Today is Thursday October 20th 2016 and this is the 40th episode of The Marshall Report. Welcome to the podcast.
In this week’s episode:
1. Dark before the dawn in downtown Kitchner
2. To rent and save or buy and move? That is the question of the week.
3. Iron Horse Trail improvements
4. Groundhog day, all over again
5. Writing for the right reasons
6. Horseshoe theory
7. Us and them
8. The Bone Zone
9. Be sure
10. Praying for rain
Let’s get on with the show
Dark before the dawn in downtown Kitchner
I will be so happy when this American election is over. I am so tired of that.
I will also be happy, so happy when the LRT construction is over. I was talking with a businessman the other day about Kitchener. He is setting up shop here, or at least strongly considering setting up shop here. But what he reads in the Communitech and media websites does not conform with what he sees on the streets of Kitchener. I used to work in downtown Kitchener. Ten years ago it was a quickly evolving and vibrant place, but not now. Theses are the darkest days. It is always darkest before the dawn. The LRT construction has changed the will for me to go downtown. And I’m not alone. You never know where the construction detours will be. You don’t know where to park. It is the uncertainty that keeps us away. That and the wasted time and inconvenience.
So I told this to the businessman. The problem with downtown Kitchener is not that there are too many street urchins, hobos and drug addled gang bangers, and transient spare changers. Every city has its fair share of problem citizens. The problem is that the good citizens are not out in numbers. Once the LRT is up and running, once downtown condo units fill up, then I think we will see a huge change.
Question of the week
This week our question comes to us by email. It is about choices.
Hi Keith,
I was just reading you blog and thought I’d ask for some advice.
I’m hoping to buy a house within the next couple of years in one of the many small communities outside K/W/Cambridge.
I currently looking to rent for the short term until a property becomes available that I’m happy with, and can afford.
My question is, I have $110k saved up for a down payment. Would it be better to buy a condo now or rent until a house I like comes along? If I bought a condo, should I sell it when it comes time to move, or keep it and rent it out afterwards?
Thanks for your help
Dean
It is hard to answer questions like this.
I could say:
Since it seems like you are close in terms of savings to buying a house, I would wait and do that rather than buy a condo now. The condo market is very soft in relation to single detached houses. It would be disadvantageous to get locked into an investment you don’t really want.
Or I could go the other way and say:
With the market rising so fast, instead of renting, it would be best if you buy something, anything as leverage against rising prices. A rising tide lifts all boats. If you are renting, you’re not a boat. You’re a rock.
Iron Horse Trail improvements.
There is an open house next week for the public to see the proposed $750,000 improvements plan to the Iron Horse Trail. The plan is to widen it, add directional signs, benches and community gardens.
I like the trail. I’ve walked it from uptown Waterloo to Victoria Park and then back again.
In the summertime, I like to bike the length of it and then continue around Rockway Gardens and the golf course before heading back home. More than 1700 people use the trail on a nice day and even in the middle of winter almost 300 people use it.
It was opened in 1998 on the site of a disused rail line. The plan is to spend $2.5 million over the next several years. Money well spent, I say.
The new rules for successful offers
The old rules don’t work.
The new rules don’t work.
You can’t depend on the comparables. You can’t depend on some ratio of price to assessed value. (You never could.) So what are the new rules for successful offers?
I wrote about that here.
I’ve been trying to write more. Not just here, but in my personal anonymous blog. I do it because I like to do it. Writing is one of my five things.
I don’t believe that I am a great writer. Except for taking English in high school, I have no formal training. I can’t kid myself. I actually like mixing metaphors.
But I’ve written a lot and I read a lot and I think this is good enough training to do what I want to do.
About reading, I’ve never read the classics. I find the sentences too long and too passive. I would rather read Steven King than Thomas Hardy.
About writing, I usually just take an idea, something that is interesting to me and write my thoughts on it.
That’s it. That’s all. It’s not brain surgery and its not rocket science. It just is what it is.
Here is a captured thought. With so much in the news about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I stumbled across something called the Horseshoe theory The horseshoe theory in political science asserts that rather than the far left and the far right being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear political continuum, they in fact closely resemble one another, much like the ends of a horseshoe. Proponents of the theory point to similarities between the extreme left and the extreme right. They are really much closer to each other than the middle.
That makes sense to me.
Us and them
As a professional full time Realtor I read and hear a lot about the real estate market, some of which is not entirely accurate. Somehow it seems that we always default to us vs them.
Them currently is buyers from Toronto.
Then currently is buyers from China.
I wrote about that here.
Bone Zone
Remember the Harlem Shake? I don’t blame you if you don’t. It was nothing. It was an internet meme that burst onto the scene about a year and a half ago and then just as quickly disappeared.
There have been dozens of internet memes since then and there will be more to come.
Last week it was Ken Bone.
He emerged during the second so-called presidential debate. He looked and acted like a bit of a rube. He stood out because he was different, awkward. How did this guy get on tv?
But like all memes he quickly disappeared again. What a waste of time. What a useless diversion. What fun we had. We built him up, put him on national TV and then knocked him down again. Ken Bone learned what other internet memes have learned – you can be famous for 15 minutes but it is going to cost you a lifetime of grief.
It can be argued that Ken Bone did it to himself, but really we all know that the internet did it.
There are two ways to rip off a bandage. Fast or slow. Personally, I’ve thought about this and experienced it and I think fast is best. This week’s call to action is to just get it over with. Rip off that bandage. Jump in with both feet. Be sure. Don’t hesitate. There are second chances in real estate and third and more but they will cost you more. The people who are successful at buying houses right now are sure.
Put another way, if you are not sure you want it, you’re not getting it.
I’ll leave you with this parting thought. When you pray for rain, you have to deal with the mud too.
