Thread: It's a puzzle

Might be interesting to see. Back to the OP, money to spend seems limited as stuff to spend it on.
Next thing you know, giving it to the neighbor and all, I digress..

It has been the same most places.
The reasons are quite simple, if you have money (and there are a great many that do), where should you keep it?

In the bank? next to 0% interest. (banks have been known to go broke, something unimaginable a few years ago, but has happened recently)

Pension scheme/life assurance policy ? once again rubbish returns over the last few years and a risk of losing all of it.

Stocks and shares, for myself I have never been burdened with great intellect and like most people it seems like a good way to lose money (Investments, may go down as well as up, but are more likely to crash completely)

Razors ? let's not do this one.

Buy property ? I have some, (residential in London, the properties that are rented yield 14% on investment. Then there is the capital growth. The properties are valued at around three time the value I paid for them, this has been over a 40 year period.

Originally Posted by RezDog

There are a lot guns on the list. Most have been on there for some time. Most Canadians have a stack of hunting rifles. Assault riffles, not so many. It’s funny every time some nut job goes on a rampage, you’d think they would increase the mental health budget, but the finger always points to the symptoms, never the problem.

Yup, it is easier to pass a law banning certain types of guns than to actually do something about the root causes of gun violence. Like banning cancer is a cure for it.

Bob

Here in Ohio, your lucky to find a boat for sale. Folks have nothing better to do, right now, and the lakes and parks are the only thing open, besides a few of the larger bars around the lakes.

On the weekdays, the lakes look like a typical weekend.
On the weekend, the lakes look like a holiday weekend, on steroids.

That's what people are spending their cash on, here.
Then they bring their wreck, that looks like was bought from pearl harbor, into our shop to spend oodles of cash to make sea worthy. Folks have gone nuts.!!

Had a guy invest over $2300 to get a 30 some year old outboard , up and running again. A couple grand more...could have a new one with a warranty, and no noise and smoke from a 2 stroke engine.

Originally Posted by easyace

It has been the same most places.
The reasons are quite simple, if you have money (and there are a great many that do), where should you keep it?

In the bank? next to 0% interest. (banks have been known to go broke, something unimaginable a few years ago, but has happened recently)

Pension scheme/life assurance policy ? once again rubbish returns over the last few years and a risk of losing all of it.

Stocks and shares, for myself I have never been burdened with great intellect and like most people it seems like a good way to lose money (Investments, may go down as well as up, but are more likely to crash completely)

Razors ? let's not do this one.

Buy property ? I have some, (residential in London, the properties that are rented yield 14% on investment. Then there is the capital growth. The properties are valued at around three time the value I paid for them, this has been over a 40 year period.

Agree. With low mortgage interest rates, real estate has proven to be a much sounder investment than almost anything else in the last 10 years. And, in Canada, when you sell your principal residence, any profit you make is tax free.

Every adversity is an opportunity. Some businesses actually thrive on this. Fabulous time to be in the hand sanitizer business. During the Great Recession a few years ago what was a tragedy for.some was a windfall for my business. In a 2 year period I did 401 lock changes on foreclosed properties....just myself...in one town, in one state. That's not the sum by the way, it's just a tally of the big surge from the two main agencies. It doesn't include all the other individual companies or the others from those two after the two year period when it slowed down.
Am I happy people lost their homes? No but I am happy to have enough business to not join them in that. It's also not all grannies and families out on the street and living under bridges. Some of them you could see were people who bought it to flip it then the market tanked. Oh well. You lay down with a gorilla you gonna eat nanners. But all you have to do is look around to see that there are NOT thousands of families living in boxcars and under bridges. They are renting now. And so opportunities increase in the rental property business.
To be successful one can't be a nervous Nellie or a chicken little. One must look for ways to capitalize on any given situation. "Luck favors the prepared." Or if you're religious, "when God closes a door he opens a window."
Oh, by the way, word on the street is that in the next year to year and a half I will see another big surge in the foreclosure rekey market.

What might be really interesting is the future of commercial/office real estate as a consequence of many working from home. A lot of employers have finally come to trust they will get productivity from people without forcing them to come to a common place of work. They are questioning the need to spend as much as they have on rent and infrastructure.

In many Canadian cities, home ownership is not a possibility For many as a result of inflated prices. We might start to see vacant office space turned into rental or condo accommodation. There is certainly a need.

I live between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. and the market here is as hot as ever. Houses are being sold for asking, or above asking the day they go up for sale, sometimes!

Interesting thought about commercial real estate, David... or the office furniture business, or retail places like Staples, for that matter.

Originally Posted by DZEC

Agree. With low mortgage interest rates, real estate has proven to be a much sounder investment than almost anything else in the last 10 years. And, in Canada, when you sell your principal residence, any profit you make is tax free.

Yes, that has been the case but also housing markets have crashed too in the past. If you needed to sell in those circumstances you do loose money. It is just like the stock market in some cases.

In order to claim a residence as you principle one you must live in it for 1 year to avoid paying capital gains tax which can take the joy out of flipping property.

The big difference between Canada and the US wrt to housing is that in Canada you cannot claim any interest paid on a mortgage of your principle residence as a tax deduction on your Federal tax return.

Bob

Originally Posted by DZEC

What might be really interesting is the future of commercial/office real estate as a consequence of many working from home. A lot of employers have finally come to trust they will get productivity from people without forcing them to come to a common place of work. They are questioning the need to spend as much as they have on rent and infrastructure.

In many Canadian cities, home ownership is not a possibility For many as a result of inflated prices. We might start to see vacant office space turned into rental or condo accommodation. There is certainly a need.

Yes that is an interesting thought.

The housing market is just that, a market. The house prices are driven by what the maximum price people are willing/can pay. If home ownership becomes impossible in an area then you are simply not making enough money to live there.

Bob