Peakster's House Efficiency

[MN Renovator]

Originally Posted by Peakster

{snip}I'm planning to list my house for sale around March 2021. In the meantime I'll just keep treading water.

What are you planning to do for your living situation? Whenever I look at it, if I were to buy a smaller house, there seems to be less value in smaller homes because the houses my size are slightly out of reach and smaller homes are less affordable making them into higher demand and therefore a higher price as everyone tries to 'jump into a house before they get "priced out" '.

I see the plan for hopping out at a potential market high, definitely a sellers market now. It seems rents are high though and to me the only way to get a true deal is to jump in as a tenant for a room for awhile and then buy back in when the housing price hysteria calms down, but there are risks in that. I just ended up figuring it's easier to stay in place, I know the mechanicals of my house are sound and it's all known factors to me. I suppose I could see the advantages of swapping to a house with maintenance free siding, windows, a more efficient house design(more square, easier to insulate attic, and better window positioning) and a newer condensing furnace since I know siding, windows, and a furnace are probably a US$20+k price tag and I imagine in 10 years I'll likely need to have all that work done. I find long term rental situation to be a losing game because generally rent rises year by year and the person owning the home is looking to always have a profit margin.

I guess I'm speaking from a US market perspective, but am curious what you plan to do for living if you are looking to sell.

[Peakster]

Originally Posted by MN Renovator

What are you planning to do for your living situation?

If I can sell my house for what I think it's worth, I should get a nice cheque of $160K. Then once I move to Calgary I'll rent a bedroom in a house share arrangement until I get a job.

From there I'm not sure if I would buy a house in Calgary (property taxes are way lower, but comparable home prices are a bit higher to compensate) or just invest the money & continue to rent (more flexibility with renting).

$160K at a 6% dividend is $800/month, more than enough to pay for a bedroom in a house share. Here's an example of how cheap renting is. My property taxes alone are almost the same!

The real allure is moving to Calgary. The city was once very costly (I remember in 2007 my employer's basic bi-level in Lake Bonavista was well over $700K) but prices have really come down since oil tanked (houses in that same neighbourhood are now mid $500K). Calgary is 6x the size of Regina, has no provincial sales tax, etc.

As a side note I've recently started to love boxing & I find way more opponents in Calgary than Regina.