Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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I wonder what our house is worth

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I’m starting to think that I should call our real estate broker and get our house appraised!

Every week we receive a few promo flyers from the various real estate agents or companies that work in our area and the prices of houses around here have just gone up and up since we purchased our home in June of 2001.

One of the real estate flyers we got today is for an open house for a detached home less than a block away from my house. I know exactly which house it is, and even though it’s detached (small walkway between houses – which means no driveway, no garage etc) there’s no way that this house is any bigger than my own. In fact it might even be smaller.

Plus, we have a shared driveway. This house doesn’t even have a driveway! We’d have to share our drive with our neighbor if she had a car with maybe one of us parking on the street every second week or something, but at least we have a driveway and space between our houses!

Take a wild guess how much the asking price is?

$499,000! Uh huh. Really.

We bought our house 6 years ago for less than 200,000 and at that time it was a steal because the rest of the houses in the neighborhood were going at $250,000 plus. The owners needed to sell the house to move into their new retirement home by a certain date. That’s why we got such a great deal on a solid house – new roof, new windows, new water pipes. There was nothing we had to do to fix up the house.

So I figure our semi-detached house would go for about $400,000 – perhaps even without or reno complete!

Not that we are planning on moving anytime soon. I mean, if we moved we’d more than likely end up purchasing a house about the same size in the $400,000 + range since the market is high right now. We’d gain, but the new house would be expensive.

Still it’d be nice to get our home appraised just to see what it would be worth on todays real estate market. Unless a prospective buyer hates yard work of any kind I’m sure our landscaped front and backyard gardens would help set the price a bit higher too.

Have you ever had your home appraised just for the heck of it to see what it would be worth if you decided to sell?





Real Estate as an investment

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Almost all my life I’ve heard people talk about real estate as being an investment. Some thought of it as a personal investment, while others were interested in real estate as a business related investment. It just depended upon who I was talking to and what year it was, as to which form of real estate investment I heard discussed most often.

When I worked in the jewelery trade, with people that had money to invest, real estate was discussed as a way to earn extra income. Whether it was to be in the form of purchasing houses or condos as rental properties, or because of the real estates location.

For me, investing in real estate is personal. I took the steps to purchase a house because I knew I would own something that would grown in value with time. I also invested in property because I wanted to have more space and the freedom to do what I wanted, rather than living by someone else’s rules.

I lived in an apartment for over a decade before we purchased our house. All that time I was paying rent for a space I’d never own. A property that I’d never have a say in how it was run or managed.

If you’ve been considering purchasing a house or condo you might want to use this site to compare mortgage rates. I think it’s always a good idea to find out how much you’ll be able to afford to pay for a mortgage each month and what the current rates are before you start looking for a property.

If I were going to invest in another property I’d likely buy in an area that I’d want to vacation in and one that might also be popular for others to vacation in so that I could rent the property out whenever I didn’t want to use it.

I’m not sure where I’d look for such a property at this time, but I keep hearing about Ashevile Real Estate, and how Asheville is a growing community in the Blue Ridge Mountains area, so I suppose that that might be a great are to look into as far as real estate investing goes.

Have you invested in real estate? If so, was it for personal use, or a business related purchase?

Condos as investment properties

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When Chris and I were first shopping around for a new home we mainly looked at houses, but we also looked at a few condos.

Having lived in an apartment for far too many years I really wasn’t all that interested in living in a condo so I’m happy that we opted to purchase the house that we currently live in.

I did get some ideas about purchasing a condo as an investment property though and if I ever get enough extra money saved up I might buy a condo that I’d use to rent out.

Coincidentally, while I was looking into condos as an investment I came across the concept of Condo Hotels. These are basically properties that function like hotels but if I have the concept down pat each condo is owned by a separate investor. The management company does all the work as far as taking bookings and serving the clients that book the condos.

Typically these type of condos are not rented out for just a day or two like a normal hotel room would be. No, they are rented for a week or a month at a time. Perhaps by a business person that’s in town doing business for a few months.

It’s an interesting idea. Certainly if you liked the idea of purchasing a condo as an investment property but didn’t want to do all the work of maintaining the condo and making sure that the condo was booked most of the year something like a condo hotel would be a great option.

I’d love to live in the mountains

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If I were considering moving anywhere I think I’d want to move somewhere where I’d have a view of mountains and gorgeous scenery every day no matter what the season. Can you imagine the photographs I’d be posting if I lived in a place of such majestic beauty!

There are a few places on my short list of mountainous areas that I’d probably enjoy living in and one of those is the community of Asheville, which is located in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

Now I’ve never been there, but from what I’ve been reading on the Asheville Real Estate website I do think that I’d like the area. The town of Asheville itself is a growing community with good schools, shopping, arts and entertainment available to all residents of the area.

The community is actually growing quite fast, so now would be a good time to take a look at Asheville homes as I believe they are a worthy investment and sure to continue to be a good investment.

There are even some beautiful luxury homes in the Asheville area. Just take a look at this map called luxury homes Asheville that has markers placed where all the luxury homes that are for sale are located. Wow, there’s some nice homes there with beautiful views!

If anyone lives in this area of Carolina I’d love to hear from you. Honestly, I’d love to live near a beautiful mountain range such as this some day.

I need a holiday

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LOL ok in light of what I just said below I think I’m definitely going to plan at least a weeks holiday in the near future. I really think I need a break.

Perhaps I’ll look into one of those Virgin Island yacht charters … well if I come into a lot of money maybe I will. I think it’d be too hot to go to a Caribbean island or another warm location at this time of year.

Perhaps I’ll just rent a cottage for a week in Northern Ontario. That’s more my cup of tea anyway. I haven’t been camping or canoeing in ages and I really miss doing that.

I grew up having a cottage and we went there pretty much every weekend throughout my childhood. I really miss not having a cottage to go to anymore. Hey, maybe what I should do is look into buy a cottage instead of just thinking about renting one. Yes I know cottage properties are pretty darn expensive, but this half city half country girl could sure use a place to retreat to every now and then.

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