“Our Absolute Bottom Line” in Squamish – “We just received an offer on our house of $510k, $30k under our asking price and $10k under our absolute bottom line. We bought it in 2003 for $270k.”

The bubble has rendered these participants seemingly blasé about the meaning of >$400K tax free profit. Also, take note of the concept of “our absolute bottom line” that appears unrelated to anything to do with the market, and rather to be about arbitrary personal needs or wishes. -vreaa

[UPDATE 2 May 2010 late evening – please see clarifying comments from Bailing in BC in the comments section and my comment in response. Also, I have subsequently altered my preamble to read ‘seemingly blasé’ -vreaa]

This from Bailing in BC at greaterfool.ca 30 Apr 2010 –

“We just received an offer on our house of $510k, $30k under our asking price and $10k under our absolute bottom line.  If we really wanted to sell the house we would take it but we are questioning our resolve to actually sell. The house is in Squamish.  We bought it in 2003 for $270k and of course the place skyrocketed.  At the high point of the market we could probably have got $580-600k for it but prices went down and Squamish has not bounced back completely.  We don’t imagine that it will for many years.  We only have $80k left on the mortgage, because we sold a rental property in Summer 2008 and paid down the mortgage. I strongly feel that housing market will go down considerably.  The house is old and is due for quite a bit of maintenance but is comfortable and we could see ourselves living here for a long time.  The house also has a suite that we rent for $900 per month and herein lies our problem.  If we sell the property we would probably be looking at spending $1600 per month on a rental, we would also be losing $900 per month in income.  If we sell after Realtor commission we will be left with $413,000.  I have no background in investing outside of real estate, and frankly I’m afraid of the money.  I don’t feel confident that we will be able to get enough of a return to replace what we are losing and I’m afraid of losing more money by mismanaging it. The plan of course was to cash in on the bubble and buy back in when the price drops but now that the moment of truth arrives, we have cold feet.”