Re: Meg Munn chunters on...


A couple of points of data clarification...

Mark Sobolewski (mark_sobolewski@xxxxxxxxx) writes:
> In article <IP4_e.267069$Hk.93128@pd7tw1no>,
> "Heidi Graw" <heidigraw@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> >"Mark Sobolewski" <mark_sobolewski@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> >news:mark_sobolewski-CE47A4.20015626092005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> > In article <HbYZe.553321$5V4.423198@pd7tw3no>,
>> > "Heidi Graw" <heidigraw@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>> (snip)
>>
>> >Mark wrote:
>> > You're actually pretty nice if that's any consolation.
>>
>> <chuckle> Mark, I'm not discussing these things with you in order to find
>> consolation! It's o.k. if you want to believe I'm a really nasty bitch. I
>> can take it. ;-)
>
> If you want to be a nasty bitch, you can go there too.
> I love this cute Playboy cartoon where a dour woman is
> screaming at her husband: "You think it's easy being
> a bitch?!?!"
>
>> >You haven't
>> > said anything about my wife which is unusual here. :-)
>>
>> I don't know much about your wife. There's nothing for me to say about her.
>
> That wasn't a request. :-)
>
> I was joking that usually by the time a discussion reaches
> the endgame stage, people go for what they think is my jugular
> and for most women on the opposite end of the aisle here, that
> means my wife. It's seemingly medieval.
>
> I noticed in the other post you did say something about her.
> That's fine. I'm quite proud of her and don't mind the
> opportunities people give for me to brag about her
> many wonderful traits.
>
>> Given she's an import, I'm sure she's a very nice person.
>
> What does that mean? :-)
>
>> For all I know,
>> she could have married you 'cause she felt sorry for you. She might have
>> believed you needed all the help you could get. You did say she has a lot
>> to offer! I'm sure she'll direct and manage your life in whatever manner
>> she sees fit...and you'll be none the wiser.
>
> I wish I could live in blissful ignorance! She's not the silent
> type. :-)
>
>> If she's as smart as I think
>> she is, she'll let you believe you're the "man about the house." One thing
>> that European women love to do is to let their men live out their own
>> delusions. She'll get so much enjoyment out of it. She won't leave you,
>> 'cause you're just wayyyy too funny! ;-)
>> (snip)
>>
>> >Mark wrote:
>> > I pushed some of the money into my company's stock market plan
>> > and I'm now looking to also invest in a mutual fund
>> > that also has had a very high consistent return. There
>> > are other investment opportunities available besides
>> > high priced real estate.
>>
>> Sure, but you can't live and raise a family inside your stocks and bonds!
>
> I can raise my family in a rental, if needed, for a lot
> less at this time than buying!

Indeed. Housing is housing, so whats the big deal ?

>> >>Heidi wrote:
>> >> And if you wait until that real estate market drops by 30%,
>> >> I'm pointing out to you that the likelihood of that happening is
>> >> exceedingly
>> >> small.
>>
>> > Mark wrote:
>> > I'll settle for 25%. :-)
>>
>> Aha....our discussion is having a small effect. You're compromising your
>> position. You're easing up a wee bit. Up it to a 15% drop....that one
>> sounds more realistic and is something that you *could* wait for. It's
>> something that *could* happen.
>
> I would even shoot for 15%. I am saying that I am hoping,
> and certainly will not be surprised, if the market does drop
> that much based upon the underlying fundamental value of the
> commodity.
>
> Generally, I wouldn't invest in something that had shown
> such a hyper-active growth for so long if only because it's
> clear that the market rise has been unnatural.
>
> 15% is a pretty big number for the condos we're looking at:
> 25 grand or so in cost. But I still think that's chicken feed
> from the market indicators I've seen.
>
>> > I'm just curious: You claim to know the market's future.
>> > Could you email me your stock market picks or lottery
>> > numbers on a weekly basis? If you're correct, I'll
>> > get some for the next week. :-)
>>
>> You seem awfully confident about those stocks. Remember after 9/11 when all
>> manner of mutual funds and investment plans dropped by 30%? They're just
>> recovering now and we're beginning to see a gain.
>
> Certain stocks, absolutely. But such portfolios are based
> upon a diverse set of stocks (and not just at a dartboard)
> so the results weren't too jarred by 911.
>
>> This has got to be a huge
>> relief to those who lost oodles just after that particular disaster. Some
>> bailed, some hung on. Those who hung on are getting back on track until the
>> next slump. I'm not sure how many who bailed got back in and/or managed to
>> surpass those who hung on. And then there's Enron, Worldcom, Bre-X, etc....
>>
>> I'm supposed to feel sorry for people who put all their eggs into one
>> basket. There were retirees who invested $800,000 into Enron and lost every
>> penny! Now they have to make do with their CPP pension income...which is
>> not much higher than getting a welfare cheque. Fortunately, even these ones
>> who lost all their stock investments still have their homes...houses that
>> they can sell if they need to.
>
> Absolutely. I would argue that putting all money into a few key
> high rise stocks, especially startups, is sheer stupidity.
>
>> Diversify! ;-) Invest a little into everything...all kinds of things:
>> real estate, stocks and bonds, mutual funds, whatever...put a little even
>> under your mattress! ;-)
>
> I never said otherwise. Of course, I wouldn't "diversify" into any
> fund that has been over-priced and hyper-inflationary for some
> period of time. This includes stocks.
>
>> You know what's really fun to do? Tuck hundred dollar bills into the pages
>> of various books in your home library and then forget about them. Don't
>> take note of which books you tucked this money. Put on a blindfold if
>> necessary. Imagine the lovely surprise when at some point in the future you
>> pick up a book to read and a $100.00 bill falls into your lap. "Hey, honey!
>> Let's go out for dinner!" ;-)
>>
>> (snip)
>
> ?!?!?
>
>> >>Heidi wrote:
>> >> It's only if there were to be a mass exodus that people may sell at way
>> >> lower prices.
>>
>> > Mark wrote:
>> > Versus a mass exodus to drive prices higher... You can
>> > see it going in one direction, but not the other?
>>
>> Where I can see this happening is if a multiplex is torn down displacing 4
>> families, and the new owner building a mansion for one family. It is also
>> possible for someone to buy up a cheap housing complex that houses 500 poor
>> people, then tearing it down to rebuild to accommodate 100 wealthy people.
>> 500 poor people in this case would be displaced. This particular exodus of
>> people does not result in a slump in real estate values. It does, however,
>> get rid of the poor and huddled masses to make room for the fewer, but
>> wealthy elite minority. The displacement of the numerous poor in favor of
>> the few rich does happen. Explain to me how this will result in a 25% slump
>> in real estate values?
>
> Amazing. You believe I said all of the above? That's what I
> wrote? Could you please show me where I wrote all that so I can
> explain it to you? :-)
>
> What I did say, and I provided a URL, was that many more units
> are being built than occupied as they are purchased by outright
> speculators, second homes for people, or young people who
> might ordinarily live with their parents (hint: You know
> a few in your home :-). This allows an "exodus" to occur
> whereby owners of today are not living on the street.
>
> I've already written this before at least once. Maybe twice.
> If I've missed out anything you can go back to it. Do
> a keyword search in the thread under "second home"
>
>> > Mark wrote:
>> > You say that you hated paying your landlord's mortgage.
>> > Do you think people love paying higher and higher real estate
>> > prices and going into debt for 30 years?
>>
>> I would have loved a free house! However, nobody was about to give me one.
>
> Absolutely. Paying the landlord isn't pleasant, but being
> a homeowner isn't necessarily the walk through the park you
> make it out to be either. YOU didn't own that house, the bank
> did for most of the time.
>
>> And I certainly didn't want to wait until someone would! I was realistic
>> enough to realize that I'd have to buy a house and be in debt for awhile. I
>> also found that over a short period of time it was easier to increase
>> payments thus reducing the life of the mortgage...from 30 to 15 years
>> instead, thereby saving a significant amount of interest. Some people
>> compress the mortgage from 30 years to merely 10 years. It all depends how
>> quickly one wants to build up equity and how irked one feels about paying
>> interest. I hated paying interest, too! So, I paid as little as possible
>> as quickly as possible given the means that I had to do so.
>
> One thing I'll confess that turned me off of home ownership was
> that I dated a woman who was very similar to you. EVERYTHING
> revolved around the friggin' house and this included a lot of
> unnecessary work that was supposed to increase the "resale value"
> (even as she clearly would rather die than sell it.)
>
> I took a walk from the relationship and she lost the house
> and everything else about a year later.
>
> Another thing I noticed about a lot of American women was
> their obsession with fancy cars. It's rather cute compared
> to European women who could care less most of the time
> (and people there weigh a lot less.) Sometimes, when
> I lived in the city, I wouldn't have a car and just
> walked or rode the subway (or even, gasp!, the bus) to
> work and found it refreshing to catch up on reading.
> Many people though would rather sit in traffic for about
> the same time or more, in automobiles that they paid
> $500 bucks a month on payments, just so they could
> feel important.

Yeah, who needs that ? I'm happy to live in a city where such
rush hour jams are, at most, minor, and where I can easily find
alternative routes.

> There are a few possessions I'm very sensitive about: I love
> to keep anything I own in as good a shape as possible
> before I let it go but if I have to let it go, I shrug
> and that's it. I view these things as just that: things.
> They don't mean anything.

Well... don't come between me and my books... <g>

> I still buy stuff but I buy them after weighing the financial
> advantages of doing so in cold, hard terms.
>
>> > Mark wrote:
>> > There's a glut of vacancies on the market for renters.
>>
>> That's not the case where I live.
>
> Ok. It doesn't apply to my market. Done.
>
> That said, maybe you don't know that the market in my area
> may not necessarily be ideal for buying at this time?
> Why not wait out the market for 2 years, say, if even
> a small 15% adjustment occurs? For a condo I'm looking
> into, that's a cool 25 grand. Sitting on my rental/"lease"
> means I lose about $125 that could have gone into equity
> or $6 grand. it's a gamble but a good one.
>
>> We have a shortage of rental suites, too.
>> And the little that is available as rental suites, for the price you may as
>> well get into a mortgage. If you have to pay $1,200 for rent, why not pay
>> $1,200 for a mortgage. Instead of renting a suite, buy one. And this is
>> what people are doing here where I live. If lucky, you could find a
>> basement suite to rent for about $750.00. That's like finding a needle in a
>> haystack. For every one renter, we've got dozens applying.

Mark, Misandrist Graw is in British Columbia, by her descriptions, in the
zone around Vancouver. Due to factors that are not dissimilar with southern
California, the housing market there is likely the tightest in all of
Canada, and due to the Vancouver-Victoria zone having the mildest climate
in Canada, its quite popular to monied, older folks. More on this later.

> This was certainly the case in the Bay Area of California.
> Lots of high income jobs were created but basically, people's
> money either would go into rent OR into busting their ass
> to pay a mortgage. In the meantime, it became a concentration
> camp and hated by IT professionals who viewed it as a
> wasteland where people worked to pay their mortgage and
> pretty much only that.
>
> I get calls from recruiters all the time where they tell me
> about a great job that opened up and I ask them where it
> is (just for fun) and they say, with trepidation:
> "The Bay area" knowing that they're most likely going to
> get a "click".
>
> I think that skyrocketing real estate and rental costs
> drove professionals and work out of the area leaving
> a lot of people who've done what someone like you would
> do: Hold onto the property, at all costs, and wait for
> the market to come back. That's what they've been doing now
> since the dot.com crash and it's created a nightmare market
> where realtors can't satisfy buyers who want reasonable,
> affordable prices and can't satisfy sellers who don't want
> to take a hit and are basically working themselves to death
> to make their payments.
>
> Bleah. Doesn't that sound like a living hell?

Damn straight.

>> An example checking my local and most current listings: I'm in a town of
>> 32,000 people. 2 suites have been listed for rent, one townhouse, but no
>> single detached house for rent. Those are slim pickings!
>
> We live in different markets. 'nuff said.
>
> I honestly might look at your situation and simply declare
> that maybe I wouldn't want to relocate there to begin with
> if real estate is taking off creating an unlivable situation
> I just described.
>
> Once again, I look at the figures in a way that suggests
> sustainability.
>
>> > Oh, wait, before we move on, here's a list of myths I've crushed
>> > that you have failed to address at all:
>> >
>> > 1) That buying a home would avoid me paying my landlord's mortgage.
>>
>> Explain to me how by paying rent you are *not* adding to your landlord's
>> equity.
>
> Define equity? You mean equity as in paying down the mortgage?
> I'm paying enough maybe for his interest payments. That's not
> equity.
>
> Of course, in theory, I am creating equity if the value of the
> property continues to rise at hyper-inflationary rates and
> she can then do a reverse/second-mortgage, yes?
>
> But once again, the notion that the money is being
> "wasted" on rent is not as accurate as you claim.
> Only about 150 bucks or so is "wasted".
>
>> > 2) That buying a home would "save" me a grand being wasted per month.
>>
>> You're paying your landlord, aren't you?
>
> How much of your interest payments did you get back?
>
> Listen Heidi, I think you're weaseling. I'm willing to concede
> that I'm blowing 150 bucks per month _and_ that I'm giving
> up the opportunity to cash in if the market continues to
> grow without any correction. You're free to play
> this little "I can't hear you" game, but we both know better.
>
>> > 3) That buying a home gets me a huge tax break.
>>
>> That's not *my* argument. As a Canadian, I don't get that tax-break.
>
> You made it. OK? Care for me to look it up?
>
> Just give the devil (me) his due and move on!
>
>> > But this tosses out the 4th myth you've presented:
>> >
>> > 4) Home ownership is a fantastic investment.
>>
>> I didn't say "fantastic".
>
> Fair enough.
>
>> It can be fantastic depending on whatever you
>> choose to do with that investment during those 30 years. My investment
>> began with a little bungalow at the end of an airport runway. That
>> investment grew into a sprawling rancher on acreage. My initial investment
>> grew by TEN TIMES the amount within 25 years. I consider that result
>> FANTASTIC! ;-)
>
> Absolutely. Of course, it sounds like you really bought in
> at the bottom of the market. Were buyers as hysterical
> back then as they have been for the past few years?
> Do you HONESTLY think this kind of growth would have been
> sustained after you bought the property if it had just increased
> by 10 times before you took at look at it?

Its also a matter of knowing that a market has peaked.

When my mom, then two years widowed, sold her house, she made about
7.5 times what it cost her and my dad, 17 years earlier. And, as they
bought it for cash, then, it was untainted by interest.

But, given downturns in that market, in the years that followed, I do
know that the buyer who bought it from my mom, when she moved, and sold
it, did realise a loss.

> Maybe you would have bought it anyway. But the fact is we're
> looking at two very different situations. Quite frankly,
> if I were you, (I doubt you'll take my advice anymore than
> I will take yours :-) but if I were you I'd:
>
> SELL SELL SELL
>
> You can still BUY that precious HOME somewhere else but where
> the market has more potential for growth.
>
> Let's talk about your goal of eventually giving your sons
> their own places. If you wait for the market (and
> possibly the economy of your area) to take a hit, then
> you won't be able to sell at the price you expect. You'll
> still probably have paper profits, but you may not be
> able to move the property that 10X you have now. You
> might get, say 8X. Are you cool with that? (I'm not
> being sarcastic or baiting, I'm just curious.)
>
>> That is not to say that other people would achieve the same result. Some
>> might achieve more, some less. It all depends on what decisions they make
>> during the time they're actually in the real estate market and what they do
>> once they own the property.
>>
>> >I saw articles about
>> > a woman who was complaining that she couldn't get her husband
>> > to pay his "child" support and she lost the house. Of course,
>> > she could have sold it but she would rather lose the house
>> > and just scream for C.S. rather than move into a rental.
>>
>> When she claimed she "lost the house" that could mean she had to sell it and
>> ended up having to buy a smaller house, or buy an apartment, or get into a
>> rental. It doesn't necessarily mean the bank repossessed it.
>
> The latter. The bank came for it even after giving her _2_ years
> to get a payment plan together.
>
> Stupid, lazy broad.

Yep.

>> However, if
>> she racked up a sufficient amount of other debts while trying to keep up
>> with the mortgage payments, it could well be that even if she sold the
>> house, she could have ended up with nothing.
>>
>> I find the above story really quite tragic. If all that was needed were the
>> few dollars for child support in order for the children to keep their home,
>> but father refused to pay, who's the villain? Father effectively robbed his
>> children of their inheritance by refusing to support his kids!
>
> HAHAHAHAHAHA!
>
> Yeah, I'm SURE that this woman was really concerned about
> her CHILDREN'S inheritance. On the contrary, I imagine if
> someone offered her a way to sell her children into slavery
> in order to keep the precious house she wouldn't have looked
> at the fine print.
>
> Hint: When she was married, he paid the bills for her to
> have a nice house. When she got divorced, he wasn't necessarily
> going to be... motivated to pay the bills anymore.

<understatement alert? Indeed.

What part of the marriage is OVER, do broads like this not get ? If she
wanted the house, for her alone ( As far as the adults went ), then what
part of that house was ONLY HERS to pay for didn't the twat get ?

Divorce does NOT mean, " I want to be apart from you forever, but I still
LOVE YOUR WALLET ! ".

>> I don't care
>> if he was upset 'cause mother might have refused access to the kids. If he
>> responded out of spite to get back at her, look at what the consequences
>> were: The *children* lost out on an inheritance. The *children* lost their
>> home. Mommy may have been the meanie, but Daddy responded in kind. The
>> *children* suffered the consequences!
>
> Give mommy what she wants lest the *children* suffer the consequences.

" Don't nobody move, or this *** gets it ! " Blazing Saddles.

> Gee, MEN are just so bad.
>
>> >>Heidi wrote:
>> >> A landlord, however, can evict you with only 2-month notice. She need
>> >> not even give you a reason.
>> >
>> > [violin playing]
>> >
>> > You sound like you love homes as much as I love my kitty kat,
>> > er, I mean wife. :-)
>> >
>> > In answer to your point, if she tries to do so, I can always
>> > find a dozen places within a mile's drive.
>>
>> I'll pass that message along to the tenants of an apartment complex in
>> Richmond, BC. The landlord decided he wanted to rennovate those three
>> apartment complexes on his site. These buildings are just over 30 or so
>> years old. The mortgage he took out has been paid off. He's sitting on
>> millions and millions of dollars worth of equity. He's remortgaging so he
>> can convert the suites into better, safer and more modern apartments. He's
>> inviting his tenants (hundreds of them) to come back after the reno job is
>> complete. The current rent of $850.00 will go up to $1,300 per month. His
>> tenants can't afford that $450.00 hike in rent.
>
> Different market then.

Cery different from pretty much any other part of Canada...

>> And in all of Richmond there is no other affordable place for these
>> particular tenants to move to. The rental market is extremely tight.
>> Nothing as little as $850.00 is available, especially for hundreds of these
>> tenants. They have no choice but to move out of town...wayyyyy out of town
>> and hope they can find something affordable to rent. They won't be able to
>> find anything in my town either!
>
> And this is healthy for the economy there, how?
>
> At least here in the DC metro area, people do have a choice:
> Buy into the real estate madness or wait it out in cheap rentals.
>
> Here's the problem with this real-estate buying friendly scenario:
> It drives up the cost of doing business in your area ultimately
> driving away businesses that don't need to be locally based.
> Even tourism is impacted in the long run as the costs of
> local services such as restaurants, grocery stores, etc. go up.
>
>> The tenants are apealing to government to step in to prevent this landlord
>> from renovating the premises that he owns. They will try very hard to stop
>> him from having his own way with his own property. It remains to be seen if
>> the government will side with the poor folks. It may turn out that the
>> landlord will not be able to upgrade and modernize the buildings. He may be
>> forced into allowing the buildings to rot and deteriorate instead. If
>> sufficient deterioration occurs, then municipal hall can declare the
>> buildings "condemned." The poor folks would be forced out anyway. And what
>> would the landlord care? He's got millions of bucks he can sit on for
>> awhile. He'll tear down those buildings and build something new. If not
>> beginning in two months when the tenants are to be out, then a few years
>> down the road. He can wait if need be.
>
> HAHAHHAHAHAH!
>
> SURE! The guy can wait. If he doesn't mind giving up that 5 year
> loss of real estate gains he could have cashed in beforehand.
> Didn't we just talk about me sitting on my nest egg waiting
> to buy a home? In this case, the guy is sitting waiting to sell.
> Different attitudes, different risks.
>
> His mistake ultimately may have been to get a little too
> greedy and blow off people's leases. Biggie mistake. If
> he did the conversion gradually, and just let the leases
> expire as he moved in short term (and perhaps even higher
> paying short term tenants), he wouldn't have these problems.
>
> Idiot.
>
>> If there is a lack of rental housing, we can see why that might be. The
>> landlord business simply may not be worth the hassles. If tenants are
>> allowed to dictate the terms, why be a landlord? Perhaps this is why condos
>> are so popular...better sell suites than be that landlord. Let the owners
>> of the suites form their co-op committees to operate and maintain the
>> building themselves.
>
> Actually, I'm thinking the building's owner would have been smarter
> to take the equity and just BUILD a whole new set of condos elsewhere.
>
> The problem your area may be facing, and this amazes me, is
> that maybe there's a shortage of land to develop? I mean,
> Canada is a pretty friggin' big place. 25 million folks
> on a landmass similar to the size of the states?

31 million, and yes, in overall land mass, we're the second largest national
land mass on Earth. But, most of us live within about 250 KM of the Canada-
US border, as, in the East, thats where the old waterway routes were, and in
the West, thats where the railroad went through, in the most fertile areas of
the West.

So, from a real estate POV, its not all that ginormous. But, in most parts
of Canada, the market is more like you describe, and it isn't as Graw's
area is. Due to fairly small arable/livable land space in the BC coastal
interior, theres not that much land to be urban/suburban on. Don't forget,
while the US Continental Divide passes through Colorado, at mid US, by the
time that mass gets to Canada, its at the BC-Alberta border, and the
mountains are higher, more rugged, and sit far closer to the Pacific coast
then they do in most of the US midwest/west.

Seattle's the closest equivalent to Vancouver, in the US, and the diference
is that, on the overall US West Coast, Seattle's fairly small, compared to
the LA basin and the SF Bay area. Plus, the Vancouver urban/suburban land
mass is far smaller than those two areas'.

> Your situation sounds special just as mine is and it doesn't
> sound good for the future economic prospects of the area.

Indeed.

> Instead of a factory spewing out fumes that ultimatly
> shuts down and drives people out, maybe instead you have
> a real estate boom. Ultimately, it may work out to
> have similar effects.
>
>> > As I've said, twice, I get $300 a month I can have in Janus that
>> > would be worth about as much as I would have if I invested
>> > it in real estate.
>>
>> What you fail to recognize is that you could be making a $1,000 mortgage
>> payment rather a rental fee. That rental fee does nothing for you. That
>> mortgage payment, however, *does.*
>
> Yeah, I get 750 in interest fees! Whoo hoo! :-)
>
> You keep sweeping that rental fee under the rug like a dead
> late term baby, er, "fetus".

<laughs> Indeed.

>> > I looked it up: Property tax rates in Fairfax are 1% PER YEAR.
>>
>> That's $2,000 annually for a property worth $200,000.
>
> No, really? I better get up a calculator for that.
> What's 200,000 divided by 100?
>
> (Want to hear something funny? I have a relative whose
> an accountant and she can't do this kind of math in her
> head. It generates laughter around the room.)
>
>> > That means over the term of a 30 year mortgage, that comes
>> > out to 30% of the cost of the home AND they adjust that up
>> > as the price rises during a boom.
>>
>> Yes...go on...
>>
>> >
>> > This means that someone who buys a home they can barely
>> > afford but want to make a killing over time see their
>> > monthly costs rise, rather than fall, as they pay
>> > off their principle. THEN, if the price falls, they
>> > get to cut down their property taxes but possibly see any
>> > equity they had raised blown away too. Bleah!
>>
>> Do you foresee 30 years down the road that that $200,000 property with home
>> would only be worth $150,000? Is this what typically happens in Fairfax?
>> Do you even know what homes were sold for in Fairfax 30 years ago?
>
> 30 years ago, there probably wasn't a similar buying rush that
> there is today, that's my point. Different conditions, different
> buying situations.
>
> That said, if I lived in your area, I might consider buying
> a home even with the crazy market if the total cost per
> month did add up to much less because of a shortage
> of rental units. Happy? But then again, I probably
> wouldn't accept a job there in the first place under
> those conditions.

Indeed. As high priced as the Toronto market is, and I have plenty of
friends there, some renting, some paying mortgages, I would never want
to buy around Vancouver. The market is too nuts, and the boom has to
fall/correct itself. At least around the Greater Toronto Area ( GTA as
it's known up here ), there still room to expand in three directions.

While here in Ottawa, the housing selling prices are high, but nowhere
near Toronto or Vancouver prices. So, I have a rental, a 3 bedroom, 3 floor,
with finished basement den, townhouse, and the rent is about $950 Cdn a
month. The rental price hasn't gone up in two years, and the year before
that, it went up like $20. I had a first year special price of $750/Mo,
knowing that month 13 would be $850, and that month 13 was 6.3 years ago.
To go up in rent $100 in six years, ain't bad. I dare say that not a few
mortgages up here jumped at least that much in that time span. ( We don't
have, IIRC, longer mortgages than 5-10 years around here. Refinancing at
renewal, but with lower than US fee structures involved. )

>> > This area is great for our immediate needs but we have some
>> > other neighborhoods we've been looking at that we find
>> > desirable. That's the cool thing about begin renters you
>> > don't seem to realize: We don't get "married" to a home.
>> > It's not our life.
>>
>> So, why are we even having this discussion? I was under the impression you
>> wanted to buy a home.
>
> I hate to compare this to marriage :-) but wanting something
> and wanting it badly enough to sign one's soul off to the devil
> (even if she does wear nice shoes) is another.

As my S/O says: Damn skippy !

>> You're waiting because *SOON*...you said "soon"...the
>> real estate bubble would burst and you'll be able to snap up something
>> *GREAT* for 30% LESS! You didn't want to settle for "good", but "GREAT!"
>> ;-)
>
> The difference, Heidi, is that it's GREAT when the property
> is working for me, and I see a good future, rather than
> buying out of fear and working for the property as I see
> a lot of other buyers doing.

Ditto.

>> I really do hope for your sake you'll find that GREAT home discounted by
>> 30%. Let me know when you find one. I might snap one up just to humour
>> myself. I can then brag to my friends..."Oh look! I brought a piece of
>> the United States of America!" They may think me a fool...but that's o.k.
>> ;-)
>
> You would be a fool since you probably wouldn't be able to rent
> the property out sufficiently in order to pay for the basic
> mortgage payment. That's the point.
>
> Let's look at my unit: If my landlady wants me out, she can do so
> and it's not a big skin off of my nose provided she takes
> care of maybe moving expenses. I find another unit and I can
> rent that until I find a price that's GREAT or even just GOOD.
>
> So what's she to do then? Try to sell condos to these renters
> and shotgun rates? They could just buy another one somewhere else!
> The "flipper" shes hoping to sell to not only has to hope that
> the R.E. value of the unit will continue to increase EVEN
> WITH RENTERS IN IT, but also that rents overall will rise too.
>
>> I actually shared this discussion with my husband. He's prepared to buy
>> you a house and charge you rent. He would love to be your landlord! ;-)
>>
>> Heidi
>
> No problemo. I pay his interest-only loan and he gives us
> free utilties and repairs like we're getting now. Will
> he fix any problems we have with possums?

Andre

--
" I'm a man... But, I can change... If I have to... I guess. "
The Man Prayer, Red Green.
.

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