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We’re very excited to announce Candy Ashdown joining the David Smith Homes Group as a Licensed Realtor and our Licensed Client Experience Specialist. Candy’s been on the team for a couple of weeks already and has been a huge asset to our clients already. She truly understands our ‘People Over Property, Always.’ philosophy. To learn more about Candy please visit the ‘Meet Candy Ashdown’ page on the website and enjoy the below quick interview: 

– What do you like most about working in real estate?

Candy: I most of all love all of the wonderful clients I’ve met and had the privilege to work with over the years. Many who I’ve remained in contact with and have become great friends. It’s an absolute honour to me when my clients choose to work with me and I truly feel so fortunate to do the work that I do. I love being a Realtor®.

– What’s been your funniest experience so far with a client or other agent? 

Candy: One of the funniest experiences I had was when I had an open house for a tenanted property I had listed. The tenant decided to stay home, which was his right, however he had a nap on the couch and was snoring very loudly during the open house!

– When you think about joining the team, what most excites you?

Candy: I’ve been a solo agent for all of my career until now. What excites me most about being on a team is the collaboration between team members to bring all of our different experience and strengths together collectively, which will in turn better serve our clients. I love being on a team and supporting each other to push ourselves to be even better agents. We have someone to lean on during the hard days and someone to celebrate with on the good days. I also love that I always have a backup agent to count on if an emergency or illness ever happened, so I will never let down my clients.

– Where are clients most likely to see you out-and-about in the community?

Candy: If I’m not working, I am either attending a community event either in my role as Board of Education Trustee or just as a resident, or…  my clients will find me at one of my favourite gardening stores. I love gardening – both flowers and veggies!

– What’s something unusual about yourself people are often surprised to find out? 

Candy: Honouring my Ukrainian roots, I was a Ukrainian dancer for over 20 years as child and young adult. I also taught as a Ukrainian dance instructor for several years!

WELCOME CANDY! 

We’re genuinely always grateful for your reviews, they’re something we celebrate around the office and at times I’ll even share them with Amanda as they’re that meaningful to me personally. This one definitely stretched us with two sales and a very specific purchase but we were able to ‘thread the needle’ together, making the most of a neighbourhood market that had an underpriced property gather all the attention, allowing us an opportunity to scoop another home for a steal of a deal! 

We had a very positive and successful experience working with David and the team. We had the daunting task of selling two properties and buying another one with very specific requirements. David and the team listened to our needs and advised us with the many steps along the way. They were excellent communicators, answering our questions and working on our behalf to get a deal done in a timely manner. They were very knowledgeable, considerate, personable and hardworking and we thoroughly enjoyed working with them to buy our family home. Thank you! – Rachel & Scott W

It was our pleasure to work with this family and love that they’re now our neighbours in Walnut Grove. If you’d like to hear about how we can help you with your move, never hesitate to reach out. 

One of my goals for the business heading into 2023 was to embrace my unique self again, and one of the expressions of that was to press into my history with and passion for ‘soccer’ (or ‘football’ everywhere else). With a new Canadian Premier League team launching at the Langley Events Centre, Vancouver Football Club, I decided to buy some season tickets to support the team with family, friends, and clients. 

I was originally introduced to the team through the owner, Rob Friend, as part of a supporter cohort many, many years ago. There was even a stage where we were working on purchasing some land for the stadium, but the Township of Langley stepped up in that regard. Making the decision to follow the team has been really great to rekindle that passion for the game and connect with many in the community through it. All of my children now play at various levels with Langley United Soccer Association, who do a great job managing dozens of teams. Watching my kids fall in love with the game, benefit from the exercise, and revel in the friendships has been one of my greatest joys this year. We’re thankful for the teams at both organizations. 

We’re actively looking to participate further with Vancouver Football Club and also Langley United Soccer association as a company moving forward. If you’d like to learn more about how you can get connected please don’t hesitate to reach out! If you’d like to learn more about season tickets for the 2024 season make sure to click here.

Well, this episode is the one I have to admit to being most nervous about. We certainly hit the title theme of ‘Spilling The Tea’ as I shared a couple of embarrassing stories (granted from many, many years ago now) about when things went sideways on me in a home. Have a laugh at my expense in Episode 12 of ‘Sipping The Tea’, a real estate podcast with two of Royal LePage Wolstencroft’s agents, Kristy Masaro & Shelagh Machek.

We’re genuinely always grateful for your reviews, they’re something we celebrate around the office and at times I’ll even share them with Amanda as they’re that meaningful to me personally. One interesting theme in our reviews over the years has been how kind other professionals in the industry have been, from real estate lawyers who have become clients; to employees at our third party service providers; and even to mortgage brokers who work with hundreds of Realtors each year. The below is another of those reviews, from David Ford of Sparo Mortgage.

“I was able to work with David Smith and his team together for a great couple buying their first home in Abbotsford. They were on top of everything start to finish, every detail prepping these buyers for what to expect for their first time, all documents and adjustments during contract writing, everything was hand held to the notary appointment. Clients were very well taken care of, and very happy. I am excited to work with David Smith & team again. They are pro!” – David Ford

It’s always meaningful to be recognized by another professional for what we try to deliver for our clients week in and week out. If you’d like to hear about how we can help you with your move, never hesitate to reach out.

With many of you as past clients you’ll be aware that one of the services we offer to help our clients have flexibility on their move is being willing to secure media and measurements in advance of even writing an offer on our purchase-side. That means that when the right property hits the market we’re able to move on it, knowing that if we are successful in getting an offer accepted we can hit the market asap.

One such home we recently did this for is in my own neighbourhood in Walnut Grove. I’ve always loved how green it is so we wanted to get a drone in the air, unfortunately we had some smoke on the day of the shoot, which was fine for the on-ground media but in the air it didn’t look right. We worked with the media team to schedule another shoot at which time they were able to capture some beautiful images, like the one above.

As always, we’ll go above and beyond to put our clients in the best position possible, even spending thousands of dollars in advance to ensure that whenever the time is right we’re able to act without delay. That’s just another expression of ‘People Over Property, Always.’