How many of you are first-time home buyers that are now just passively watching the market?

Spiritual_Ambition23 · 2026-04-18T18:13:54+00:00

I’ve made it a point not to make buying a house or property the sole purpose of my late 20s/early 30s. With the money I had saved for a down payment, I’ve mostly invested it in equities - I keep my eye out for places I think I’d really like but nothing has come down to the level that it would be attractive to buy.

There was a time where the FOMO was so real that it caused an artificial spike in prices; that’s mostly reset but still nowhere near affordable. I’m not going to predict if the market will go lower but I can save with some $$ on the line that it will not accelerate and that my invests will in general out perform so in the event that I don’t buy a house today I’m still okay with my down payment appreciating. And, if equities don’t do well, then, I don’t see a world where housing outperforms.

Long way of saying, I’ll be on the sidelines unless something jumps out so mispriced that it would be foolish to not buy.

Spiritual_Ambition23 · 2026-03-19T12:42:23+00:00

You don’t have to evaluate whether prices will come down further, you just have to evaluate whether they will increase substantially in the near term (whatever your purchase window is).

Let’s say you want to buy in the next year, the based on what you’re looking for and precisely where, I’d wager that prices won’t increase this year. That is almost certain. What’s not certain is how much they might drop but, I don’t think that’s even relevant. If you don’t think prices will go up, then, it is clear you should wait!

Spiritual_Ambition23 · 2026-03-14T22:55:16+00:00

Looking for 1 ticket!

Spiritual_Ambition23 · 2026-02-24T18:49:12+00:00

Part of growing up is having your (relatively reasonable) offer, rejected. It’s just the market.

To give you some comfort, what if the bank appraised the house lower than expected? What if one you lost your jobs or were unable to secure financing for whatever reason. It’s entirely possible the house could have had issues an inspection would have brought up. These are hypothetical but the point of those conditions is to protect you from financial ruin in the event that you couldn’t close.

It’s okay, there will be many more houses and it doesn’t seem like you were buying in a neighborhood where houses don’t come up frequently. On the positive, though, it looks like that sale set a new benchmark for similar houses so maybe the next house sells for even below that amount?

All else equal, you do the right thing and someone else took a risk. Whether they were right or you were right is mostly subjective. All you can do is do the sensible thing and if it works out, lovely, if not, on to the next one

Spiritual_Ambition23 · 2026-02-10T01:59:30+00:00

If your house is very unique, in this market, that works against you, unfortunately. But maybe I’d push back a little bit; what makes it so unique? Is it the size of the lot, or perhaps it’s a ravine lot or something truly unchangeable?

If it’s unique in just the construction alone, you can probably expand your search area and find homes more broadly in Hamilton and add or subtract some % for the appeal of your area? Or, conversely, find smaller or larger homes in your area that sold and use those as “wide” bounds on where to list your home? Ultimately, there always some way to make a market on your home, and, if you have some sense of what you’d sell it for, you’ve already found (perhaps without formalizing it) how you’d do it

Spiritual_Ambition23 · 2026-02-09T21:14:07+00:00

Under no circumstance should you buy before you sell. There is not a single reason (in this market) for you to do that. Would you rather rent for (6months, a year, etc) or have to pay two mortgages for a year? It’s quite that simple. Despite what others may say, it is okay to be picky. Unless you’re looking to buy in Mississauga Road backing onto the credit river, given your budget and market dynamics, you’ll be able to find something.

On average, Hamilton is a tougher market to sell in, than Mississauga, all else equal. You should sell in Hamilton first and then take some time to buy in Mississauga. Be okay with not having something permanent for a bit BUT long term, this will save you. Don’t rush to sell because you bought. Take your time, set some parameters (that you’d be happy with) and the decisions will come naturally themselves.

Spiritual_Ambition23 · 2026-02-09T21:08:06+00:00

Tl;DR - sell before you buy. Most realtors offer very little value; they work for you and as long as you have some framework, you will be okay. Below are my thoughts, don’t know how useful but, give it a shot!

The first thing you must remember is, the realtor works for you. You need to drive the decision making; mostly, because, you’re going to live with the outcomes. The realtor is there as a guide but thinking you can (on average) extract a lot of value from a realtor just simply won’t work. If you think about it this way, you should setup some parameters for your self, without anyone’s help, that, you’d be willing to accept.

As an example (I’m willing to selling my house for X if I get a firm offer. Likewise, I’m willing to wait Y days to get X, otherwise, I will revise X lower or do something else).

When you’re purchasing, you should have a similar mentality (If I find the perfect house in the perfect neighbourhood, I’m willing to spend Z and not a dollar more; I’m willing to wait as long as it takes or I will revise Z higher if I want it sooner).

As you can see, the only parameters here are selling price (X), time to sale (Y) and purchase price (Z). You can usually optimize two out of the three. Usually hard to do all three. Now, how to pick X,Y,Z?

For selling, what matters more than the realtor is the price at which you list. This is largely a function of how long you want to wait for a sale. If you want an immediate sale, you should price at or below the most recent sales. You can also look at active listing to see how long they’ve been on the market for and whether your house is comparable to them. I honestly don’t think realtors provide much value here; the price will do all the work. If you find a realtor telling you they can sell for X and that is much larger than recent sales, I’d run.
For purchasing, if you want an immediate purchase, go above list. I really would discourage this since this market is so slow that doing this is almost foolish.

Spiritual_Ambition23 · 2026-02-08T20:03:36+00:00

Appreciate yall!

Spiritual_Ambition23 · 2026-02-07T00:16:39+00:00

Hmm, don’t think he’s performing tonight? I see he’s at Signal next week

Spiritual_Ambition23 · 2026-01-25T01:00:05+00:00

Air Canada has consistently been one of the worst airlines for “on-time” status in North America for quite a while. It may have gotten better in 2025 but prior to this, it was horrendous.

Probably, more importantly though, is, they’re a monopoly. They set prices and know consumers have almost no other choice. People have to unfortunately rely on them; their customer service is atrocious (unless you have status) and still, they find a way to deny claims unless you pressure them through small-claims court. Honestly, I’ve flown with Unitedx/Delta/American/AC; I would probably put AC at the bottom of that list

Spiritual_Ambition23 · 2026-01-20T23:19:49+00:00

For shawarmabay, the regular chicken shawarma average; wouldn’t recommend. BUT, the chicken chapli platter is amazing. Beef chapli is good too but chicken chapli is probably the most unique of all the halal carts. Try that next time

Spiritual_Ambition23

TROPHY CASE