Anyone here live where it’s worth buying a house?

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If the spread between costs & rent makes it a viable enough investment, there should be 10% to pay to a property manager to vet tenants, collect rent, and maintain the property.

If there are serious concerns with non-payment, that’s what evictions & the courts are for. Sure, that’s time consuming and you’ve got to pay the bills in the meantime.. hence why in my day dreaming I think it’d be lower risk to buy a property that has a long term tenant that doesn’t want to move.

Probably. But no one wants to live there.. that’s why they’re desperate. 10 months of harsh winter on the prairies or northern tundra = no thanks for most people.

But even moving to some smaller town somewhere that’s Ok would mean moving away from all friends, family, and the natural amenities of this place.. beaches, mountains etc. I get why young couples wanting to start a family leave, but for a single gay guy like me? Why bother? This is a very nice place and I’m surrounded by friends and family - if I left I wouldn’t have any of those things anymore.

i grok where you're coming from, would that i could be in similar shoes. anyways, i long ago did the plusses and minuses of buying a rental property versus investing in dividend-paying stocks and found that the latter was more practical for me as they have relatively little overhead even if the "pay" is somewhat less but with less worries.

Mmhmm!

Over the months ahead I’m going to have to really pay attention to investment options and move some money around and put it to work for me. Too much capital sitting idle. May as well have it making some money. Probably mostly stocks - only better diversified than the last time I had a chunk of change to decide what to do with. Spread the risk around, hopefully pick winners.. some super stable big names, and also some riskier startups. Etc.

And then next year I’ll likely dump $ into an RRSP for the first time - which can be borrowed against for a first time home buyer’s down payment.. but only on a primary residence and not a revenue property. Sooo, that sucks, because even the least expensive property here would increase my cost of housing & commute time.

Probably never buy a place of my own to live in tbh - unless the whole market comes crashing down like a house of cards, then Maybe. Otherwise I’ll continue to rent from family, invest elsewhere, and spend my money pursuing other goals. But even other goals like returning to university for a very long time are extremely expensive as one not only has to pay for tuition/books, but also food/shelter/transportation while not working full time.. hence the need to build up as much money & have it making money as possible. Economic craziness.

Only way I could buy was to get a part ownership mortgage. I own a quarter of my property and pay rent on the rest. Sounds a crap deal, but I have a 2 bed apartment with central heating and great soundproofing near a bus route and a supermarket and my mortgage and rent combined is less than half the price of regular rent in this area.

If I want I can buy into more of the property and own it outright eventually. I'm in one of the poorest areas of an expensive city, but my street is nice enough. Good neighbors.

Interesting. I'm not even really entertaining the idea of creative ways to "own," my own home. I currently rent from family and my cost of housing is Extremely Low considering any other possible option to have a roof over my head around here. As long as my current arrangement continues to work, I'm way better off saving my money and investing in something else entirely.

And if it ever doesn't work, I at least have the financial resources to go rent some place/have roommates etc somewhere else and keep my cost of housing from multiplying.

Even owning a "cheap," place would triple or quadruple my cost of housing. If it had a second bedroom and I had a roommate, I might be able to keep it to 2.x times. No real good options in the mix lol UNLESS I was able to rent a place with lots of bedrooms and then sublet out each spare bedroom at top rates and then keep my own costs down low.

And ofc there are creative options people make work.. like I know of one guy that rents a mansion for $x, then sublets most of the rooms, and keeps one or two to airbnb -> which he then cuts the renters in on a portion of the proceeds for tolerating short term guests and cooperating with basic cleaning of the suite. People have low-ish cost housing for the neighbourhood, and he makes money every month from the regulars & visitors combined. But doing that as he does with multiple mansions becomes a full time job as it has for him.

Blah blah blah, I think I have a higher probability of owning someone else' home somewhere else than my own nearby.

The north of England is cheap to buy a house if you buy a 1-bedroom apartment. And I mean 'cheap' for an 'NT' person.

For an Autistic person, or a neurodiverse person - nothing is cheap, since money is mostly hard to come by for us guys. So uh... nowhere?

An inflated property market has basically put wealth into the hands of boomers, at the expense of milennials.

It sure has.

Was talking to my friends realtor today about other business (he’s younger than me) and he said he bought a townhouse for $650k and had a 5 year plan to sell it near $1M with 8%/yr appreciation expectations. He just sold it for $975k after 8 months of ownership.

Now he’s looking to buy a commercial property on the island because the rents are 85-90% as high as here, but prices are lagging behind by 3-5 years. I told him to loop us in as my friend may be interested in buying a property or two over there if the cap rate is good - and maybe a partnership with the realtor so they can buy bigger etc.

Good for them, but way too rich for my blood.

it takes a special kind of unteachable entrepreneurial intelligence to grok this real estate flipping stuff.

Being a sociopathic narcissist helps I suppose. Those traits are the making of a real estate tycoon. I suppose if certain slanderous speculations against me were true, i would be living a real life version of monopoly right now.

Not really. Just a lot of capital and a great tolerance for risk - especially as prices reach new all time highs and the whole world is watching wondering if they can be sustained or continue to climb.. or not.

a similar kind of intelligence as a great gambler. knowing when to hold 'em, knowing when to fold 'em.

Oh, Canada

And that’s in Australian dollars.

My posts are Canadian dollars. Only Retro’s post was AUD.

Yes, I live in such an area but I avoid being too near the coast. 10 miles or more inland on higher ground is safe and the prices are cheaper.