Hahaha yes... well this place is 5 stories tall, weird combination of all-concrete building and still a low-rise

I remember I watched a short documentary a few years back outlined the epidemic which was “concrete cancer” in the states

Basically water ingress and rusting/deteriorating rebar and structural steel in everything from massive bridges to high rises in the states because there was no money to even inspect a lot of it, let alone repair it.

Wonder how that’s going lol

Well this is a pleasant surprise -- was doing some other stuff in online banking when I noticed my bank has already dropped the mortgage interest rate. I certainly wasn't expecting them to react quite so quickly, so now the next (weekly) mortgage payment just got a tiny bit cheaper.

Time to treat myself to an extra cup of coffee this weekend?

NO... avocado toast bro

I got you there.

there's quite a few reports out about how old and fucked the US infrastructure is

Anyone refinance their home to buy a second property in the last couple of years?

A friend of mine did it last month. Bought a Duplex over 10 years ago in Burnaby for $500k. Was down to his last $100k principle and bought a $1million TH in Vancouver.

I assumed he was going to rent the TH but he told me that he and his whole family (2 young children) will move into the TH which is half the size of the duplex and they'll rent out the duplex.

He's put up so much shit on FB marketplace because it won't fit in the new place :lol

Whatever floats your goat

If you have a tonne of equity I guess it’s OK

But I think the same thing applies in terms of that type of investment being a poor return overall relative to just investing in a market fund etc. your return is basically the appreciation of the property

So I went to check mine, and yes it did also go down by .25% as expected, so it's basically back to where it was prior to the past hike.

However, the payment amount is ever so slightly more than what the payment was when it was that at that rate last year. I would have expected the payment to be exactly the same (or even lower now since we've paid down more principal). Yes I kept records of all the rate hikes and payments over the life of the mortgage.

Anyone know why?

If your mortgage renewal is coming up, are most people agreeing that variable is the way to go?

The chances of rates going back up is pretty low right? It would either stay where its at or maybe even cut another 25 points? Are there arguments for fixed rate right now in this climate?

Aren't there several studies out there that said you always win long-term with variable over the life of your mortgage?

One obvious sign of that is the bank always WANTS to lock you in. Safe to assume that if the bank wants you to do something, it's for their benefit not yours.

I no longer have one, but for the last 20 years I did have a mortgage I definitely won BIG doing variable floating the entire time. Only the last year hurt a bit more, the rest of it I was laughing.

A friend is renewing right now and we were looking at the offerings, the banks have priced in the the rate cuts, you aren't winning whether if you are doing variable or fixed for 2-3 years. Anything more it's probably a bit of a gamble.

I think that's because the mortgage rate environment was decreasing over the last 15 years so Variable is the winner for sure, but if you renewed and did variable in 2021, you definitely were losing. It might have been the only time in recent history that you would be losing with variable.

1973 / 1979 has entered the chat

I renewed my mortgage this week. In my opinion, the move is a 3-year fixed based on information available today, which is what we chose.

For round numbers, a 3-year fixed is 5.00% and a 5-year variable is 6.00% today. On the surface, you'd say "I need 4 rate cuts" but the math actually says that you need a lot more.

I built a simple financial model that assumes you have a rate cut every 3 months - it takes 8 rate cuts, and then the rate holding at 4.00% for the remainder of the 3 years to break even.

It also means that for my own $800,000 mortgage, the going in rate being 1.00% higher means my monthly payment is about $500 higher.

All in all, I believe that the chances of having more than 8 rate cuts in the next 3 years are not all that high, and the higher mortgage payment today is a negative for me. So I'll take a 3 year fixed and reassess then.

-Mark

I dunno man, I locked in for 5 years at 2.5% back in 2019. It was definitely me laughing, not the bank :lol

I feel you're gonna get close to 5% on a variable by the end of the year. By next summer I think you will be over paying at 5% fixed.

In my opinion, there is 0 chance you are getting to anywhere near 5% on a variable this year. There's a good chance of another rate cut in late July, but it could just as easily end up pushed out further to September or beyond.

From there, it is unlikely we get further rate cuts in Canada unless the US starts cutting rates also, which is a much murkier call as neither the economy nor the average consumer is nearly as tight as they are in Canada.

By end of next year, you certainly could end up at around 5%, but the relevant thing is if it takes 18 months to get there, then you need rates to keep going further down beyond that in the 18 months after that to break even to a fixed rate. And that's where I have a hard time seeing the likelihood of that. The central banks are not ever going to prime rates as low as they were, that is for sure, so the "upside" of further reduction is not so easy to see.

We can revisit this in 3 years and see how well or poorly I did. I suspect it is going to end up being a wash for anybody who took variable today versus 3 year fixed today, with my odds being on slightly better for the fixed, and a lower payment today.

-Mark

Thanks Mark for the insight, we are just starting to shop, renewal in October~

We were leaning towards keeping it variable, but now looking at it, maybe 3 year fix is the way to go.

Man, Revscene been giving me life advice for almost 2 decades now~~

You're missing the part where I said over the entirety of your mortgage... so 20-30 years.

I'm not talking 1 renewal period.

Do you guys think it would be hard to turn around in this driveway?

https://www.redfin.ca/bc/vancouver/6...home/156115437

I'm just imaging paying $27M for a house and I can't easily turn my car around.

$27m and over 10000sq? I don't see it, all those rooms are the size of average hotel rooms. Nothing feels $27m about it.

It's probably a pain to park but even worse for your delivery people - how will your caterers get food to your backyard parties?

Assessed at only $11m so the seller is delusional. It's a double wide, more than double depth lot so I can see it going for $15-20m but def not $27m.

I have no clue how much installing a car turntable costs, but I imagine a homebuyer with a $27M budget can find the money to install one if 3-point turns are too peasant-y.

I'd expect 27m to buy me something with an underground parking lot for my fleet of supercars