Calgary REALTORS® demonstrate the capacity to give

Whether Christian Twomey is hopping on a motorcycle for a four-day ride or building a home in El Salvador, chances are he's doing it for charity.

In his 17 years in real estate, the RE/MAX Landan agent has become known for his charitable endeavors. Now he's being recognized with his firm's Hall of Fame Award, after having received a Lifetime Achievement award two years ago and more recently, RE/MAX of Western Canada's Community Care Award.

Working from home is becoming the new normal for many Canadians

Working from home has become an increasingly common employment situation for many Canadians.

It's not only the self-employed who are running home offices. Many larger companies are relaxing their attitudes toward what's still quaintly called "telecommuting."

As usual, Alberta is way ahead of the curve, with 34 per cent of businesses in our province offering employees some degree of opportunity to work from home, according to a recent BMO survey. B.C. came in second at 26 per cent.

The advantages of working from home when possible are well documented, from increased productivity to reduced traffic on the roads. Maintaining a functional, modern home office isn't necessarily intuitive for everyone, but a bit of planning will help avoid some of the potential pitfalls.

The Rotary/Mattamy Greenway puts Calgary on the map as one of the most connected cities in the world for biking, walking and enjoying the outdoors

Calgary is world renowned for many things: the Calgary Stampede, mountain views and hosting the 1988 Winter Olympics to name a few. Now it can add the Rotary/Mattamy Greenway to that list.

The 138-kilometre pathway that follows the route of the city's ring road is a monumental achievement in green infrastructure, says Sheila Taylor, the executive director of Park Foundation Calgary, the driving force behind the $50-million undertaking.

"It is one of a kind in the world," she said, adding it connects with 1,000 kilometres of existing pathways in Calgary, linking virtually every community within the city. "The Greenway is the wheel and the other paths are the spokes."

Calgary's urban parks offer nearby residents a slice of the great outdoors in the heart of the city

At the beginning of July last year, John and Ildi Arlette took their first-ever walk through Confederation Park.

By the end of that month, they had bought a home in Mount Pleasant sitting near the crescent-shaped green space that stretches across 162 hectares – including eight hectares of wetlands – in northwest Calgary.

"We were on a date night and someone had told me about Confederation Park," said John Arlette. "Ildi is from Ontario and I realized I hadn't shown her much of Calgary – I hadn't even been to the park myself."

After that visit, the Arlettes sold their home in Signal Hill, becoming both inner-city – and park-side living – devotees.

The 2017 ROAR Awards recognize local REALTORS® in five categories

The real estate industry has a reason to celebrate. On May 27, top local REALTORS® gathered for CREB®'s annual ROAR Awards, an event that's unlike any other in the business.

The ROARs, which stand for Recognizing our Accomplished REALTORS® (ROAR) Awards, recognize those who demonstrate role model-calibre performance and unwavering professionalism in the real estate industry.

Recipients are honoured in five categories, including Commitment to Education, Community Impact, Marketing Excellence, Mentorship Distinction, and The People's Realtor.

Brian and Susan Vos "upsized" after their downsized lifestyle no longer met their needs

Empty nesters Brian and Susan Vos are at the forefront of a growing downsizing trend. It has taken them full circle from a single-family home to a condominium and then back to a single-family home.

Six years ago they took the traditional downsizing plunge, moving from a large, single-family home where they had raised their three children into an executive bungalow-style condominium.

Growing trees and shrubs in pots around your condo or townhome deck saves space, money and time

For Mike in Lethbridge, it started as a rescue operation.

He found dead-looking shrubs in the garbage behind stores and homes. He revived them, not as full-sized trees, but as miniature, windswept versions of their bigger selves.

His rescues became bonsai, and he built a delicate forest of trees in tiny pots.

Before I met Mike, I had never seen a crabapple or potentilla in a bonsai pot.

Why bother with bonsai? While a crabapple tree at 10 metres tall is a big tree, a 60-centimetre version in a bonsai pot is the perfect size for a patio. And the brilliant red crabapples, 1.5 centimetres across on a full-sized tree, are still the same size on a bonsai version of the same tree.

When you shrink your square footage, your furniture needs to follow suit

You've decided to sell your current home and move into a smaller house or perhaps a modest-sized condominium.

That means making some decisions, including how to downsize your furniture.

Liz Nandee, owner and head designer at Basic Black Designs, says as North Americans we tend to have a lot of possessions and "we like to keep everything."

But Nandee says some of your current furniture may just be too big for your new place, and you don't want to start downsizing after the mover has unloaded your possessions into a jammed-packed new home.

Downsizing baby boomers have different needs than previous generations

What's the difference between the baby boomer generation of empty nesters and retirees, and previous generations?

According to Calvin Buss, president of Buss Marketing and a boomer himself, today's empty nesters, if they retire at all, want to "do things" instead of retiring "to die."

And that new view of aging has also changed their approach to downsizing, says Buss, who has marketed and sold large condo projects in Calgary for almost three decades.

Allan Klassen wears a few different hats these days. He has his husband-and-father hat, of course. Then there's one as senior vice-president of housing for Brookfield Residential and another as chair of BILD Calgary.

The fourth hat he wears is as chair of the Gordie Howe Centre for Alzheimer's Research and Education Society (GH CARES). And like everything else he's involved in, Klassen brings a strong level of passion to this undertaking.

The highlight for this non-profit that provides assistance to the 45,000 Albertans who suffer from Alzheimer's or dementia is the pro-am hockey tournament held annually in Calgary in April.