Elon says it's not dirty:
Tesla buys $1.5 billion in bitcoin, plans to accept it as payment
Elon Musk has been promoting cryptocurrencies on his Twitter account in recent weeks, sending prices soaring.
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COVID and the housing market
- Thread starter mimico_polak
- Start date
Elon says it's not dirty:
I wasn't commenting on the bitcoin, just the money laundering side. You might as well spend your drug cash instead of losing a bunch of percent to go in and out of bitcoin and you haven't left a path that you can sell to the government as legitimate.Elon says it's not dirty:
Tesla buys $1.5 billion in bitcoin, plans to accept it as payment
Elon Musk has been promoting cryptocurrencies on his Twitter account in recent weeks, sending prices soaring.www.cnbc.com
The initial conversation was about transporting large amounts of cash:
Unless the law has changed, the US government can confiscate any money you are travelling with if it exceeds $10, 000. If you sue to get it back they may offer you half if you have an excuse and will drop the issue. Money includes anything negotiable. It was done as a drug / money laundering control.
How Much Money Can I Bring Into the United States? | All Getaways
Travelers coming into the United States must follow certain rules when bringing money into the country when it's over $10,000. These regulations include filling in a reporting form and paying required duties.traveltips.usatoday.com
Has anyone studied the psychological effects of home ownership impossibility?
If the average couple wants a detached house in Toronto the chances are about zero.
Is it something one gets over like not being able to have kids or a job in your chosen career but can't go there because of a physical barrier. IE eyesight for a pilot.
Does it turn one away from the system that flaunted the American dream and then denied it.
If the average couple wants a detached house in Toronto the chances are about zero.
Is it something one gets over like not being able to have kids or a job in your chosen career but can't go there because of a physical barrier. IE eyesight for a pilot.
Does it turn one away from the system that flaunted the American dream and then denied it.
D
Deleted member 50930
Guest
I needed lots and lots of Vaseline
This housing and rent issue is turning me into a narcissist resentful bum. The boomers keep moving the goal posts.
work hard
ops
get a good degree
ops now work harder
ops you need more work experience but nobody wants to train you
ops now we will throw in recessions so there goes job stability
ops now your investments are all in the red
ops you have been renting here for too long. I am going to make your life hell so you leave so I can jack up the rent
I feel for the people who went to school and got a generic degree. They are screwed... I wish I could help but no paid time off to volunteer and not able To donate $$.
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..
But you will get tired and you will eventually drown .lol.
^ Unless you get a life jacket??
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Part of it may meed to be a reset of the american dream. For generations, if you lived in London England, the overwhelming majority were either renters or on weird 99 year family mortgages that basically pay interest as rent. Normal people do not own dwellings. In mew yorm, normal people do not own houses, some own condos. We have been told about a different path in Canada but as george said, at least in the GTA that path is becoming non-viable for many.
The choice is leave the GTA or follow a different path. I know some people that have made decent money but chose to rent for their entire lives. They were diligent and invested what was left and did as well or better than peers with houses.
I wonder too if that creates a class distinction. In Oxford and I assume other university cities they have the townies and the gownies. Do we get the housies and the lousies, each despising the other to a degree?
Someone asked me for a price to replace the kitchen cabinets in their rental apartment. I was a bit bewildered why he would want to upgrade someone else's property. His reply was that they never saw themselves moving so why not. My first industrial unit was a rental and I resented every improvement I made to it because it was going to be money left behind.
A friend used to trade in his four year old cars every two years and get a two year old. Someone else took the big depreciation and he still drove a reasonably new vehicle. He financed and justified it by saying it was just another monthly bill like phone, gas and hydro. Then he married a lady who knew math.
Around the time I acquired my first house I was looking at the equity and for the same money I could have bought a really nice used Ferrari. I stuck with the house and if I could live in a Ferrari, I could now sell the house and buy two new Ferraris. (Shhhh. Let's not talk repair costs.)
While the house vs Ferrari comparison is extreme, home ownership has come with denying a lot of life's pleasures.
My S-I-L has traveled and partied a lot more than we have but those memories mean she will be retiring with a mortgage. We all get buried in the same dirt so who wins?
I think the problem is that housing has become an investment for a lot of people, and also a way to make big money very quickly.
I've been very fortunate in my life when it comes to real estate, bought an investment property with my parents and held it for over a decade. Monthly we made maybe $200-300 after all expenses (if that as lots of months were red, but the year was always black), but when we sold I had enough equity (from the 50/50 split) to dump a large portion into our next house down payment. Sold our condo townhouse, as it went from 420-535k within a span of 2 years. More money for down payment.
Our current house was just shy of a million, but we can afford it because of the previous 2 moves. I was fortunate, a lot of others aren't. If we wanted to live outside of the GTA, we could've bought a house cash, and be done with a mortgage.
As for monthly affordability. I accounted for everything, except daycare. Watching the savings accounts go down month to month slightly because of the $1200/month bill hurts. But it's an investment in the kid, and once he's done daycare in August. I've got 1 year to put away for the next one so I'll do half of daycare each month. So the monthly is lower after that. I have the money for it separately, but I'm stubborn and want to maintain that account amount as long as I can.
Personally I think renting should not be frowned upon like it is currently and that home ownership is the end all be all. Out of my friends, there is one renter that has accepted the fact he'll never rent, but is happy living downtown for the rest of his life. The rest are all owners. And each has made massive sacrifices to get there, but we were all raised with the mentality of 'home good, rent bad' which is the wrong mentality in the new reality of our economy.
It's a tough pill to swallow. I personally didn't want to sell the investment property, but we had no choice as the banks saw a positive cash flow and rental units as a liability (what if all the tenants stop paying at once? - unlikely but possible). If I won LOTTO tonight, I'd be buying back my old property within a week. If I won 50M I'd buy all the buildings on that lot and retire on the residual income.
Also, @george__ I'll always recommend the route of contract work on a remote site. Big money, fast money, but you need to have a clear exit strategy. I loved my FIFO job, and it sucked being away from the family. We committed with my wife to try it for 2 years. I left the site after 28 months. Could probably milk it much longer, but I'd be divorced at the end of it with a very large alimony payment. Plus now I get to hear the screaming from toddlers first hand. I never did tell her I slept 100x better on site than I do at home. lol.
I've been very fortunate in my life when it comes to real estate, bought an investment property with my parents and held it for over a decade. Monthly we made maybe $200-300 after all expenses (if that as lots of months were red, but the year was always black), but when we sold I had enough equity (from the 50/50 split) to dump a large portion into our next house down payment. Sold our condo townhouse, as it went from 420-535k within a span of 2 years. More money for down payment.
Our current house was just shy of a million, but we can afford it because of the previous 2 moves. I was fortunate, a lot of others aren't. If we wanted to live outside of the GTA, we could've bought a house cash, and be done with a mortgage.
As for monthly affordability. I accounted for everything, except daycare. Watching the savings accounts go down month to month slightly because of the $1200/month bill hurts. But it's an investment in the kid, and once he's done daycare in August. I've got 1 year to put away for the next one so I'll do half of daycare each month. So the monthly is lower after that. I have the money for it separately, but I'm stubborn and want to maintain that account amount as long as I can.
Personally I think renting should not be frowned upon like it is currently and that home ownership is the end all be all. Out of my friends, there is one renter that has accepted the fact he'll never rent, but is happy living downtown for the rest of his life. The rest are all owners. And each has made massive sacrifices to get there, but we were all raised with the mentality of 'home good, rent bad' which is the wrong mentality in the new reality of our economy.
It's a tough pill to swallow. I personally didn't want to sell the investment property, but we had no choice as the banks saw a positive cash flow and rental units as a liability (what if all the tenants stop paying at once? - unlikely but possible). If I won LOTTO tonight, I'd be buying back my old property within a week. If I won 50M I'd buy all the buildings on that lot and retire on the residual income.
Also, @george__ I'll always recommend the route of contract work on a remote site. Big money, fast money, but you need to have a clear exit strategy. I loved my FIFO job, and it sucked being away from the family. We committed with my wife to try it for 2 years. I left the site after 28 months. Could probably milk it much longer, but I'd be divorced at the end of it with a very large alimony payment. Plus now I get to hear the screaming from toddlers first hand. I never did tell her I slept 100x better on site than I do at home. lol.
I tried to avoid saying "class" because I don't like it, but it is accurate. You will have the families that through luck or hard work acquired property over the past few decades and generations can ride that wealth (or waste it) and you will have the families that are on the rent treadmill with the majority unable to get off
.Now, part of it is about sacrifice and people are less willing to do that anymore. I lived like a student for quite a while before I bought a house. Either a room in a boarding house or a basement apartment in Malton. You can save over $1000 a month that way from a place you want to live. Yes, it sucks but it got me on the property train years earlier. Your employment income is roughly fixed, all you can do is be ruthless with the outgoing money.
MM has talked about buying properties far far from the GTA as a mechanism to get high percentage returns in a short period of time. Hell, with leverage, the returns he is looking at are crazy and the original capital is at almost zero risk of being lost. Go through three or four of those properties to build a war chest and you might have enough for get on the ownership path in the GTA. Getting there by working for wages isn't enough anymore (without someone throwing you a lifejacket).
I tried to avoid saying "class" because I don't like it, but it is accurate. You will have the families that through luck or hard work acquired property over the past few decades and generations can ride that wealth (or waste it) and you will have the families that are on the rent treadmill with the majority unable to get off
Now, part of it is about sacrifice and people are less willing to do that anymore. I lived like a student for quite a while before I bought a house. Either a room in a boarding house or a basement apartment in Malton. You can save over $1000 a month that way from a place you want to live. Yes, it sucks but it got me on the property train years earlier. Your employment income is roughly fixed, all you can do is be ruthless with the outgoing money.
MM has talked about buying properties far far from the GTA as a mechanism to get high percentage returns in a short period of time. Hell, with leverage, the returns he is looking at are crazy and the original capital is at almost zero risk of being lost. Go through three or four of those properties to build a war chest and you might have enough for get on the ownership path in the GTA. Getting there by working for wages isn't enough anymore (without someone throwing you a lifejacket).
A friend with some disabilities was making about $25 K a year and paid off a $10 K loan over a couple of years using your logic. His sister made over 3X the coin and was a half a million in debt.
"people are less willing to do that anymore"
Why sacrifice when you'll never own a house here?
The biggest problem with nanny state is no one is encouraged to look outside the box like MM and a few others. Look what Tim Horton did with a cup of coffee.
Haha have heard that one before. This thread is making me want to explore new investment opportunities. There's so much money to be made when thinking outside of the box. I'm not an entrepreneur by nature, and I don't have a hustler bone in my body. But I've seen many contractors take this by the horns and are making money hand over fist right now.
I wish I did, and I regret not following my dad's footsteps of being a self made contractor over the years as the man can fix anything...and now he's closer to 70 so I don't want to overwork him too much.
If you Torontonians think you have it bad, don't look at Vancouver...
AND the average salary is lower there as well!
It gets pushed out further and further as both pricing and infrastructure adjust. As you see transit options opening up to reach the core people can move further and commute easier. Same goes for WFH. It works as long as the bosses don’t recall the workers back to the office.
Some will never return, some of the old school management want their employees on seats. Construction will always need bodies on site, same as mfg and a lot of other industries.
My first apt was in the basement of a house with NO windows to the outside. Totally illegal and a fire trap, but it was cheap and month to month so i could bail when opportunity arose. I bicycled to work to save gas and car ins. I quit drinking. It sucked but I saved a down payment.
LOL, boomers keep moving the goal posts. I could see the end zone, made a plan and worked the plan.
Yeah its hard, that's why its called work.
LOL, boomers keep moving the goal posts. I could see the end zone, made a plan and worked the plan.
Yeah its hard, that's why its called work.
bigpoppa
Well-known member
What year was this, out of curiosity?
I for one am not one for blaming boomers, times change and you have to change accordingly
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A relative has a normal looking bungalow in shaughnessy. I almost spit out my coffee when I found out how much it was worth (more than 3).
I think the truth is somewhere between that and "boomers keep moving the goal posts".
Wages simply have not kept up with the cost of housing. It's a stark, documented, undeniable fact.
If you made all the same moves (wrt housing) now that you did 25 years ago, in 25 years from now, your end-position would fall far short of where you are right now.
On the other hand, young people seem to have an unrealistic expectation wrt housing and investment gains. They all want to own a SFH without climbing the property ladder and expect 1000% gains overnight on their meme stocks.
I don't think it's a Millennial thing though. It's just the impatience of youth. I remember being quite the hotshot in the midst of the dotcom boom, with all the older investors warning of bubbles and going on about valuation, PE ratios, blah blah blah.
"This time it's different!" we yelled back.
Only it wasn't.
And it's not today either.
"It's different now!" "Diamond hands"... It all becomes a learning experience in the end.
Also... the next generation will hate and blame Millennials as much as they hate and blame Boomers right now.
Circle of life.
I was a one man band contractor for about 25 years and towards the end the paperwork time was overtaking the billable hours. More nanny state.
I don't know what is harder, finding good employees or good customers.
There use to be a guy that did a balancing act on TV. He stood on his hands and an assistant threw him wooden blocks. He'd catch one in his right hand, put it down, rest on it then catch with the left, rest, repeat until he was up about six feet. Similarly, if you can catch good customers and balance that out with good employees you've got it made. One crooked block and you smash your face on the floor.
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