This month has been busy...not just with real estate but also with our youngest son graduating and moving into another completely different level of freedom, responsibility and decision making.

I recall someone once telling me that wisdom does not come alone... it is accompanied by old age! It is great to have discussions with young adults as they ponder the many career opportunities and business opportunities the world offers. Life is so simple at a young age, a lot of black and white and many youngsters have not seen how the world was painted with a backwash of grey, forcing us to look deep for some answers sometimes.

We had one of those discussions this week about being prepared to have children. My answer was that there will never be a perfect time to have children. It is a decision that sometimes you need to make despite the facts. You might have heard that a perfectionist never gets anything started and having children is very much the same as is buying your first house. That uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach sometimes does not leave you too easily, but over time, you realise that the responsibility of bringing a child into this world is very rewarding and what may appear to be a burden of buying your first home will turn into a joy for most people who handle the responsibility carefully, with maturity.

It must be confusing to be a young adult at the moment, peering into a world that apparently is very foggy. How do they make decisions? What is the career path they should take? Not all of the answers are practical or based on fact, otherwise we would all be driving smart cars or riding mountain bikes to work, yet we don't.

Many decisions are made with an element of several key influences and real estate is no different. It may not seem to be the best time factually, for sure we will have more unemployment in BC, more people will fall into financial hardship, but that is not all because of external influences. We are where we are at in life because of the decisions we have made... period. We have no one to blame but ourselves for the situation we are in, good, bad or indifferent. Most people are now coming to that realisation and figuring (as we said many months ago) that the world is still rotating.

HAVE PRICES ROLLED BACKWARDS?

Not as much as you may be being told. In fact recently, a chart produced by the local real estate board showed that most median prices had rolled back to a 2007 level. That can't be... all the talk in the real estate forums is of us having reached 30% discounts already and more to come. Well if truth were told, we are seeing lower valued properties purchased that are lowering the median value. Recently a condo in the Verve sold for $140,000. Sounds cheap? It was good value, because you do not have much selection at that level, yet, it represents a sale value of $428 per square foot...on par with the last few years and more! What are we to believe? Have values gone down or is there a different motivation in the market at the moment?

We are certainly seeing plenty of activity in the sub $400,000 area and I am hearing every week of buyers who were too patient and missed their opportunity to buy that just right home, however, we will be here for a little while longer as some of the excess inventory is absorbed.

Here is the good news. Calgary and Edmonton and Vancouver are all returning to a more balanced real estate market with absorption rates higher, listings lower and buyers and sellers agreeing on values. As we see more and more people deciding to make retirement decisions and choose the Okanagan as the location we will once again see similar patterns here.

One large influence in the market I believe will be the 60-something-year-old oil and gas exec/entrepreneur who having lived through a very challenging couple of years, may well make the decision that it is time for the young bucks to see the company through the next few years and opt for early retirement and a higher quality of life.

Coupled with this trend will be the interest from foreign markets as they look at the strength of Canada's banks, stability of the real estate markets and the careful management of an economy that has fared well domestically.

We still have the opportunity to see a bright year for 2009 and that is where I will hedge my bets.