Keeping it Real
Meet Jacquie McCarnan your host for Keeping it Real, the Vancouver and area residential real estate podcast that aims to demystify all things real estate in our crazy market.
Jacquie has been a licensed Realtor since 2016 and, in that time, has come across just about every scenario you can think of in our residential market. From hoarder homes to those for sale by owners to crazy strata situations and more, Jacquie provides real stories to help you navigate real estate in Vancouver and surrounding areas.
Each episode of Keeping it Real is short and to the point and provides you with great information about the topic discussed. Jacquie is always available to answer more in-depth questions and is happy to feature your own experience in future episodes.
Episodes also contain additional, non-real estate info about local businesses, experiences, and hidden gems around town that will make you sound like a local expert!
If you live in Vancouver or surrounding areas you know that the #1 thing people talk about is real estate (then the weather) if you want to sound knowledgeable and up to date on the real estate part listen weekly to hear topical issues that affect our market. We try to pick the most interesting and current issues to demystify each week and eagerly anticipate your input.
Join us every week for the very newest info on residential real estate in Vancouver and area.
Keeping it Real
Ep. 41 - How Taylor Swift is Teaching Us All to DO BETTER!
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Experience the magic of giving as we turn our focus from real estate to the enchanting final concerts of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour in Vancouver. Discover how Taylor's presence has sparked a festive wave throughout the city, bringing not only joy and excitement but also significant economic and charitable benefits. We dive into the psychology of generosity, supported by scientific insights and heartwarming personal stories, to reveal how the act of giving enriches both the giver and the recipient. Join us as we celebrate the community spirit that Taylor Swift has ignited, from her generous food bank donations to the bustling local economy that has thrived in response to her visit.
In the second part of this heartfelt journey, learn about the incredible work being done by local charities on the North Shore. Organizations like Backpack Buddies and the Vancouver Food Bank are making a profound impact, ensuring that no child goes without during the holiday season. Find out how North Van Cares was inspired by the Toronto Star Santa Claus Fund and hear about the exceptional efforts of the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau and Vancouver Firefighters Charities. As we wrap up our 2024 podcast journey, we also share exciting future plans involving the Canadian Women in Real Estate Foundation. We express our deepest gratitude for your support and look forward to potentially reconnecting in the new year with more inspiring stories.
Cautionary Tales - Get Happier by Helping Others
Hey everybody, welcome back to Keeping it Real, the Vancouver and area residential real estate podcast that aims to cut through all the nonsense. And on this episode of Keeping it Real, we aren't even going to talk about real estate. We are going to talk about something far more exciting that's happening in Vancouver this weekend. If you're living under a rock, you may not know that Taylor Swift is ending her heiress tour here in Vancouver tonight, december 6th, tomorrow night, the 7th, and Sunday night, the 8th. The 8th is the final concert of this two-year or, I think, 21-month tour.
Speaker 1:Well, I think the overwhelming majority of people understand the incredible benefit that Taylor Swift adds to cities she attends. There might be some people who are reluctant to admit that a spectacularly beautiful, amazing young woman and fantastic businesswoman is actually one of the most powerful people that we have seen in modern culture. But this episode of Keeping it Real isn't just about it's not really even about Taylor Swift's business acumen or her own wealth or any of those things. It's about giving and, as anybody who knows me knows, I have a nonprofit called North Van Cares and I've started another nonprofit called the Canadian Women in Real Estate Foundation. Just launched that last week, and I think that I'm selfish, because the whole thing about giving for me is how it makes me feel. I know that there are other benefits, that you know that it helps other people, and those are always my primary motivators. But in reality, giving makes us feel good about ourselves, and there's a whole lot of science behind this. I'm going to link to a bunch of the things I talk about in this podcast today in the show notes, but a couple of things just to prove that I know what I'm talking about. There's a podcast, or a well podcast, called the happiness lab, and it's run by Dr Lori Santos, who studied the science of happiness and has found that many of us do the exact opposite of what truly makes us happy. Now I am the beneficiary of parents who were absolutely philanthropic, and so for my entire life I've understood that the psychology behind giving is not necessarily about the receiver but more about the giver, and I think most of the people who have been involved with North Van Cares really understand that. But the scientific research does support the fact that we live longer when we share our resources, whether that's money or time or advice or whatever it is. If you are a giver, you're going to live longer.
Speaker 1:Obviously, talking about this stuff around Christmas is. You know, this is when most people many people, I don't know lots of people start to think about giving back, and I would suggest that we should be doing it all the time, and it's very difficult to remember to do that, and I've put in a couple of reminders throughout the life of this podcast about places that we can give back in our community. But let's start with some of the things that Taylor Swift is doing. So in every city that she performs in, taylor gives some very large endowments to the food bank. It seems that food insecurity is top of mind with regard to her and her team and where they like to place their money, which is awesome. We don't know yet exactly how much they're going to be giving to the Vancouver Food Bank, but we've seen in other cities that it's a significant amount that is going to do a whole lot of good.
Speaker 1:Even aside from the charitable giving, it's worth noting that the heiress tour is set to bring in about $157 million into the Vancouver economy. $97 million of that is direct spending, which includes accommodation, food beverages, retail transportation, and more than 70% of that will be spent by out-of-town visitors, which is crazy, right, 70% of the tickets sold were for out-of-town. That's an infusion into local business. It translates to about $27 million into local business. So that's significant. It's kind of almost Olympic style significant. In fact, you know, it's probably better than the Olympics, because there's no we're not taking a hit for it of BC Place and the BC Place Community Benefit Program gave away a ton of tickets. So they gave away suites and regular tickets to charities across British Columbia who were auctioning them off, and one of the suites this is crazy it went to, I think, bc Children's Hospital. I believe that's where it went. You know what Don't quote me, I'm trying to do the research, but anyway and the auction went, the suite was auctioned off and it went for a staggering $320,000. So that's $320,000 into a charity that is really helpful to BC residents. It's just fantastic If you're like me and you have some children, I mean, my children are adults now.
Speaker 1:They're 23 and 26, and they're both both women and they are incredibly excited about this. They are both going to the concert. It took a whole lot of finagling and a whole lot of strategy to make sure that they got tickets. They've both spent the last two weeks making friendship bracelets and bedazzling clothing so that they are able to really fully partake in the experience that is a Taylor Swift concert. I've heard some negative comments about some of the things that have gone up around town or that some of the roads are going to be closed in downtown, but honestly, if you just sit back and appreciate what a really cool experience this is going to be for so many people, I think that it's really fun to watch it all unfold and if you're walking around downtown, you can see all of the really cool things that have been set up for Swifties. Here in North Vancouver, the Capilano Suspension Bridge has a whole great, massive Taylor Swift display. It's just really neat how everybody's getting into it and it makes the city even more festive than it is at Christmas and more inclusive, and I'm really proud of us for putting out this amazing display to say to Taylor Swift and her fans that Vancouver is proud and honored to be the last stop on the 21-month heiress tour.
Speaker 1:Along the same theme, I was listening to the podcast Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford, which I listen to all the time, but this time he had the Happiness Lab people on and they were talking about the idea that donations made for specific places have more impact than for other places. So I've been looking around to try to find out what's going to have the most amount of impact for your donation dollars here in the Lower Mainland, and I've compiled a list and I'm going to give it to you in one of the points in the High Five Friday newsletter that you receive. You should have received this email or this podcast in the email. Anyway, I'm going to put it all together and if you guys are looking for places to donate your time and money this season, there are some wonderful opportunities to do so. But I really want to impress upon us all that it's not just at the holidays that we should be giving. We should be looking around for people who need our help all year long, and this is the time when many, many people spend money to help others, and it kind of you know they have a surplus and they can probably use that throughout the year, but I just think that we should always be kind of thinking about who might need some help. You're going to know again, if you're part of North Van Cares.
Speaker 1:You're going to know that we have our favorite charities here on the shore, including Backpack Buddies that provides food for kids on the weekends that have food insecurity. They're all over BC, bc now, which is amazing, north Shore Search and Rescue. I mean, obviously, if you live on the North Shore, you sure know who they are. We hear their helicopters all the time pulling people off the mountain that get lost. They're one of the biggest, I think, if not the biggest, search and rescue program in North America. They always need donations. Running that great big Talon helicopter is not cheap.
Speaker 1:We also support the North Shore Black Bear Society, which spends a lot of their time helping educate people on bear awareness and helping bears live with humans-ish. Well, not actually with humans. I mean, you don't want a bear in the house or anything, but you know what I mean Like they really help. We also have the Lookout Shelter, which is a shelter here on the North Shore for unhoused people, and they can always, always, always use your help, whether that is with clothing or donations, or even they even take food donations in some cases. And you can contact all of these charities through you can find them through the North Van Cares website or you can find them on their own websites and I will link them below. Obviously, the Vancouver Food Bank, which distributes food across the Lower Mainland, is a really great place to put your money this holiday season, of course, and always. They do wonderful work and they really help with food insecurity here, which is, you know, obviously incredibly. We live in an incredibly expensive place and I think that oftentimes people are trying to keep a roof over their heads and so they do without with regard to food, and I think that we need to always be cognizant of that so that we can help those people where we can.
Speaker 1:And this kind of brings me back around to the story of the origin of North Van Cares and why I started it in the first place. I started it in the first place, so if you've been to any of our events or you've read any of our stuff or you've seen any of my videos, you'll know that my mom was one of five kids of a single mother. My mother was the oldest and when she was a kid, her mom worked full time and they just didn't have any money. They she, my grandmother, grandma B she just worked her butt off. But they didn't have any extra money. They had enough for food and that was it. And so a couple of years, when my mom was a kid. They were beneficiaries of the Toronto Star Santa Claus Fund and it was started by this guy Atkinson, who this is a really cool story. I love this. Atkinson was the publisher and owner of the Toronto Star at the time, but he grew up in pretty much poverty in Toronto and he was at an outdoor skating rink one time watching kids skate and a woman gave him a pair of skates out of nowhere a stranger and that stuck with him his whole life. And so when he became a successful businessman, he started the Santa Claus Fund at the Toronto Star and my mom and her siblings were beneficiaries of that. They would wake up Christmas morning and there would be presents on the front step and they were the only presents they got in those years. And they were the only presents they got in those years.
Speaker 1:And so when it comes to giving at Christmas, I'm always thinking that gosh, I really want to make sure that kids whose parents are struggling, you know, get gifts, get presents. Sure, it's frivolous, it's not needed, but every kid deserves to have a childhood. Which brings me to the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau. So every year, the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau empowers families to celebrate Christmas and other winter holidays with their own selected gifts and food vouchers, so families in need can go to the Christmas Bureau and pick out gifts for their kids and food and create a really nice Christmas. I believe that people have to register for this. Um, uh, but that doesn't mean that you can't donate, so I will. I will make sure that, um, that I put the link in the show notes so that you know how you can donate to the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau and give kids a Christmas. Another awesome cause is the Vancouver Firefighters Charities. Last year, in 2023, they donated $164,000 worth of toys to local families at Christmas, and the fund is administered by the Vancouver Foundation. All of these things are going to be in the show notes, but you can donate to the Toys for Kids through the Vancouver Firefighters what are they called, sorry, vancouver Firefighters Charities and these guys distribute those and make sure that all the kids get a Christmas this year. Distribute those and make sure that all the kids get a Christmas this year.
Speaker 1:In past years, north Van Cares has done a couple of gift giving initiatives for people in the community. We didn't do one this year, but what I would really like to do with North Van Cares is encourage everybody to please go out and add some joy where you can and just really, you know, think about who really needs your help and how you can help them and teach your kids that it's not about what you get at Christmas, it's about what you give, and that has always been the mandate of North Van Cares, always been the mandate of my personal philosophy and I know most of you share that. This is going to be my last podcast of 2024. And I want to thank everybody so much for listening in all these weeks. This is the 41st episode. I set the goal to do an episode a week and I didn't quite make it, but you know I only missed about 10 weeks out of the entire year and I'm pretty proud of that.
Speaker 1:I have been delighted with the response that people have shown to the podcast.
Speaker 1:I have been delighted with the fact that people call me and ask me questions about real estate all the time. That's never going to change. You can call me whenever you want. I'm not quite sure what's going to happen for January 2025, 2025. Yeah, but I think it will be leaning more heavily toward the Canadian Women in Real Estate Foundation and the podcast. That's going to happen with that, but who knows, I'll probably pop up once in a while to do a keeping it real podcast and if you want to hear when, you let me know and I will figure it out Real podcast. And if you want to hear one, you let me know and I will figure it out. So thanks everybody for tuning in for 41 episodes. I've been absolutely blown away at the response and I appreciate you all and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and we might see you in the new year. You can get Keeping it Real, all the podcasts at wwwnorthvanhomesalescom slash podcasts or anywhere you get your podcasts, including spotify and apple podcasts.
