The entire system builds a mold that you need to follow or the system crushes your balls.

Real estate is a part of this, because if you follow the system 100%, you are rewarded with a nice house and huge equity. When I was growing up, the term "property ladder" wasn't even a thing. My dad was a moron who worked a normal, blue collar job and easily afforded a house at 308, West 22nd. I had the BEST childhood until my parents divorced.

Our entire society is built on this house of cards. Why else would society import millions of people to drive up housing costs, drive down wages, and create a path to follow to have all the material possessions, if you didn't follow the path set before you, you're punished with no house, no job, no place, and univeral mockery?

A house on the west side of Vancouver is only worth 4+ million dollars because society has agreed that the people who can afford to live there, have followed all of the rules!

Yeah, but the society those people live in is fake as fuck. If you have 4+ million to blow on a house, you are completely indoctrinated to the system. This is why Vancouver is no fun city.

I think you're right because real estate/equity just equates to money. So having a certain amount of money means stability and that likely has an effect on a family, but not everyone can have money/real estate.

If you abide by normal distribution there's going to be a bell curve. Not everyone will have a house regardless of the price. Like some of my friends parents who were renting in the 80's and are still renting now. Just like having rich people at the top, there has to be poor/unfortunate people at the bottom.

I guess what i'm trying to say is that it's very difficult to move out of where you are normally distributed, because if it were easy then we wouldn't be normally distributed.

Talked to a customer that installs drywall. The drywall he uses comes from Alberta same goes for the mud.

https://www.usg.com/content/usgcom/e...about-cgc.html

New plant opening in Alberta

https://www.usg.com/content/usgcom/e...wheatland.html
They also make a ton of other products.

Cloverdale paint is made in Canada. They have a plant in Surrey.

https://madeinca.ca/home-products-cloverdale-paint/

Roofing:
https://madeinca.ca/roof-shingles-an...ndustries-ltd/

Saw this one in person when they were showing it. Really nicely done renovation, clearly renovated it with themselves in mind rather than renovate-to-flip. I'm not surprised it went for $3.9M especially considering the neighbourhood.

When I was 19, (25 years ago) my mother passed away, and my brother and I inherited a house each.

Our relatives pressured us to sell those houses because "you're losing $800 a month on the mortgage and eating into your inheritance of $10,000 cash each, houses are expensive to maintain. You could end up with big bills to replace the roof or furnace if they break down."

At the time, I was making $17.50 an hour as entry-level IT tech, I had my A+ certification, and I could write killer .bat files, that's it.

Soooo... we sold both houses for around 130k each, and after the executor took his cut and the mortgages were paid off, we didn't have much left over at all. I used that money for the downpayment on my S2000. Those two houses were both large lots in White Rock.

Those houses today are both over a million dollars... and entry-level wages are still around $20 an hour for many semi-skilled jobs! Those relatives never talked to us again and never checked in on us in the 25 years since her death. :awwyeah:

Most young kids don't have a sense of how to actually accumulate wealth, unfortunately.

It's something that very few families actually taught their kids to know.

I was fortunate enough to be in a family where this kind of knowledge is not just taught, but constantly reminded about.

It's never about buying this or buying that, but rather, understanding the concept of return on investment and cashflow. After that, we make every financial decision based on that.

Many here in Vancouver did well by simply buying a house earlier on, but to an extent, it was just luck more than anything that the market has grown for so much. There are markets in the world where the increase wasn't much more than the inflation or worse, factoring inflation into, the housing market actually lost value in the long run. There aren't that many, but it does exist.

However, I will recommend the following for people here who are still young or are in the group where they have kids and need to start talking to kids about finances:
Understand what ROI and cashflow do and think what that can do for you in the long run.

I didn't buy my first permanent house (had properties before meant for flip) until a few years ago during the Covid downturn. And the reason was simple, the mortgage rate was so low that it made complete sense to buy into instead of renting. IIRC, I was paying like 2800 rent a month for a 2M dollar home. And at the 1.6% interest rate, the mortgage payment was roughly in line with rent once you take out the principal payment portion. (1.6% on 1.6M meant about 25k in interest every year, thus renting made less sense) Sure there was opportunity cost on the downpayment, but I came off that time from selling my company and struggling to find anything meaningful to park money.

Yea we're too busy teaching kids he she it they them and how they feel. Rather than real world. Common sense, that's why we're being invaded.

Invaded by who? :ahwow:

Surprised no one said anything about this another -0.25% I guess at this rate we will get another one in April :megusta:

Need more!

The constant barrage of Trump and tariff-related news has already exhausted our capacity for news, and those would make for a bigger impact than what a further 25 pts rate drop would as well.

While we are at it, the Cons was crying foul about how Eby and the NDP have granted themselves authoritarian and undemocratic power yada yada. And the other Cons is also crying foul of how we have a newly unelected PM in Parliament that actually can't participate in Parliament.

Gosh I hate this timeline... Can I just travel to a side branch where I can be racing cars and banging chicks all day and everyday without getting bothered by whining like this?

https://dvvjkgh94f2v6.cloudfront.net.../d65a1577.jpeg

Is that a forced air return that they've just... covered with baseboard?

(Seems this house is an attempted reno from https://www.zealty.ca/mls.php?id=R2885130 to current)

where?

i'm more concerned with the diffuser in the middle of the ceiling that looks like shit.

Looks like the MLS picture got replaced. The listing agent must've realized they were drawing attention to something shady. Sneaky lol.

I've been to a couple of "heritage/character" homes and no matter how much it's been renovated down to the studs or whatever marketing terms I find it can never get rid of that old house smell. Plus you gotta watch out for oil tanks and foundation issues.

And smoke. Tons of smoke just soaked into the walls and in the vents even if all the drywall is new.

i think people were posting interest rates further back, wanted to report i was offered
TD fixed
2 year: 4.12
3 year: 4.34.

I'm thinking taking the 2 and wait and see how things are in 2 years.

Recently got pre-approved for 4.5 fixed 3 year, 6-800k mortgage, non insured / RBC

Did it go up recently?
Fil got 4.03% with Scotia Bank fix 3 year term
Back in late Feb

Rbc probably giving me a higher rate, will go mortgage shopping if we end up buying as some of you are sizzling at 4%

I'm at 3.95 variable right now, started at 4.2 last month, I would expect it to drop another quarter percent this year.

Granted fixed is based on bonds and I haven't followed. I can't imagine bonds doing too hot when we are in a trade war.

i also heard 4% would be hot as well which is why i figured 2year 4.12 is about as good as it's gonna get and i'll test my luck 2 years later.

i'm on a heloc if that makes any diff.

4.03% is nuts i would have loved that, it was much higher when we asked back in feb so for me what i posted was a drop

We have a 5 year variable renewed in 2022 and the latest rate is 3.70 with Scotia

Lol yeah image got replaced, still visible in this photo just not up close

Literally just slapped baseboard over that - even if it's non functional I would've at least patched it over...

https://i.imgur.com/PcLxTGz.jpeg