Here we GROW again! Please join us in welcoming Dustin Layzell to the 460 Family.

An Islander since he was 4 years old, and with strong family roots based in the real estate industry, it was easy for Dustin Layzell to choose his career path. With both parents selling and teaching for over 30 years, Dustin joined the ‘family business’ when he was 20 and has now been selling real estate for over 15 years.

Dustin quickly picked up speed early in his career, and was the 2nd youngest ever to receive the Re/Max Lifetime Achievement Award with VIREB. He’s also proud to have been named the #1 team in BC and #3 in Western Canada for 2017 with his previous brokerage. His professional, helpful approach and strong work ethic have created long-standing client relationships, resulting in a successful referral-based business for him. He is proud to be well connected within the community, and contributes annually to Children’s Miracle Network, KidSport as well as volunteering with coat drives, Secret Santa & Nanaimo Loaves & Fishes.

His love for real estate translates into helping first time buyers purchase, helping buyers find revenue generating properties as well as foreclosures. Whether this is your first home or 10th, Dustin feels it’s always important that you have all of the information up front and are provided with the facts to make an informed decision. When he’s not working, Dustin can be found spending time with his wife Jenna and their two children, Airlie & Jayce. They love hanging with friends, taking the kids to the park, boating in the summer, and quadding in the fall. He also likes to snowboard and trap shoot at the Nanaimo Fish & Game Club.

Welcome to the 460 team, Dustin! You can contact him HERE.

Here we GROW again! Please join us in welcoming Cody Dreger to the 460 Family.

Born & raised in the Harbour City, Cody Dreger has been involved in the real estate industry for the past 16+ years. He is proud to serve the Central Vancouver Island Region.

Cody has been involved in the community his whole life, and because of that it’s become his lifestyle. He has volunteered and worked alongside several community initiatives and organizations in Nanaimo, such as the Nanaimo Hospital Foundation, Garret Paquette Fund for Families, Tom Harris Foundation, and Nanaimo Loaves & Fishes to name a few. Cody received the REALTORS ® CARE Award from the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board in 2017, as well as was named a past winner in the Top 20 Under 40 in 2013.

Cody has been successful because of his work, knowledge of the marketplace and his sincere dedication to his clients. He specializes in new developments, as well as some industrial & commercial properties, but would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss your any of your real estate needs.

When he isn’t working, you’ll find him teeing off on a golf course, skiing or snowboarding down a mountain, or spending time with his 3 daughters + stepdaughter right here in Nanaimo.

Welcome to the 460 team, Cody! Get in touch with him HERE.

Welcome to the 460 family, Wayne!

After growing up in Prince George, Wayne moved to Nanaimo on a volleyball scholarship with Vancouver Island University. His love for the Island has grown over the past nine years, and he hasn’t looked back since.

Wayne knew he wanted to become a REALTOR® when he realized how much he loved working with people. His goal has always been to create an organic relationship with his clients built on trust, and in turn help them make a very important and difficult decision easily. Having previously worked for BC Wildfire Service, and studied Sport, Health and Physical Education and Recreation Management at VIU, Wayne has also spent over five years coaching volleyball in the community. These experiences have taught him that every person is different, and therefore need to be catered to in different ways. He is proud to say that when you choose him as a REALTOR®, he is working in your best interest.

He specializes in working with first time home buyers, because he wants to help people become educated with the home buying process. Wayne understands that buying a home might be the single biggest investment in someone’s life, and he wants to make that as stress-free as possible by thoroughly helping them every step of the way.

When he’s not working, you can find Wayne camping, hiking, snowboarding or playing beach volleyball. He also loves to spend quality time with friends & loved ones.

Get in touch with Wayne here: https://www.460realty.com/agent/wayne-woyciehouski/

Welcome to the 460 family, Armando!

A true Nanaimo-ite, Armando was born and raised right here in the Harbour City; graduating high school at NDSS and later purchasing his first home at the age of 22, he has been proud to call Nanaimo and Vancouver Island home.

Armando has always valued relationships and making connections with people. He loves how every day is something new and enjoys helping people find solutions for obstacles. With over 15+ years direct experience in sales & negotiations, having previously worked at Future Shop & Sleep Country Canada, Armando has been blessed with creating meaningful relationships with thousands of clients, and prides himself on being someone people can trust, and refer their friends & family to. He held the Elite Status at Future Shop (Top 10% of the entire company), as well as the Sleep Expert of the Year designation at Sleep Country Canada on Vancouver Island.

His love for real estate started when he purchased his first home, and he feels he’s a great fit for this industry based on having knowledge on a bit of everything and a keen interest in what’s going on with the market.  When he isn’t working, Armando enjoys spending time with his family & friends here in ‘paradise’ on Vancouver Island, including his wife Carly and dog Piper. You can also find him trying to play golf or watching the Pittsburgh Steelers play.

Get in touch with Armando here: https://www.460realty.com/agent/armando-conejos/

COVID CLICHÉS

Submitted by Robyn Hewer, 460 Realty

Due to poor timing, the Hewer Family found itself living out many of what have now become “COVID Cliches” over the last 7 months. We bought our Great Big Project Home last summer and moved in at the beginning of September 2019. We had big plans for the house and the yard, but I was also 7 months pregnant at the time that we moved so we knew a lot of our renovation and gardening plans would be on hold until at least the Spring.

Fast forward to March of 2020; our beautiful daughter had been born, we had spent Christmas enjoying our time with family, my husband started a new job and now we were ready to get going on some of our ideas!

First up – the chicken coop! We retrofitted an old lean-to attached to the shop and Jackson (Mr. Hewer) built the birds a run that was predator proof and had a viewing window so the kids could sit and watch the chickens do their thing. But alas, here we hit COVID CLICHÉ #1 – backyard chicken tending was trendy now that everyone was spending more time at home with their families, and no birds were to be found. It was a sellers market for chickens for sure, and I saw bidding wars on Facebook groups, people jacking up the prices, starting side hustles of selling chicks and fertilized eggs – oh boy! We finally were able to track some layers down and now are the proud owners of 17 hens.

Having worked out of town for most of our adult lives, and then living on a very busy road in Nanaimo when we first moved back home, we knew that one of the first priorities would be getting a family dog when we moved into our forever home. We looked at rescues across the province with the hopes of getting a socialized young adult dog who was good with chickens, feral cats and young kids…… Turns out that dog doesn’t exist and that is how we ended up with COVID CLICHÉ #2 – our pandemic puppy Kevin, who joined our family when he was 8 weeks old, at the end of April.

If you’ve been keeping count, you would now realize that I am at home with a four year old and a baby, a coop full of chickens, two feral cats, a new puppy. Oh and working from home! Weekly Zoom meetings to try to keep up with the real estate market and the industry changes, virtual showings for clients, and even re-marketing properties that were listed right before the pandemic hit. The weather was warming and I was ready to get started on my sanctuary – the vegetable garden. I pruned back the overgrown area where the previous owners had their garden, pleaded and begged family and friends to help us build a garden fence to keep critters (both ours and wild) out, and was ready to get planting. AHA! COVID CLICHÉ #3 – everyone else at home was also starting new vegetable gardens, or expanding theirs, even starting container gardens on the decks of their condos and townhomes. Stores were selling out of seeds, couldn’t get stock fast enough, or just weren’t open, and later in the season the canning sections of all stores were empty – no jars, no lids, no canners! Thankfully my parents and I had some seeds from the year before and lots of neighbours planted too much of this and that so I was able to get some starts from people and have a fairly successful garden, with some variety of vegetables from my usual plantings. (Does anyone need Leeks? I have a surplus!)

It was a wonderful Spring and Summer at our home, even if we did run in to some unexpected roadblocks caused by COVID. I am grateful that our family and friends are healthy and that I was fortunate enough to be able to stay home with my kids (and the rest of the funny farm) during those first few months of the unknown. We’ve embraced being stereotypical COVID homesteaders but hope that our efforts continue way beyond the pandemic and that we can soon safely invite others over to check out The Hewer Homestead!

Vancouver Island: Mixing Business with Pleasure

Submitted by Jordan Becker, 460 Realty

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough” – Mae West (1893-1980)

I used to have a tradition of committing to a new activity every January. I’d give it the year to see if I liked it enough to incorporate it into my life. I was in my early 20’s, living in Vancouver, I had just put that tiny, Saskatchewan farming town in my rearview and the world was my oyster. The options for adventure seemed endless.

As a flatlander, it was only natural that it started with hiking. There were plenty of local mountains to explore, and plenty of viewpoints from which to snap a grainy, almost unrecognizable, 1.3 megapixel photo.

As I started to meet more like-minded people, each subsequent January brought new activities; kayaking, then martial arts, then downhill mountain biking, then indoor rock climbing and so on. Some of these new hobbies evolved throughout the years; casual ocean kayaking (well, let’s be honest – floating in the ocean while sitting in a kayak and sipping a cider) turned into rolling lessons and weekend trips to Hope to brave the turbulent white waters in the Vedder and the Skagit. Downhill mountain biking brought back a familiar feeling of speed and balance, but the stretched out acres of farmland where I used to ride my dirtbike were now 2,000 kilometers away, so a street bike was the obvious choice. Some of the hobbies gave me just a taste of something new and exciting, and would have me searching for the whole pie. The half second of freefall found in rock climbing led me to a dropzone then called Pacific Skydivers, where I would do my first of many skydives from 12,000 feet.

I’m not sure how many January’s had come and gone, but at some point I looked back and realized that I hadn’t put a single activity back on the shelf. I had kept them all. Thinking about it now, it’s clear that it had become an obsession; I had subconsciously tasked myself with trying everything I could; everything that wasn’t available to me as a teenager in a prairie town of 1,400 people. I was gathering up experiences, and I had amassed quite a collection.

Fast forward a few years, one wedding and two pink lines. It was obvious to my little family that we didn’t want to stay in Vancouver, and while Vancouver Island offered some attractive qualities, I just couldn’t picture my life without the 6am motorcycle rides on the Sea To Sky highway, or my home dropzone where I learned to pack parachutes, or those spur of the moment – “I’ve got a free morning” hikes up Shannon Falls or The Lions.

It took coming over for a friend’s wedding for me to open my gaze and consider life on the Island. I was chatting with some fellow guests, many of whom had wisened up to this very idea years before me, and moved over from Vancouver. Every point that I had was met with a Van Isle solution. Predictably and eventually, I had to throw out my hail mary – “I just didn’t want to feel so detached, I wanted to be able to get over to the mainland on my own schedule”, which was then met with the truest remark of the evening – “Once you live on the Island for a minute, you won’t care about going back”.

That was in 2016 and it’s as true today as it was then. Everything that I thought used to tie me to Vancouver had far less to do with the actual city, and so much more to do with it’s West Coast placement. All of the activities that I picked up in my 20s, the ones that shaped and molded me, are still available to me here; the biggest difference is that I fight far less traffic on my way to enjoying them. Things are no doubt different now in the way that I split my time between business and pleasure, but finding adventure will always be a defining characteristic in my life, and adventure is something that Vancouver Island has in spades.

Learn more about Jordan in the links below, and don’t forget to follow him on social media!

Website: www.jordanbecker.ca 

Facebook Page – Jordan Becker Real Estate

Instagram Page – Jordan Becker

Immigration to Nanaimo: A Rising Trend 

Submitted by Gerry Thomasen, 460 Realty

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, Nanaimo was seeing a dramatic immigration trend.

From nearly every other jurisdiction – whether it’s the rest of Canada, other parts of the world, or even nearby Victoria – our little oceanside city is seen as having low real estate prices in proportion to our natural beauty and amenities.

The economy here has been strong, too. Jobs abound at the university and in the tech sector, in tourism, and in all the services for our growing retirement population. And as transportation options open up between Nanaimo and Vancouver, more professionals from the BC mainland are able to commute to their big-city jobs – one guy flying from Nanaimo described arriving to his meetings much quicker than those who drove from the Vancouver suburbs. There also seems to be a trend away from big city living as more jobs are moved online.

There was a time in 2019 where I was able to say that 9 of my 10 most recent transactions were with purchasers from outside of Nanaimo! As one corporate bigwig said to my colleague, “The world has discovered you”.

Enter Covid-19

In mid-March of this year, the pandemic was apparent and most predictions were that the real estate market would suffer badly. As of September 2020, nothing could be farther than the truth.

How could this be? People are making less money overall. Okay, some of the folks receiving the federal CERB benefit are making more, but they aren’t buying houses with it. So why the sudden rush to buy properties in Nanaimo?

One often-cited explanation is that investors are increasingly appreciative of the stability and growth in real estate values. Land is of tangible value, and homes are a place to shelter, or to make reliable income from rents.

Another suggestion is that other places have become less desirable. I have some friends who had been living in San Francisco until this June. They were already considering moving home to BC but their hands were forced by the pandemic and civil unrest in the States. (Now the Bay Area is on fire.) Unsurprisingly, they were able to find a beautiful home with incredible views of Departure Bay, for WAY under budget. You can bet they are talking to their friends abroad.

Will these trends continue? I don’t have a crystal ball, but the factors listed above will be relevant for some time, I think.

Learn more about Gerry on his website:

www.nanaimoinformation.com

Jenna began her real estate career as a 19 year old in Campbell River working in a partnership with her mother at Coast Realty Group. She found her stride in Fernie, BC ,where she quickly became a top agent serving amazing clients in a small mountain town that thrived on local industry and tourism. She then moved her family “home” to Campbell River and have laid down deep roots in this community. 

Jenna’s enthusiasm, infectious positivity and passion for people are what has carried her through all stages of her career. Her passion is people – through and through. She loves to inspire others in discovering their options, their power and in making good decisions. Jenna loves the real estate industry – the community, the endless opportunity, the countless hours spent with other humans needing guidance. Being licensed with 460 Realty was an easy choice and representing the company on the North Island is truly an honour. 

Please join us in welcoming Jenna to the 460 Family!