The Kootenay Real Estate Board recently released their statistical analysis of real estate sales and listing activity for 2008. This includes our trading area of East Kootenay which comprises the communities of Invermere, Windermere, Fairmont Hot Springs, Radium Hot Springs, Panorama, Toby Benches, Wilmer, Canal Flats, Columbia Lake, Edgewater, Brisco, Spur Valley, Spillimachean and the rest of the Columbia Valley. These stats confirm my gut feel that we have now been in a slow down in our marketplace for about a year and a half now. Our particular trading area is the only one in the East Kootenays that showed prices decreasing over this period of time. While this is somewhat worrisome for real estate owners I do feel very optimistic that the price decreases we have seen will put this area in good stead in the future as prices become more affordable than other areas. For astute buyers this is the time to be picking up some real assets at excellent values.