Today is Thursday November the 3rd 2016 and this is the 42nd episode of the Marshall Report. Welcome to the podcast.
In today’s episode:
1. Causeway Bay
2. Condos and towns
3. Retail news
4. Returning to normal (maybe)
5. The power of a podcast
6. M.T. Facebook
7. Thinking small
8. Standard Time
9. Don’t be afraid
10. Living in the past, present and future.
Let’s get on with the show
Causeway Bay
We have the first ten days of the trip planned out. We found a small but nice airbnb in Causeway Bay on Hong Kong island. That will be an excellent base. I stayed in Causeway Bay once before, back in 1989, with Mr Friendly. We were a couple of young guys looking for fun or trouble in Hong Kong, but we couldn’t find any. Hong Kong already had matured and become respectable. I’m wondering now if it is like Taiwan. I wonder if it has become a bit of a backwater.
I went back to Chapters and bought a Hong Kong travel book. That is all I need. I could leave tomorrow. I’m ready. But we have to wait till after Christmas.
Question of the week: What’s the difference between a condo and a townhouse?
Answer: This is more confusing than it have to be, but we have lots of terms in real estate and if you’ve worked in any industry for awhile you begin to take things for granted. Last week at a client meeting I used the word freehold and happily, luckily my client stopped me and asked, “what’s a freehold?”
A freehold is the opposite of condo. With a freehold, you own the structure and the land it sits on. This is a traditional form of ownership.
With a condo, it is more complicated. Usually with condos, you own the unit but share the common elements. The common elements might include the hallways, the elevators, the parking garage and the garden and driveway.
A condo unit can be an apartment unit or a townhouse unit. I think this is where the confusion lies.
So, what’s the difference between a condo and a townhouse?
A townhouse or a town home is a physical description whereas a condo or condominium is a legal description. That is why freehold town homes is a thing.
Here’s some retail news
The new Costco on Erb Street West is set to open next week. November 8th is the day. Grab your wallet and fill your cart. I can never get out of there without spending at least $300.
Part of a pilot program, you can now buy wine at a grocery store in Kitchener. The Farm Boy store on Fairway Road is our local part of the program that may eventually lead to beer and cider being available in up to 450 grocery stores and wine in 300 stores across Ontario.
I don’t know about you but I get a real thrill when asked for i.d. at the Northfield Sobeys.
Returning to normal
It feels so weird to say this. We are very adaptable. We get used to our new environments.
When I lived on Vancouver Island, many many moons ago, I got used to the majestic beauty of the mountains and the forests and the water. All the water. Water, water everywhere.
And when I lived in Taipei almost as many moons ago, I got used to the heat and the pollution and the traffic.
And this year, I have gotten used to competing offers and I have gotten used to losing, not being in control, not knowing how much was enough, how much time my clients had…I got used to a new level of uncertainty. I got used to being quicker and less cautious.
But now maybe things are going to go back. My clients won one last week. There was only one other offer. And, they got to do a home inspection. Maybe things are really going to go back to the way they were.
An long time agent I know says she thinks so.
I feel it. I feel like the real estate market is returning to normal. It might take a while, but we are headed in that direction now.
The power of a podcast
If you are a fan of podcasts, and I think you are, you might be familiar with this name Adnan Syed. He’s the guy who was convicted of killing his girlfriend back in the year 2000. He was the protagonist in the first season of Serial, the podcast that launched a lot of awareness in the medium.
For Adnan, the podcast more importantly lead to a review of his murder conviction and he has been granted now the right to a new trail. His lawyers last week filed a motion to have him released on bail saying that he in not a danger to the public and has been locked up unjustly for 17 years already.
There is a link to the New York Times story in the show notes
Here is a captured thought.
I was wondering what would happen if I deleted everyone and everything from my facebook feed. Would I get a blank page?
I don’t think so. Facebook would have to serve up something, right?
The advantages of thinking small
Here’s a newsflash. Canadian home sizes are getting smaller. Oh, boy. Gone are the days of 60-foot frontages. Gone are the McMansion Days. Good bye. It was nice knowing you.
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, Canadians on average have the third-largest homes of all countries. Only Australian and the USA have larger. Of course we know the reasons for this.
We are becoming more urban as a population. Land is not cheap in Toronto, Vancouver or Kitchner-Waterloo for that matter.
Related to that, we are building more and more condo units.
Condo units are getting smaller and smaller too.
And finally and interestingly, immigration numbers are way up and will remain so over the next five years. This will keep demand and prices high. Also, those arriving in Canada may not have the same size expectations, creating demand for smaller units
Personally I think living small is great news. We don’t need the space. In the old days we needed a tv, a desktop computer, a stereo system, book shelves… now we only need a decent laptop. We never needed a formal dining room and a living room that never got used. Living in a smaller house has advantages. It is good for your mental health, cheaper to heat and cheaper to renovate.
Standard time
I slept in today.
I usually like to get up between 6 and 7, which I think is rare for a realtor. When I worked at Royal Lepage, we never scheduled any meetings before 1:30, after lunch, after a relaxing and somewhat lazy morning morning for most of my colleagues. Makes sense. A lot of our workday starts when our clients’ ends. We work evenings and weekends after all.
Daylight Savings Time ends this weekend. That’s right, we return to Standard Time. Personally I prefer Daylight Savings Time. I would rather have the extra hour in the evening rather than the morning and I’m an early bird. I’m up most days bird early, before the sun.
Changing the time bothers a lot of people. It is one of those fundamentals in life. It’s like changing the rules. Its like saying black is white or black is black except when it is white. It’s like putting $500 in the free parking in Monopoly. It’s like having a special pricing system, currency or real estate investment rules for foreigners. It’s like the time I parked in a downtown Toronto parking lot. ‘Park all day $10’ the sign said. When I came to pick up car the guy wanted another $10.
“I paid on the way in”, I said.
“Yeah, but that was to park during the daytime. Now its night. The day ends at 6pm.”
“No. The day ends at midnight.”
Long story short, I paid another $10.
So at 2am on Sunday morning, we have to change our clocks back. We lose an hour. I think this is a crazy idea. I think we should stay on Daylight Savings Time all year round, or even do double Daylight Savings Time. That would be good.
Don’t be afraid
Last week I blogged about the ‘us vs. Them’ mentality when it comes to KW real estate. “Foreign investors and Toronto buyers are ruining our market”, people say. I hear it all the time. Last week I argued that there is no ‘us and them’. There is only us. We are all in this together.
We should not blame outsiders for what is happening in our real estate market. We have to instead adjust to the new reality.
Honestly, the real culprit is ourselves. We fail to act, to adjust because we are afraid of making a mistake. That is the issue. We do not want to make mistakes.
When I first got into real estate I heard from buyers all the time that the market was over-heated and they were going to wait for the bubble to burst. They were going to wait till the price dropped by 20%, (always 20%), but that was ten years ago and on the heals of the real estate meltdown and financial crisis in the US. What they were really doing was procrastinating. They didn’t want to make a mistake. They were taking some information and rationalizing it to meet their own decision.
Of course, ultimately, they made a mistake inadvertently through their failure to act. House prices did not drop by 20%, they never do. They went up by near 100%.
Don’t be afraid. That is your call to action
And I will leave you with this parting thought.
You can live in three different time dimensions in your head. The past, the present and the future. If you live in the past, you are always wondering why. That means you are always wondering why things happened. If you live in the future, you are always wondering ‘what if?’. We don’t know ‘what if?’ The future is uncertain and the end is alway near.
That leaves us with the present.
Now.
What are you going to do?
