As I have mentioned in previous posts, my wife and I have been house hunting. One of my medium term goals is to upgrade our house, and if you’ve been keeping an eye on the news, you would have noticed that this is an interesting time in the Canadian real estate market.
Not only is there talk of a real estate bubble bursting, but now the Competition Bureau has successfully challenged the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) practices of forcing consumers to opt for an entire slate of services in order to list their property on the MLS.
This settlement could save consumers thousands of dollars when selling their homes, as a home seller can now pay a nominal fee to have their house listed on the MLS without having to use the full services of their real estate broker.
So with all of this to think about, we’ve already decided on a floor plan for a house that we want to build. We are currently in the process of aggressively paying down our mortgage, which is prudent in this low interest rate environment.
House Hunting: When to buy?
What we need to decide now is what the best time will be to start building a house and when to put our existing house up for sale.
This particular builder will take between 4-5 months to complete the house. Given the fact that there are currently 120 houses for sale in the price range of our house, I’m thinking we will have to put our house on the market as soon as we start the building process.
We will also be using our existing home equity as our down payment for the new house, so we will need to figure out how that process works.
The home builder will require deposits at 3 different stages of construction (initial, framing, and completion). We will be meeting with our mortgage representative soon to determine what our time line will look like to get started.
Related: My Biggest Home Buying Regret
This will be an exciting time for our family, and I plan to keep you posted on the progression of our new housing adventure.
Are any of you actively house hunting right now?
Thanks to Larry MacDonald for contacting me and conducting the interview for Me & My Money, which was posted in Saturday’s edition of the Globe & Mail. As a relatively new personal finance blog, it’s great to receive this kind of attention from the media. Look for a follow up article on Boomer later this year.
For any new visitors who decided to check out the Boomer & Echo website after reading the Globe & Mail article, here is some further information about my dividend growth investing strategy. You can also take a look at some of my financial goals:
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Some of you may be wondering why I chose to give up my anonymity to do the Me & My Money article. When my mom and I started this website, we didn’t really have a reason to use our real names…and the “Boomer” and “Echo” handles obviously fit with the concept of what we were writing about.
When Larry contacted us to do the interviews, we decided that it would be a great opportunity for us to gain additional exposure for our website. We also felt comfortable enough that what we were disclosing about ourselves financially on this blog wouldn’t have any negative impact if we chose to reveal our true identities.
So once again thanks to Larry MacDonald for taking the time to do this interview, and stay tuned for Boomer’s Me & My Money profile in the near future.
Remember going to a craft and hobby show or looking through a magazine and seeing in your mind’s eye all those great projects you could make? Or watching the sports channel and dreaming about aces, holes-in-one and the salmon you could catch? I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with having a hobby.
Hobbies can be relaxing and a great way to get together with like-minded friends, but many times the dream is a lot better than the reality.
Expensive Hobbies
Hobbies need time to master and a lot of practice before you become an expert or even just skillful. Also, to create your masterpieces you won’t be satisfied unless you have all the expensive equipment and enough gadgets to fill a good-sized closet (or room) and empty a good-sized bank account.
It’s easy for us who share the impulsive gene to make snap decisions, and before we know it we’ve brought home the bag of scrapbooking supplies that never made it out of the bag.
We think we’ll get to that great project as soon as we have the time. Or, that pulling out all the supplies and then having to put them all away again is too much of a hassle. Or, our initial attempt is pretty amateurish and disappointing, and we think we’ll never be good enough to master the skills so why bother to try again.
Related: 35 Ways To Save Money
So instead of jumping in with both feet, sign up for a class to check out a new hobby. A few sessions will tell you how committed you are to the craft. Then if you decide it’s a go, look for equipment and supplies on eBay or similar sites. You’ll be amazed at what you can find for sale by others who got a bit too ambitious and bought the whole caboodle.
When you consider that enough yarn to knit a sweater can cost $75 or more, a digital camera with removable lenses can cost over $1000 and scuba diving equipment up to $2000, looking before you take the leap will keep hundreds, if not thousands in your wallet.
By all means, enjoy your hobbies. Have fun. Some people can even turn their hobbies into a lucrative business. But don’t waste your money on something that may seem like a good idea without further investigation. Other people might thoroughly enjoy an activity, but maybe it’s just not for you.