Grumpy Exec at vancouvercondo.info 3 Jun 2010 8:40 am -
“A new mid-20s colleague of mine was talking about her and her husband’s recent condo purchase in the summer in the “New Yaletown” in Surrey (not sure where that is). She is on a temporary contract when she bought, and proudly announced in the logbook that she was off to sign her first mortgage payments. She continuously says that being a homeowner is the “responsible thing to do” and “nothing like being an adult” because you are a homeowners.
She was talking about her condo life, and looking to buy a house in Surrey as well, and maybe keep the condo as an investment because it had gone up 30k. She was looking, in part, to buy a house because condo life is not exactly what they were thinking it was going to be. They have 3am fire alarms being pulled, and a lot of units are “rented” which is undesirable in her mind. Her husband sits on the strata council and they have a tough time trying to approve repairs. Apparently a lot of absentee landowners.
My other colleague, who agrees that prices are unsustainable, questioned her as to how she was liking her condo and how the house hunting was going. He noted that the market was slowly changing and that with the large number of absentee landowners, making repairs is only going to get worse. The best was when he said that when prices drop a lot of them will leave. Then her 5% downpayment would be gone (don’t know if that is all she put down though). She promptly left the room.
This was the day when the FV stats came out and said highest inventory since 1995. I just about lost it on her about the “responsible” part since I am a senior executive that rents, and putting 5% down is not “responsible” at all. But my colleague put her in her place inadvertently by making fun of the fact that a 5% price decline means her 5% would be gone…”
