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jazzfishSo, I bought a condo.
When I went down over Halloween I mentioned that I'd seen one that might work out. It wasn't on the market yet: Rhonda, my realtor, had sold Eden the seller into the unit five years ago, and now Eden was looking to move in with her boyfriend and sell her place. So Rhonda got me a sneak-peek before it went 'officially' on the market.
My main impression from that visit was that it's rather nice on the inside, with a full-sized bedroom that you can fit both a queen bed and a dresser in (this is not a given in Vancouver apartments), but it's small and the kichen is minuscule. No in-unit laundry but the laundry room is two doors down. Worst, it's in New Westminster, half an hour by Skytrain from people and things I know. So I filed it as a "maybe," and figured it would go on the market and sell for the same $350k as other comparable units in the building were going for.
Rhonda called me a week or so later. "She wants three-twenty-five, and she wants to close before the end of December so she won't have to pay for her refinancing." [For reasons that escape me, mortgages in Canada require refinancing every five years.]
This is literally cheaper than anything else I've seen in ... ever, really, though I wasn't looking in New West for most of that time.
So we went through the whole process, strata documents and inspection and all that. Turns out that the facade of the building is going to need some serious work in the next few years. The strata is aware of that and is planning for it. I'm not entirely sure what their plans will entail but it's unlikely to involve me spending a lot of money; the residents seem to be allergic to large or even medium-sized special levies. So that will be Interesting.
And so I hemmed and hawed and finally put in an offer, and closing is in mid-December. I'm not actually moving until spring for various reasons including "I like it here in the winter" and "maybe there will be roads again by then". Gives me time to do any upgrades or renovations I might decide to take care of.
It's not permanent. (Nothing ever is.) It's ... it's not even a start, really. It's a pause. A place to land and catch my breath, and remember or find out who I am, and re-evaluate in a year or three.
We'll see.
When I went down over Halloween I mentioned that I'd seen one that might work out. It wasn't on the market yet: Rhonda, my realtor, had sold Eden the seller into the unit five years ago, and now Eden was looking to move in with her boyfriend and sell her place. So Rhonda got me a sneak-peek before it went 'officially' on the market.
My main impression from that visit was that it's rather nice on the inside, with a full-sized bedroom that you can fit both a queen bed and a dresser in (this is not a given in Vancouver apartments), but it's small and the kichen is minuscule. No in-unit laundry but the laundry room is two doors down. Worst, it's in New Westminster, half an hour by Skytrain from people and things I know. So I filed it as a "maybe," and figured it would go on the market and sell for the same $350k as other comparable units in the building were going for.
Rhonda called me a week or so later. "She wants three-twenty-five, and she wants to close before the end of December so she won't have to pay for her refinancing." [For reasons that escape me, mortgages in Canada require refinancing every five years.]
This is literally cheaper than anything else I've seen in ... ever, really, though I wasn't looking in New West for most of that time.
So we went through the whole process, strata documents and inspection and all that. Turns out that the facade of the building is going to need some serious work in the next few years. The strata is aware of that and is planning for it. I'm not entirely sure what their plans will entail but it's unlikely to involve me spending a lot of money; the residents seem to be allergic to large or even medium-sized special levies. So that will be Interesting.
And so I hemmed and hawed and finally put in an offer, and closing is in mid-December. I'm not actually moving until spring for various reasons including "I like it here in the winter" and "maybe there will be roads again by then". Gives me time to do any upgrades or renovations I might decide to take care of.
It's not permanent. (Nothing ever is.) It's ... it's not even a start, really. It's a pause. A place to land and catch my breath, and remember or find out who I am, and re-evaluate in a year or three.
We'll see.