As most of you know, the Georgie Awards Call for Entries is out, and there are a number of notable changes this year. If you're bringing the Call for Entries along on your boat trip or beach party over the August long weekend, you'll come across these...but for the rest of you (what, you're not planning on adding it to your summer reading? The good folks at the CHBA-BC will be dismayed!), here's what you need to know:
Across the board, there's a new section you need to be sure to cover in your writing: Construction details/techniques to achieve industry best practices. Many of you have been covering this information en passant because it often gets you points in other categories, but now you really need to make sure it's there because the judges will likely issue you points if it's there, and deduct points if it's not.
You now get 12 images rather than 10 in most of the custom home categories. We'll be opening a bottle of champagne in CHBA-BC's honour sometime this weekend for doing that, since we've been wishing for that change for ages. Why, you ask? While a lot of houses can be covered just fine in 10 images with a bit of care and close attention, we've photographed a number of (particularly >$3 million) houses where trying to show the salient parts of a 10,000 square foot build in 10 images is an exercise in frustration and more than a few heated emails. Another two will help in these cases.
Going down the category list: the breakpoints for Categories 1, 2, and 3 are now under and over 2,300 square feet. Last year, the breakpoints were under and over 2,000 square feet. If your project is a production home between 2,000 and 2,300 square feet, make sure you enter the right category.
Similarly, the Custom Home values have ratcheted up, and there is no longer an "under $750,000" category; the lowest category is $500K-899,999--and if through some magic you managed to squeeze a custom home build together for under $500K, seems you're now out of luck. (Somewhere out there, a lane home builder might be crying in their holiday beer).
New categories for Townhouse Development. There are now separate categories for Production and Infill, although at least according to our reading, n-plexes and fee simple row homes are supposed to go into the Single Family Detached categories. If you're confused, we recommend contacting the CHBA-BC folks to straighten things out--we've done it more than a few times.
Best Condo Renovation has been broken into two categories at $250,000. Given the numbers of very cool condo renovations we see, this should level the playing field a bit.
Best Single Family Kitchen - New is now one category, where it's been two in the past. We actually wonder if this is likely to stay this way; we've photographed a fair number of successful entries for these categories, and there have been times where the judges have split the category on the fly based on budget due to how competitive this category can be.
The breakpoint for Best Kitchen Renovation is now under/over $125,000. Enough to make a difference based on whether you got your client to spring for a Bertazzoni gas stove, which is what we wish we were cooking on this holiday weekend...when we're not outdoors BBQing, at least!
If you attended our webinar, you'll be glad to know that everything we said holds (although fitting in that extra bit about construction details makes a 300 word entry even more difficult!). If you missed the webinar, you can still watch it.
And on that note, have a lovely long weekend. Come Monday, there are just 2 months and a couple of days left before the entry deadline--yes, we're counting, and yes, we can still get your entry photographed, written, and submitted!