COVID and the housing market | Page 11 | GTAMotorcycle.com

COVID and the housing market

There's a time and place for everything, including condo life.

Early in my career, I was on a plane out of YYZ an average of 3x a week, mostly RapidAir shuttles, but a still a lot of overnighters and week+ long business trips. When I wasn't working, my wife and I either hopped on the bikes for long weekend trips, or did fly-and-ride trip vacations elsewhere around the world for weeks to a month at a time.

There was one hectic year that I slept in my own bed a total of less than 100 nights.

Living in a condo was the absolute best living arrangement for my lifestyle at that point in my life: at the drop of a dime, I could turn the key, lock the door and not worry one bit about arranging for maintenance, mail collection, etc.

I can see the same advantages for young urban professionals who want to live in the city, close to bars, restaurants and nightlife, who don't mind paying for someone else to tend to maintenance because they're too busy living their best lives while they're young and carefree.
 
bigpoppa said:
Also what the hell is this? Thats your neck of the woods aint it?

www.realtor.ca

Check out this listing

#3I 101 Dormie Drive,, Vernon, British Columbia V1H1Y6
www.realtor.ca www.realtor.ca
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That's "The Tips", it's a golf villa offering fractional ownership, basically a time-share.

Not really a place to live. Just a place to sleep while you're on a golf vacation. You get something like 4+ weeks stay every year, depending on how much you pay.
 
Lightcycle said:
Living in a condo was the absolute best living arrangement for my lifestyle at that point in my life: at the drop of a dime, I could turn the key, lock the door and not worry one bit about arranging for maintenance, mail collection, etc.
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100 percent on this. Applies to my northern vacation condo as well.

I just want to pull up. Unlock the door and enjoy. And know I have a comfy bed to sleep in.

Sure there's a condo fee, but I also don't have to worry about snow clearing, grass cutting, taking care of the pool and hot pool, garbage collection, Landscaping etc.

Just show up and enjoy.
 
mimico_polak said:
I remember having one of the board members come up to me and tell me I can’t perform work on my car while I’m changing tires. There was some clause in the condo documents. But it was very vague.

I asked him can I change my wipers? Yes
Can I put in windshield washer fluid? Yes
So where do you draw the line?
his response was that it isn’t allowed if certain tools were being used.
So I asked what tools are not allowed?
He told me to **** off and not do the work.

finished the tires, and did my brakes a week later.

then I joined the board and beat him for the seat in the vote.

one of the issues was a guy a few doors down was working on his suspension, and the car fell off the Jack and crushed him (he survived) and his doctors found a blood clot which would’ve killed him if not found. So I guess he was lucky to have a car crush him....
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There's type of heating cable for keeping pipes from freezing and the cheapest ones are meant for houses and cottages. They plug into standard GFI receptacles or receptacles fed from GFI breakers. Since they're cheap they often get used for parking garage pipes, including fire lines.

If some trips one with a power tool and doesn't reset it, the pipes could freeze. Floor drains may not take away the water and the freeze up often happens in the wee hours of the morning. I've been involved in a couple where the early risers found their cars up to the door handles. Total damage could go to the seven figures on top of the pipe repair and water remediation.

While it is technically wrong to cut off the plug and hard wire the cable ESA fortunately seems to ignore the rule in that case. It makes sense as there is no receptacle to mess with. Common sense rules. Only fools trust jacks.
 
There was a house we were interested in listed for 450s due to to a basement fireo. Property sold for 495k

This townhouse house is somewhere in Listowel
 
george__ said:
There was a house we were interested in listed for 450s due to to a basement fireo. Property sold for 495k

This townhouse house is somewhere in Listowel
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Delicious bakery near there. Crazy that prices are that high out there.
 
george__ said:
We officially gave up. Signing a lease for a rental unit this month
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Honestly I think I would do the same. There’s a certain point where we were ready to say f’ this.

my point was when we lost out on a 1M house in erin mills. Beautiful, pie shaped lot and finished everything. Literally looked move in ready. We offered, 980-990-995-1M. It sold for $1,060,000 with no conditions. The next day we saw our house pop up and didn’t muck around. 970k listed and we offered 965-968 and deal was done. Came on the market Friday we signed the papers Saturday with conditions.
 
where can I look for a rental in Cambridge? hubby's son wants to move here after uni in FL (June/July this year) and while we have the space, we don't have parking for him and I'm not moving my motorcycle to a storage unit...personally, I don't think this is a good year to move here (he wants to apply to the police force) for a variety of reasons, it's not my place to tell step son that...I've never rented so have no idea where to start looking...TIA
 
ifiddles said:
where can I look for a rental in Cambridge? hubby's son wants to move here after uni in FL (June/July this year) and while we have the space, we don't have parking for him and I'm not moving my motorcycle to a storage unit...personally, I don't think this is a good year to move here (he wants to apply to the police force) for a variety of reasons, it's not my place to tell step son that...I've never rented so have no idea where to start looking...TIA
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No idea cambridge is the sketchiest of the cities in the area but there must be apartment building near you.

Sent from my couch using my thumbs
 
Not sure if Viewit does Cambridge or not @ifiddles but I’d also check out Kijiji.

When I was renting out I’d always post on Viewit and Kijiji and half the renters came from Kijiji.

EDIT: just checked. Viewit has Cambridge properties.
 
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I usually dont use boomerbook but there are a surprising number of ads and rentals etc on facebook
 
ifiddles said:
where can I look for a rental in Cambridge? hubby's son wants to move here after uni in FL (June/July this year) and while we have the space, we don't have parking for him and I'm not moving my motorcycle to a storage unit...personally, I don't think this is a good year to move here (he wants to apply to the police force) for a variety of reasons, it's not my place to tell step son that...I've never rented so have no idea where to start looking...TIA
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What is he looking for? A friend has a rental house with single garage near BB. He was (is?) looking for more than I expected but I have no idea of the rental market in the area.
 
@Scuba Steve we live in Milton, however hubby and his kids lived there years ago (although his son moved back to FL in 2015)

@GreyGhost probably just a 1 bedroom apartment for now...he won't have any money so we'll be probably footing the bill (one of the reasons why I don't think he should move here now but that's another story)...eventually his girlfriend wants to move here too but that's probably a year or so away...I'm guessing even a basement apartment would suffice

hubby has a house in Cambridge which he rented out when he moved to Milton to my place however, they're good renters and we don't want to displace a family of four for his son...and I have no intention of selling my place in Milton to move there and either have a 54 km commute to work or change boards and start over as a supply teacher and lose my 15 years seniority
 
Saw 6 listings this weekend.

3 we really like that we could see ourselves living in it.

Funnily, 2 of them had bikes and gears. Anyone here selling a house in Oakville?

Sent from my M2007J20CG using Tapatalk
 
nobbie48 said:
I think the fee on a friend's TH condo is about $250 a month. He has a two car garage and can park another two vehicles in the driveway.

The upside:
If I understand it correctly anything exterior is paid for by the condo and inside by him. He doesn't have to shovel snow, garden or mow lawn. A lot of liability is on the condo insurance and he doesn't have to put away for a new roof. They just installed a new front door and fixed the steps. If he wants to he can park a six pack of motorcycles in his garage and even work on them. With the door closed there are no browsers in unmarked vans.

if you buy a bargain TH that has been trashed, light skill levels can turn it into a money maker because a lot of people don't even have the light skills. An IKEA kitchen and tart up bling.

The chances of a major structural event are minimal.

The downside:
I suspect he can't do anything interior that would go deeper than the drywall. He can renovate the kitchen and baths, tart up the decor, do flooring etc. He can't put on an addition, different windows, re-frame walls etc. The windows would have to be in keeping with the standard appearance of the complex. If he did a massive kitchen and bath upgrade, he wouldn't get much of the cost back. Most complexes have set values and nothing raises them very much. A dump does drive buyers away

He only has one adjoining unit so only one source of sounds and smells. The others have two sources.
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Yeah I have a townhouse condo and pay about $230/month in fees. We don't have a condo board, rather pay a company to look after it, and about 20% of the fees collected go into the reserve fund, 30% going into landscaping/snow, 15% for the company to run it, some for insurance, etc. etc.. Seems fairly well run from my perspective.

For us we own everything "inside of the studs". Any big changes need some sort of approval, but since these are all only a year old there isn't much you could really change. We aren't allowed to touch anything on the outside however - can't hang a satellite dish or build a shed, can't paint your front door, etc.

Besides smoking weed and be unreasonably loud, nothing is stopping you from doing anything you want inside though. I've got a pretty nice garage set up that I can do whatever I want to inside
 
@ifiddles

If he is staying long term avoid renting with Kasey Wong (Cacoeli Asset Management). His employees are awesome but their hands are tied with repairs and getting stuff done because he is a cheap ass disorganized power hungry landlord.

Dude has a couple properties in Preston
 
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