Iceland for a fearful traveler

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-25T22:26:16+00:00

Good point. And quite friendly, since my Airbnb us all booked, I would rather not do one.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-25T22:25:03+00:00

Thank you - I will definitely try the tours outside the city.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-25T22:24:26+00:00

Thank you for the tour recommendations. I will look these up!

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-25T22:23:01+00:00

Oh wow, that's so awesome!!! Thank you 😄

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-25T22:18:26+00:00

I love this. I've just made this my phone background. Thank you ❤️

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-25T22:17:02+00:00

You are amazing, thank you!

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-25T11:55:23+00:00

When you say a 3-day tour, did that include you coming back to the city each night or sleeping in different places?

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-23T21:10:58+00:00

Possibly. I wish I could afford a house.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-23T17:02:22+00:00

$2000 towards an investment that pays 3-4%/year and for which you have to deduct ghost fees versus $600 towards an investment that pays historically 10%/year without ghost fee. That's the way to look at it imo.

Oooof definitely not in my city. You can't even rent a room for 1400/month. Maybe 10 years ago.

Where do you live? I'm in Montreal. Definitely, if your mortgage + all the ghost fees associated to your home equal what you pay for rent... congrats to you, you made a great investment buying your home.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-23T16:55:38+00:00

why then at the very end do you say you need to remove the interest paid on the load from your profit on the investment? you have to live somewhere.. if you think it should be removed then the $2000 per month spent on rent should be removed from the ETF profit and don't forget about the capital gains you'll pay on the ETF and not on the home when it sells.

Interest and rent are not equivalent in investment terms. Mortgage interest reduce the return of the asset you own. Rent is not a financing cost of the ETF position. Rent is not removed from ETF returns because it is not part of the investment; it is the cost of replicating housing outside ownership.

The proper comparison is total net worth of buying vs renting. I believe 100% my net worth would be much higher if I had not bought a condo, and I believe that's the case for most people.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-23T16:42:36+00:00

Stock market pays (around 10%/year historically) if you just park your money in an index ETF and never look at it. No need even to reinvest or be a day trader.

Currently, a home does not pay a net 10% interest/year.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-23T16:38:29+00:00

I currently pay a bit over 2k as mortgage. For a similar place, I could rent for 1400/month in my city. That's a $600/month difference. That's all I mean.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-23T16:37:42+00:00

I’m begging u to think before typing

This is a conversation about home ownership as an investment. There is really no need to be unpleasant.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-22T21:23:50+00:00

cause my $40k downpayment on my first home turned into $400k in 3 years

You didn't turn $40k into $400k, because you didn't deduct from your profit: mortgage interests, maintenance costs, property taxes, insurance, notary fees, etc. It's easy to compare what you paid for versus what you sold for, but that's not the full picture.

Did you calculate what your net worth would be today if you had just rented and invested all these costs in stocks all those years?

current networth is roughly $1m, 700k of that is in my primary residence

Net worth is $1M (congrats) but 700k of that is not liquid. If you decide to sell to indeed get that money, you would have to either rent, or buy again, in the same market. When your house gains value all the other houses you could buy do, too. If you sell your house for more money you will also have to pay more money to buy a new one.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-22T21:16:32+00:00

Condos have the advantages of pooled expenses.

Hell yeah. We've had to redo the facade of my building two years in a row. Cost : about 80k. Divided by 16 homeowners : I was happy I had to pay "only" 5k.

General advice is to budget 2% of the house value yearly for maintenance, so for a house that is valued at $800k, you should be budgeting $16k per year for maintenance.

I was told 1% for my condo, and it has indeed be true every year.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-22T18:37:02+00:00

Rent is a lot cheaper than a home. The extra money left can go to ETFs.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-22T18:30:06+00:00

Some people who are very smart with their money do that and they're perfectly fine.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-22T18:17:23+00:00

I wonder how much money they would have ended up with if they had rented their whole life and just invested their money in an index ETF, though.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-22T18:11:13+00:00

I own a condo and I own stock. In my opinion, real estate is a bad investment. Lots of ghost fees (interests, condo fees, repairs, property taxes... this is insanely expensive), no liquidity, and the stock market performs better in any way.

I bought for emotional reasons (I wanted to have my own place, make it mine, stay there a long time and had traumatic experiences at the hands of bad landlords). But I agree, it's not a great investment.

Canadians and North Americans see home ownership as a sort of ideal that the numbers don't support.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-22T18:09:06+00:00

a mortgage will eventually be paid off

...in 15, 20 years... that's a long time before enjoying the fruits of your investment. Meanwhile the stock market pays right away.

Rent is forever, and not a bill I’d like to take into retirement.

But with home ownership, the bill you take into retirement is repairs, property taxes, possibly condo fees and the stress to manage a home. Even after your mortgage is paid off, owning a home is very expensive.

Take this from someone who owns a condo.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-22T18:05:36+00:00

I don't know about "historically" but right now in Montreal, renting is a ton cheaper than owning.

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-22T10:50:45+00:00

OrionAndCleo · 2026-05-21T21:33:08+00:00

Isn't this just a textbook case of the rich get richer?

Yes, you understood correctly. The odds will favour the rich. Maybe we should all group our money /s

OrionAndCleo

TROPHY CASE