Today is February 25, 2016. This is the eighth episode of the Marshall Report. Welcome to the podcast.
In this episode:
1. 30-day challenges
2. Obstacles to homeownership
3. We have an airport
4. Student housing
5. My sister’s new car.
6. Skidoo and Winterloo
7. Chattels
8. Bacon Double Cheeseburger
9. Questioning authority
10. High speed wobble
No Netflix
I’ve got some winter projects. This podcast of course. Moving my office. And some life hacks and 30-day challenges.
I like 30 day challenges. It is a great way to change behaviours and habits.
The first one, I sailed through. Getting up at 4:30am. It was easy because when I started it I was still on an Asian time zone. Also it’s easy to go to bed before 9:00 when it’s already been dark for five hours.
It is amazing how much you can get done before 10am when you are at your desk at 5am. By lunchtime, I’ve basically had a full day.
That done, I took on my 2nd 30-day challenge. No Netflix. We don’t have cable TV and were early adopters of Netflix. But now it seems the novelty has worn off and I’ve seen everything good. So I’m into my second week of 30-days without Netflix and I don’t miss it at all
What’s the biggest obstacle to finding the best house?
This week’s question comes to us over the chat widget. I’ve started turning it on again for a couple of hours a day, here and there when I don’t mind being interrupted. It is actually kind of fun. Life is random.
So the question is: What’s the biggest obstacle to finding the best house?
I don’t really like broad and/or hypothetical questions. But here goes.
Time is always an obstacle. Sometimes you don’t have enough time and you have to settle for a pretty good house instead of waiting for the prefect house. Sometimes people start too late in their home search.
Sometimes you have too much time and no urgency to decide and you let a really good house, a house that only comes up once a year, slip away.
You can’t time the real estate market either. A great house might be listed in August, but you are on vacation in August, or at your sister’s wedding. Sometimes that one weekend you are not looking a great house comes up and is sold.
Another obstacle not to finding the best house but buying the best house is other people. There are lots of other buyers out there looking for exactly what you are looking for. They want a modern house with an open concept layout. Walk in closet and ensuite bathroom, a walkout basement and backing on to green space in a quiet neighbourhood with a good school, near shopping. When that house comes up other people are going to be your biggest obstacle.
ATM
There has been a rash of ATM robberies this winter around KW. Those guys get up early too maybe they are on a 30-day challenge like me or maybe they just stay up late. If you are out and about at 5am, be on the lookout for a pickup truck towing a ATM. They’ve gotten four so far and were foiled by the fuzz once. We’ve got to catch those guys. Actually, if they don’t move to a new town they will get caught. They started in Guelph, then Kitchener Waterloo. Any guesses where they will hit next?
Stratford maybe? Woodstock?
I always think of this sort of crime as a big city problem, but I guess it happens here too.
A little information is a dangerous thing
I was talking with a Toronto agent the other day. Those guys don’t know what’s going on here.
‘I hear Google is coming’.
‘Well’, yeah, Google has been here for a few years.’
(We get that one all the time.)
‘I hear you’re getting an airport’.
‘Yeah, we have a busy international airport already’
It was a busy year for our airport.That would be the Region of Waterloo International Airport. There was an almost 6% increase in passenger traffic.
I use the airport. My mom uses the airport. My friend Paul uses the airport.
My friend Paul tells a funny story about flying out to Ottawa.
He got pulled out of line and had his luggage searched. Nobody likes that. He was a little miffed by having someone go through his suitcases. And Paul is the kind of guy who speaks his mind, so I guess he made a bit of a fuss. But then eventually he gets on the flight and he is the only one on the plane. He is the only passenger. He had the whole plane to himself.
What? What? He says, still mad about the search, am I going to blow myself up?
Selling student housing
So back to those Toronto agents. They are still selling Waterloo student housing to Richmond Hill investors.
And I had a call from an agent in my brokerage asking me why his two listings haven’t had any traffic in six months on the market. “They are fully rented”, he said. “Isn’t Google coming? The builder said that these aren’t just for students. Families could live here too.”
They are priced too high. I told him. There are cheaper options. Toronto investors want pre-construction and local investors don’t want student rentals. There is a growing inventory of just built student condo units and soon to be built student condo units that are flooding the market.
The builder sold them at a future value price.
There was a time that builders would discount new developments to get them started. They would offer early investors deals but not anymore. Now its all shock and awe, greed and avarice. Dog and pony shows with smoke and mirrors.
So I had to spend some time telling him that he does not understand our local dynamics, and our local geography. And he shouldn’t believe anything he reads about the region that is produced outside the region.
There is a shift going on in our student housing market. I wrote about this before. The old houses that would be crammed with students a decade ago are half empty now. The rental housing bylaw and the zoning changes to allow for high density corridors around the university district are too of the influencers to all this.
My sister’s new car story
You can buy a car on the internet
You can buy a book on the internet
You can buy a cell phone charger on the internet
But you can’t buy a house on the internet.
Skidoo
I was listening to a podcast the other day; I think it was a marketing podcast, but I don’t remember. It’s not important:
When the first skidoo was launched way back in 1959, by Bombarier (the same people bringing us the LRT) Skidoos were suppose to be called the Skidogs. It was a typo on the marketing material that gave us what is pretty much a genetic term now for snowmobile.
Skidoo
Skidog
In a related story, due to another mix up at Bombarier, our new LRT will not be called the ION, it will now be called the idog.
Ion
Idog
I can’t make this stuff up
I just did.
Which reminds me, this weekend in UpTown Waterloo, its the Winterloo Festival which was formally called the Icedog Festival.
Thats true
I didn’t make that up.
Elves
I received an offer the other day on a bungalow I have for sale. In the offer under ‘chattels included’ it says: existing fridge, stove, dishwasher, washer, dryer and elfs.
I think that was suppose to be shelves, so I changed it to that for the sign back The house doesn’t have any elves, none that I am aware of anyway.
Bacon Double Cheeseburger
This has nothing to do with real estate but there is guy in England who recently changed his name to Bacon Double Cheeseburger.
His mother hates it but his father thinks its hilarious. His work friends are supportive. Mr Cheeseburger now ends his emails with B D Cheeseburger.
Bacon Double Cheeseburger, formally known as Simon Smith changed his name because he loves bacon double cheeseburgers. I don’t think its a good idea to change your name to something you love. That goes for tattoos too.
I’ve got some favourite names, I wish were real.
Slarty Bardfast
McLovin
Saul Goodman
I’ve thought many times how fun it would be to change my name, but there are just too many options
This week’s call to action is to question your beliefs.
We all have these thoughts and beliefs, prejudices and darling ideas. We believe them, because the world is a complex place and we have to anchor ourselves to something.
But what if much of what we know is wrong? Or what if it is half right but you don’t know which half? We look through the world through our own lenses.
What if your belief structure is built on shifting sand?
That’s OK. The world is changing. There are no sure things but there are safe bets.
Sometimes the counter-intuitive thing is the thing that works best. Sometimes if everyone is doing something, it might be better to do something else.
There was quote about the stock market crash back in the 20’s. I can’t remember exactly how it went but it was something like this.
When your shoeshine boy starts giving you stock market advice, then it’s time to get out of the stock market.
So the call to action this week is to question what you read, question your own beliefs, question authority because authority corrupts and absolute authority corrupts absolutely.
When I say authority, I mean anyone who claims to be an expert, like me, like newspaper reporters, like policy makers. You know we are all making this up as we go along. We are all looking through our own lenses too.
Be Opposite George for a day. Do the counter-intuitive, go against your nature and habit and see how your world changes.
Parting thought.
The path to home ownership is not a straight line. It’s a wobble. In a competitive real estate marketplace, it’s a high speed wobble.
Update:
I received the following text from a podcast listener.
I saw your blog/podcast thingy. Good stuff as always. Thought you might want to know that elfs are standard terminology in Toronto. Almost every listing has them. Stands for electric light fixtures. Wasn’t sure if you know that and wanted to make a joke or it it is not common around KW to use the term. In any case, I though you might want to know.
Well, how about that? Now I feel kind of silly. I guess the joke is on me.
