Heritage Valley is a neighbourhood in the southwest of Edmonton that was established in 2001 through Edmonton City Council's adoption of the Heritage Valley Servicing Concept Design Brief. The design brief included planning for 15 separate areas within the neighbourhood, as well as a transit centre.

The theme of is "Edmontonians of the Century" invoking a sense of the modern city-dweller.

Getting the keys to your new home is an exciting moment – but the work isn’t over yet. There are still some important next steps to take after purchasing your property which include:

1. Set Up Your New Address Everywhere: A lot of people and organizations will need your new address to keep in contact and make sure you receive important mail. Include your bank, car insurance, HR department at your job, driver’s license, tax agencies, any utilities from your previous residence, online shopping sites, subscriptions and clubs, and your personal networks. Don’t forget to set up mail forwarding to make sure you don’t miss anything during the transition period.

2. Insurance: If you followed step one, you’ve already updated the address for your car insurance policy – and this may impact your premiums which can be based on postal code, distance to your work place, and where you park the car, among other factors. You will also need to set up homeowner’s insurance to make sure your big purchase is protected.

3. Schedule Movers: Don’t move on the same day as your possession date, it can be a recipe for disaster. You don’t want to schedule anything that you need to pay for, like a moving service, only to find out that you don’t actually have the keys until hours after your movers showed up. Give yourself a grace period before hauling heavy furniture.

4. Legal documents: Make sure your lawyer reviews all final documents. Get a safe place to store all these documents – including copies of your mortgage, titles, deeds, insurance and will – like a fireproof box.

5. Getting To Know Your New Home: Make sure you know where all the important things are before it’s need such as the main water shut-off valve, the circuit box, the gas shut-off valve, and the security system.

The term “house hacking” was first coined by Brandon Turner, a real estate investor and writer, but the concept has been around much longer than that.

Essentially, house hacking is a strategy where you rent out extra space in your primary residence to offset the expenses of homeownership. That means you purchase a property, live in a part of it and then rent out the rest – that way, your roommates or tenants are paying your mortgage at the same time you are reducing your living expenses and building equity.

Some people do this by purchasing a multi-unit property like a duplex, and living in one unit while renting out the rest. This gives you the advantage of being on hand as a landlord while also offsetting some of your costs. But it can be hard to make the number work to your advantage in higher-price markets, where the rent you charge may not be enough to cover the mortgage.

Other people choose to share communal spaces and rent out rooms; often, it’s possible to charge more rent over all by renting out individual rooms than the entire house.

The “hacking” part of this strategy comes from leveraging that equity and the living expenses that are being saved to purchase a second property and repeat, eventually resulting in owning multiple rental properties.

If you are considering this strategy, there are a few things to keep in mind. Zoning rules and safety guidelines may impact how many non-related residents can live in one property. Look closely at the neighbourhood you plan to purchase your property in and if it is close to amenities, public transit or schools, which can help increase the rent you charge. Do the math and see if the equity you are building justifies the cost. And finally, make sure you will be okay with the trade-off of privacy versus return.

Hillview is a residential neighbourhood in the Woodvale area of Mill Woods area of south Edmonton. It was mostly developed during the 1970s and early 1980s – that’s when just under 90% of the homes were built. Hillview is bounded on the west by 66 Street, on the east by 50 Street, on the south by 34 Avenue, and on the north by 38 Avenue.

It’s a popular area for families, with more than half the households containing more than two people and a third of households having four or more people. There are two schools, as well as a community hospital in Hillview. Other amenities include daycares, shopping, a recreation centre and walking paths.

Accent walls have been making a come-back recently and, suddenly, it seems like everyone is posting about their new, popping décor. An accent wall is a wall, usually on the interior but can also be on the exterior, that has a different color, shade, design or material from the other walls around it.

It can be a great way to totally change the look of a room with relatively little effort and it offers great flexibility. The first thing to think about when considering an accent wall is whether you want the painted wall to be the main visual element in the room or if you prefer to draw the eye to something else like artwork, furniture or a view. Accent walls tend to work best in rooms with neutral furnishings.

When choosing which wall to paint, make sure to take into account where the eye is naturally drawn to in the room and account for symmetry of the overall look at the end.

There are a few ways to go about choosing a look for your accent wall. You can be subtle and choose something monochromatic that blends with the rest of the walls. You can be bold and pick a colour that really “pops”: turquoise, navy, and deep greens have been popular lately. And don’t limit yourself to solid colours. You can also play with textures, stripes, other shapes and patterns, or specialty paint finishes like metallic.

Whatever you choose, your room is sure to look unique with an accent wall!

The wildfires burning across parts of Western Canada this summer are horrendous for countless reasons: the loss of property, impact on the environment, and stress on those forced to evacuate.

But there is also one other impact that is often missed – the impact on home insurance. This holds true for other natural disasters, not just wildfires. It could be floods, landslides, snowstorms, hail storms, tornadoes, and other such acts of nature.

Most home insurance policies do cover damage from forest fires or wildfires (although some may include a clause about whether the fire originated on your property). That means most of the victims in the devastating wildfires in Lytton, B.C. should be compensated as long as they had insurance.

But there are a few considerations. If you live in a wildfire zone, your premiums are likely to be higher due to the higher risk. That’s true for anyone living in an area with known natural risks and is just one of many considerations insurance companies make when assessing a new customer.

The problem arises when you try to purchase a new home insurance policy in an active wildfire zone. By the time an area is put under evacuation notice, it is too late. When a region is already on fire, the risk of property damage or loss becomes an almost certainty that no company wants to take on. Some insurance companies won’t finalize a policy if there are active fires within a certain distance – one company, for example, doesn’t offer wildfire protection if there is a fire within a 50-kilometer radius. In British Columbia this summer, that excluded many homeowners.

There is a well-known story of a woman in Okanagan, B.C. who was trying to set up condo insurance, but was delayed for weeks due to ongoing wildfires. An hour after the woman signed her new policy, another fire started. If she had delayed at all before signing, she would not have been able to get insurance.

The lesson here is to make sure you have the right policy in place protecting your home as soon as you can – delaying can cost you.