INSIDE: Weather records tumbled during brutally hot summer Pg. 3 September 7, 2010
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battle being waged 10 Crease 1985-
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LOCAL NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER & ENTERTAINMENT chilliwacktimes.com
How low will it go? Local housing market sees another dip in sales & prices BY PAUL J. HENDERSON phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com
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He has taken family practice residents (post-graduate medical students) under his wing since 1995 and, since 2005, he has been the program director for UBC’s Chilliwack-based undergraduate program, which sees six medical students spend their third year in Chilliwack each year.
ugust sales in the Chilliwack & District real estate market were at the same low level as July but the price of homes sold dropped considerably. With a low number of sales, dropping prices and an increase in listings, the buyers’ market has become even stronger in the local area. The 145 residential Multiple Listing Service sales worth $38.2 million in Chilliwack last month were down 29 per cent from the same month last year at 205 units worth $63.5 million. The sluggish month followed a July that saw 144 residential sales worth $44 million, which was down 43.5 per cent from the 255 sales worth $77 million in July 2009. Buyers may have purchased the same number of homes last month as in July, but there was a focus on more inexpensive ones as the average price of a residential property sold in August was $237,000. That’s down 22.5 per cent from the $306,000 average in July, and 23.5 per cent from the $310,000 average in August 2009. The average sale price for a single family detached home was $294,000 in August, down from $341,000 in July and $350,000 in August 2009. The median price of a single family detached home in Chilliwack was listed at $359,000 as of Aug. 1. The average sale price in the strata market in August was $199,000 ,down from $228,000 in July and
See MACKENZIE, Page 6
See MARKET, Page 7
Cornelia Naylor/TIMES
Accolades from students and patients helped Chilliwack doctor Mark MacKenzie garner the title of 2010 Community Family Physician of the Year.
This doc’s the ‘real thing’
BY CORNELIA NAYLOR cnaylor@chilliwacktimes.com
above the rest. “The main thing about Mark that sets him apart is he’s a real doctor,” said Tammy Wojcik, a second-year medical resident who worked with MacKenzie this year. “He can combine his experience and his knowledge and the compassion. It’s almost like an art form to watch. He’s not just a doctor who hands out prescriptions and doesn’t really
look at the patient. He’s really in there. He’s the real thing.” That kind of enthusiasm from undergraduate and post-graduate medical students who’ve worked with MacKenzie is what led to his nomination earlier this year. Besides 20 years of practising family medicine, MacKenzie has spent a good part of his professional life passing on his expertise.
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ocal doctor Mark MacKenzie is the B.C. College of Family Physicians’ 2010 Community Family Physician of the Year. And like so many award winners, he can’t resist a humble shout-out to his colleagues. “There’s a lot of people that do what I do in this town,” he said in a Times interview last week. To patients and medical learners alike, however, MacKenzie is a cut
Humble healer Mark MacKenzie honoured to be British Columbia’s family physician of the year
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