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and yet y/y prices have increased 9.5%  This loving country. People really believe they are not subject to things like "value" or "market forces." If that house is worth $500k, you better drat well list it for $700k, nobody seems to care if it sits on the market for a year. I'm apartment hunting in Toronto right now  and it's crazy ow people are willing to let their 500 sq ft condos sit empty for months instead of lowering the rent.
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Feb 14, 2014 20:45
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Lexicon posted:People do this? Just seems like hopelessly wishful thinking to think that listing at a higher price makes any kind of sense after failing to sell at a lower price. It's like some kind of hopeless petty negotiation with the world or something: "Well, gently caress you all - you didn't want it at $X, well now it's gonna cost you $X+Y"! they really, really do. It's not even like you could make an offer of $450k either even if it was the only offer. Most owners wouldn't accept it. For example, I check on estate agents board torontolofts.ca. There's an $800k 2bed loft there that I swear has been on the market for at least 2.5 years since I first went to that site. I mean, it's fine, maybe I'm cheap but nothing with 2 beds in $800k fine. And it's a new place too, not like the owners inherited an old place or anything. http://www.torontolofts.ca/loft3324_church101.html Edit: I've actually seen this phenomenon for a lot of things, particularly trying to buy stuff off of kijiji. People list stuff for way higher than its worth and are absolutely unwilling to move on price. It really threw my husband off because he comes from a "haggling culture" and dealing with people like that is kind of awkward. peter banana fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Feb 14, 2014 |
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Feb 14, 2014 21:04
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Baronjutter posted:More anecdote time! My friend's mom was an insane case of this. She saw her self as a shrewd and pragmatic investor but always over spends on stupid poo poo thinking along that exactly logic. If you put 10k into something you will get at LEAST 10k in value out of it, so always go for the best most expensive option. They were selling their house and renovating the kinda dingy basement suite. This was going to be a minor reno but it turned into a 150k+ nightmare due to the previous owners basically building the whole thing out of load-bearing drywall. Yes, spending what is needed to replacing loving missing structural posts that were causing the house to sag is a good and needed investment. Ordering in the best granite counter tops and fanciest appliances for a tiny nearly windowless basement suite is not. I mean its the loving part of the house you rent out. So fixing hidden problems and installing a super nice kitchen and bathroom in a basement suite didn't really do much to the sale price at all. My parents in London are like this. I honestly don't understand how they make money. They spent 50k and two horrendous months of their lives getting an inground pool put in (when my little half-brother was 3 btw. Little kids around a pool, great idea, folks) the installers basically had to dig up their entire backyard several times because the hole fell in due to rain a few times. They are now convinced that if they ever sell the house it'll add at least that amount to the sale price. Ironically, they chose between a pool and finishing their basement. Oh did I mention they both work in Toronto? Yeah they commute from London to Toronto and now if they ever want to sell their stupid barn of a house in London they'll have to take a huge hit. Cultural Imperial posted:
*sniffs* ahhhh, what is that? Is that desperation I smell?
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Feb 15, 2014 20:04
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Dreylad posted:Amazon? Online retail in Canada is a joke. It shouldn't be, but it is.
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Feb 19, 2014 04:13
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Yeah, speaking of which, can you get stuck with a relative's consumer debt if she dies?
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Feb 19, 2014 20:15
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Rental enforcement is so lovely in this country. I wonder if it has to do with urban Canada generally getting poo poo on by suburban and rural populations. Even though there are more urban Canadians in terms of numbers, we don't let permanent residents or people on visas vote, so they're barely regarded as being people.
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Mar 5, 2014 14:04
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downtown Toronto & Vancouver houses for everyone!!!! Edit: gently caress condos, and specifically gently caress Toronto City Council and planning. There could be good condos built, but that's not the business plan. I can't believe these developers get away with building condos that literally only one person can live in. It would be so much more beneficial to the city to build condos for families, so we can live the way families in Europe and New York City live, in apartments and condos. This city just lets the developers have their way and it makes me crazy. Just rubber stamp everything and don't consider whether or not it's good for the city. The Waterfront will be a ghetto a la St Jamestown in 15 years, I promise. peter banana fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Mar 27, 2014 |
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Mar 27, 2014 13:30
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it's almost as if we should have rental oversight for our majority-urban nation instead of allowing a few rich fucks to make everything terrible.
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Mar 28, 2014 14:20
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Does anyone have a good idea of what will happen once this housing bubble pops or deflates or whatever? Are we going right into a recession a la the States?
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Apr 4, 2014 13:54
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Blade_of_tyshalle posted:All I can say is I hope you have ready, secure access to a supply of car tires, black leather, face paint, and brightly-coloured feathers. I'm Gen Y! I'm a vegan who rides a bike! 
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Apr 4, 2014 15:54
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Lexicon posted:I'm honestly baffled that so many people are so keen to become amateur landlords. First off, all the usual detractor talking points aside (high transaction costs, illiquid, etc) - it's simply a terrible investment generally. Net of all costs, a condo in most places in say, BC, will barely break 4% in annual return, and that's assuming all goes to plan. Oh God, my last apartment was the main floor of a house in downtown Toronto. I lived there while it was in the process of being sold. The previous owners had contracted a management agency because I guess they didn't live in the city. We figured out in the first week that we couldn't turn on the electric kettle and the toaster without overloading the circuit breaker and calling the basement tenant to flip it. Anyway, we call the management company, they send an electrician, put in a new breaker, done. Well, we also tell the management company that the exterior is basically falling apart because the lawn's never been raked or anything. Instead of a landscaper, our landlord showed up. "Yeah," he said, "we're gonna have to sell this house." "Oh, why?" "Well, we got this management company to maintain it, but they just call a specialist and charge us for it. It's not as lucrative as we thought it'd be." Um....isn't that what management companies are meant to do?  Anyway, it gets sold to some analyst at CIBC. This guy has a full time job,but his wife doesn't work. It turns out that the top floor isn't up to code because the previous owners just ignored it. I know the house was listed at $675k, because we had thought of buying it. We moved out in November 2012. Dude is still trying to get that top floor up to code. This poor guy. I hope he lowballed that offer, but I'm not optimistic. Landlording seems awful, but yeah, that's because my experiences with landlord is just that they don't give a poo poo about making apartments habitable. Right before I moved away from Dublin in 2008 the city council had passed new tenancy laws which actually included required on-site laundry. That sure would be awesome  Baronjutter posted:They aren't making a cent being a landlord but they brag about how it's basically a "free investment". How do they define "free" and "investment"? Also are they aware of any other investments? Like, at all?
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Apr 9, 2014 18:00
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Kalenn Istarion posted:I guess you didn't really read my post - I wasn't equating conservatives generally with fiscal prudence, but saying the policies enacted had been decent during his tenure, irrespective of politics. No. warning: Garth Turner link.
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Apr 11, 2014 20:42
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Lexicon posted:I don't mean to sound like an rear end in a top hat, but I'm actually skeptical it ever had one. Hardly any companies allow telecommuting in any meaningful way. Probably because it requires managers who are actually capable. In my experience the companies most likely or capable of encouraging telecommuting are the least likely to allow it as well. Edit: my husband just told me he read in Metro yesterday that ReMax released a statement saying that half as many condos are being built in Toronto when compared to this time last year. This means there's a housing shortage, of course!
peter banana fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Apr 16, 2014 |
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Apr 16, 2014 23:21
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Saltin posted:Cities are more than just hubs for jobs. The cultural value of cities is significant, especially when compared to suburban sprawl which has virtually no culture at all. Music, Art, food choices, access to people from different parts of the world, travel options, public transit, sports, organizations/clubs for virtually every interest under the sun, etc are all much better in cities and factor significantly on why people live where they live. I am certain I could work from home permanently and move to the suburbs to lower my cost of living, but that would loving suck, because I love Toronto and everything it has to offer and no 3500sq ft house with cookie cutter yard and 2 car garage would ever convince me otherwise. some provincial and federal representation or attention would be nice though, right?
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Apr 17, 2014 16:45
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Good news out of "Canada's Most Expensive Housing Market" - helper mortgages! 2.5% downpayments are the new 5% downpayments! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBl5MfA3QiU It's a good thing we're Not Like The States though, right guys? How Not Like The States we are? It'll totally be okay this time because it's Not Like The States!
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Apr 21, 2014 16:58
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Cultural Imperial posted:http://www.macleans.ca/society/life/condo-hell/ As a recreational ballet dancer (who does pointe), I'd tell anyone telling me to stop practicing at home to get hosed. Sorry. quote:“We have to be very cautious we’re not building future one-bedroom ghettos,” he says. This is interesting because I have a few friends who are architects and I asked one of them about the Toronto Waterfront. He basically said we are setting ourselves up to have a ghetto. Keep in mind this has already happened in Toronto before and our crooked city council has learned nothing from it.
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Apr 26, 2014 18:52
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wow, I thought I was a crazy kook for being against intergenerational wealth transfer. It seems like such a cornerstone of our culutre, but it really is a destructive force most of the time in the economy. Thanks for making me realize I'm not alone thread!
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Apr 28, 2014 13:42
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How do people buy houses without getting an inspection first?
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Apr 30, 2014 13:40
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awesome. as long as interest rates stay at historically, unsustainably low levels, I'll only have to pay $190 more per month for housing (excluding property taxes and maintenance fees!)
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May 7, 2014 14:40
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so do people in BC pay $500+/month in maintenance fees for their condo? That's de rigeur here in Toronto, if so why the gently caress aren't these repair fees coming out of that money? I thought that's what it was for?
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May 25, 2014 17:53
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"One of Toronto's most sought after locations." It's a middling hotel with a good rooftop patio and mediocre restaurants. So, yeah, probably one of the better condos to live in.
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May 30, 2014 15:25
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Cultural Imperial posted:I hate that hotel. It's like all of Toronto's loving ego manifested in dwell magazine furniture. I used to live across the street. One morning I was coming home from yoga and a thin, tanned, hungover man in his underwear yelled obscenities at me from the penthouse as I rode past on my bike. Ahhh Toronto.
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May 30, 2014 18:16
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was he thin and tanned and in his underwear? I know that guy.
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May 30, 2014 19:53
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Cultural Imperial posted:What jobs are all these important real estate players going to fall back on after the crash? the percentage of immaculately dressed, somewhat photogenic homeless people in Toronto and Vancouver (and Montreal) is about to skyrocket.
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May 30, 2014 20:08
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Baronjutter posted:Wow that's quite a drop in sales, I assume that means the prices them selves will have to come down? Or people will just stubbornly wait? you might be right but this time of year is the busiest for home sales.
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May 30, 2014 21:07
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Reasons why hotel condos might be a hard sell (besides the obvious) http://www.thegridto.com/life/real-estate/no-room-for-the-inns/
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Jun 2, 2014 18:38
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Lobok posted:Room service and concierge. that's funny because I see concierges as sort of a leftover from another era. They may have been useful before the Internet, but now they're just bought off by local restaurants. If I want to find a good sushi place in Toronto, I'd check BlogTo or "CityEquivelent" before I went out.
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Jun 2, 2014 20:47
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ironically being "maddeningly frugal" is probably the most reliable way for the average joe to become "rich" (financially independent)
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Jun 2, 2014 21:39
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but won't that mean if the government bails the banks out legislatively, it'll be the taxpayer paying anyway? Six of one half a dozen of the other? Weren't the US sub-prime mortgages securitized as well?
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Jun 5, 2014 02:02
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it's kind of in the process of popping it seems like, in smaller markets like Halifax and Montreal. I guess one would have to define how to know when a bubble has "popped"
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Jun 11, 2014 21:23
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Look we're all going to have to accept that Americans are much friendlier on a day-to-day basis than we are. They just are. Must come from having an identifiable culture
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Jun 19, 2014 16:25
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oof. But a $32k LoC and a $24k car loan generally indicates "badwithmoneyitis"
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Jun 20, 2014 17:48
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wait are these all glass walls even cheaper to install, or is it just a "Yonge Street Lifestyle" thing as the Toronto thread would say? Just developers wanting to make a building look swish to dupe fools or does it actually cut their bottom line (during construction)?
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Jul 4, 2014 16:27
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stadiums are designed and built by organizations in countries where hundreds of workers don't die. Workers dying and being enslaved is not typically a byproduct of stadium building. I find it hard to blame the architect as well.
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Jul 5, 2014 22:32
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EvilJoven posted:It's like they're making sure that this bubble gets so big that when it pops it'll be sure to leave no survivors. Does anyone else find it really hard to convince people that we are in fact in a bubble precisely because of this? My husband and I knew we were in a bubble 2-3 years ago (thanks to Garth Turner, don't hate) and lots of our friends told us that housing values would only go up and many of them have bought. Now I just feel like if the bubble that existed 2-3 years ago had popped then, we might have made it out okay. But I find it really hard to have intelligent conversations with young people now, trying to convince them not to buy, when it spiraled so out of control.
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Jul 6, 2014 13:56
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Yeah, I think the value proposition gets blurry because a lot of messaging right now doesn't think of a house as an assest that fulfills a basic need but as an investment, and a good investment, if not the best investment one could possibly make.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:07
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Could we conceivably have 100% mortgages before that happens? It seemed unlikely a few years ago, but I'm kind of thinking anything's possible now.
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Jul 11, 2014 15:54
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Rutibex posted:drat $800 a month on wine (not counting eating out). I could drink a bottle of liquor every day on that budget, or an ounce of fine weed every week. This guy must be blasted out of his mind 24/7 if he's getting wine with dinner too. my friend's husband is a lawyer for a bank in Toronto and they're always on about how 'little" they make. We were over for dinner one night and he went into detail about how he buys a bottle of good whiskey or scotch every week because he drinks the whole thing. Sitting there, silently chewing while his wife probed him about why he drinks a bottle of whiskey every week was pretty awkward.
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Jul 19, 2014 16:52
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Rime posted:The person who lives in a van in Vancouver while holding down a decent job is the smartest person around, IMO. Talk about money in the loving bank. itt people literally aspire to Matt Foley. 
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Jul 21, 2014 14:27
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you pay admission and you pay for your food?  WTF
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Jul 23, 2014 18:54
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