Canadian housing market

I would care if the housing market took a big dump, but I didn't buy a house for an investment (even if it works out that way), I bought a house for a place to live that is mine... no more dealing with crappy landlords.

I bought a small semi-detached, or I guess they call it a link-detached because only the garage shares a wall with the neighbour, a few years back for $350k. I am a few minutes from Square One and only 5km from work.

Yes there are maintenance costs, yes I sunk a bunch of money finishing the basement, new furnace, I will need a new roof in the future, I will have to rebuild the deck and fence, etc, but I love having my own garage, my own workshop in my basement, my own gunroom, my own driveway, etc etc, so for me those minor costs are worth it.

My mortgage, for the time being, is very cheap. They only require me to pay $900/month at prime minus 0.09% but I throw in about $1400 a month anyway. I'm down to about $220k left to pay off on the mortgage and could pay it off faster but I also want my toys and want to build up my RRSPs and TFSAs. In the meantime the value of this house has risen to roughly $450k or so (although I won't know until I sell, and I am not selling soon).

The only thing I would like to change is that I would prefer to live outside of town on a few acres and have a large workshop. I don't want to commute to work though, so I think I will save that dream for when I am closer to retirement.

So in the long run, they end up with a profit on their original investment taking into acount the loss and gains over hte two houses..it seems.

Renting = loss

Not putting down renting as I did for most of my life, just stating a fact

If home ownership cost you the same as renting per year, you end up with a profit of the increased value of the house. Win. Plus you don't have to put up with landlords, etc. and make your own decisions. If you can afford to buy a home, I don't see a downside. Unless you need to make a quick exit.

Aples and Oranges, different lending laws, different protections, banks are not allow to bundle high risk loans and sell them, etc.

I guess that's why our banks almost tanked as well eh?

I heard that paul lives in his car

Mayor Tory announced 2.25% property tax increase for TO. For those in scarborough this is in addition to the 1% subway tax increase.

I would expect this to affect the pricing slightly.

These increases need to happen. Far too long the infrastructure has suffered while toronto had the lowest property taxes in the province.

Nothing surprising here.