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Matsu
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2004
 
2022-04-04, 08:24

Everyone is doing the same calculus. The wealthiest people do their own version of “drive till you qualify” - they can afford to live closer, but they might want a little more elbow room, so they move out a bit and buy 4500 sq-ft new build suburban McMansions or find a small home on a big lot and knock it down to custom build.

I can’t figure out the suburban condo market. I get paying for a box in the sky when it’s connected to a downtown core, waterfront, business/cultural/commercial district. It doesn’t have to be huge centre either, even being in the centre of a smaller city/town can have its charms, but if you see what people are paying for space in 30 storey towers beside strip plazas and highways, I don’t get that at all, not why the planning regime allows such disconnected development either.

On the topic of inspections, we used one when we bought our place, and it pointed to a lot of problems, some obvious. I think it was a useful tool in negotiating our conditional offer down after making an offer closer to the original ask, but the property had also been on the market for 5 months with no takers. It was priced too high in a hot market and 5 months earlier the agent wouldn’t even take lower offers to the client.

Personally, I think he was incompetent. The house was priced just over entry for the neighbourhood, but had issues. Still, based on two previous near misses, he might have got his original ask 5 months earlier just by low balling the listing and letting the DIY Renovators bid it up. I was pretty certain going in that the only things we could afford would require some significant refinishing, so if it meant doing a little more involved renovation/repair, I was OK with that.

It sat for so long, that the comparables were creeping up by the time we pulled the trigger. I still think I paid about 50k too much, but I paid about 110k less than asking and there was literally nothing else we were willing to afford in the neighbourhood at the time, unless it was either on a major road or backing onto one. To think that 4.5 years later this place is nearly double? Ummm. It’s bound to come down a bit, but it’s still going to trend higher because there isn’t enough ground level supply…
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