction. Your life is like that. It is amazing how accurately you can predict what is going to happen when you see patterns. It is also amazing that more people don’t recognize them as they are happening.

Perhaps they don’t always see the big picture. Repeated patterns become the future. The book The Probable Future: You Can Predict it & You Can Change it describes eight patterns that determine how you function as an individual, in your family, in groups to which you belong, and in your work. By recognizing and understanding the patterns, it becomes possible for you to predict the probable future.
You can then make choices and decisions based on what will probably happen, and what will likely happen after that. If you apply the principles embedded in the patterns, you can not only change your own path, but also influence those around you. You can help clients and potential customers look at what will probably happen if they continue on a path without making changes. You can alter the probable future from what it is going to be to what you want it to be.

If you are interested in "what's probably going to happen next"? in real estate, give me a call!

Have a great weekend, unless you choose otherwise!

Simple Principles

• Succeed at home first
• Seek divine merit and help
• Never compromise with honesty
• Remember the people involved
• Hear both sides before judging
• Obtain counsel of others
• Defend those who are absent
• Be sincere yet decisive
• Develop one new proficiency per year
• Plan tomorrows work today
• Hustle while you wait
• Maintain a positive attitude
• Keep a sense of humour
• Be orderly in person, and in work
• Do not fear mistakes; fear the absence of creative and corrective responses to those mistakes
• Facilitate the success of subordinates
• Listen Twice as much as you speak
• Concentrate all abilities on the task at hand, not worrying about the next job or promotion

If you could own 10% of anyone you know for life.

Today I'm going to write on something that has helped me tremendously over the last year.  I can't take credit for it, as I first heard the idea while listening to a talk that Warren Buffett gave to a leading university.  Although because I don't remember it word for word, I have modified it to my own liking, and I hope you like it too.


Mr Buffett asked the class, to ask themselves if you could own 10 percent of anyone of your classmates who would it be?  I'm asking you this, if you could own 10 percent of anyone you know, who would you pick and why? Now your probably going to pick someone who's got it all, good looks, good health, good fortune, and good family.  Now that you have a person in mind, you have probably picked them not because you like them the most out of anyone in your life but you may like their traits.  Things about them that stand out.  If you were to write down on a piece of paper all of those good traits, what are those traits that this person possesses?  Do they get up earlier? Study or work harder? Have a outgoing personality that can get along with just about anyone?  What is it about that person that you would want to own?


Now flip it.  Opposite question.  If you could get rid of, or dispose of 10 percent of any person you know what would that 10 percent be and why?  Now this may be someone who is a little low on the intelligence scale, or someone who has an addiction problem.  Someone who doesn't care about their personal hygiene.  Write down all of those traits that you dislike about that person and why.  If you do this exercise it brings to light the pros and cons of human personality reality.  Try it out.


At the end of the day, you don't need to own 10 percent of anyone else.  You own 100% of yourself.  All the qualities that you wrote down about the person you would like to own are learned qualities.  No one is born with all of those qualities you desire.  They are conditioned and raised to have these traits or qualities.  You learned to walk, to talk, and live interdependent amongst society.  You learned to read, as you are reading this blog post.  To listen and to love.  The list goes on and on.  If you learned all of these things, you can learn and re-wire yourself to have the same qualities of the person you would potentially want to own 10 percent of.  You can learn yourself to be that person, or better.  Inversely, you can change any qualities or stop any habits of yourself that you don't like.  Through consistent and persistent discipline you can dispose of the negatives that are slowing you down.  


If you were to write down 4 habits a year, that you dislike. EG. Eating out, binge drinking, watching to much TV, over spending.  Then consciously substituted them for 4 habits which would improve your life, EG. Healthy eating, exercise, reading, and volunteering what do you think your life would look like in 10 years.  4 habits a year, for 10 years.  You would have disposed of 40 habits which drag you down, and picked up 40 habits that improve and move your life forward in a positive direction.  A world of a difference.  You can either live with the pain of disciple and reap the rewards, or you can live with the pain of regret and face the consequences.  Now many people ask me the question WHY?, and my simple response is, and I'm asking you this now, WHY NOT?


Until next time, have a great life! Unless you choose otherwise.


If you have any questions or comments about my writing please contact me.


Oh by the way, if you, a friend or a family member is thinking about buying or selling real estate, give me a call and I will be more then happy to help!