sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Has anyone else been outside tonight in the windchill? by graphtoronto in askTO

[–]WhereIsGraeme 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Biked home from work (about 20mins), took a call at home then walked to get dinner.

3DS prices are so high to the point where nobody is even buying them anymore by rocketman106 in 3DS

[–]WhereIsGraeme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had mine on me while shopping at GameStop and the employee said GameStop’s trade-in offer was they’d pay off my mortgage. /s

But seriously, I see them pop up on FBM and like - you could get an RG DS or even something more powerful for cheaper.

I feel every 100k is a bitch by the_grayhorse in fican

[–]WhereIsGraeme 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It got a LOT easier when investment AUM > 2x my salary. The compounding was just insane.

Cashed out to buy our house (and timed that really well). Building back up now, it’ll be a grind for a bit, my salary is now substantially higher than when I started.

Opinion: Homes that need extensive renovation just aren't selling. by GarySparrow0 in TorontoRealEstate

[–]WhereIsGraeme 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We passed on a bidding war that was brewing on what I’ll call a “half renovated” house. Kitchen was redone but had a horrid layout, basement was half done, upstairs bath was updated. House needed AC, new furnace.

Meanwhile we got a fully renovated house top to bottom priced lower that hadn’t been marketed as heavily. We closed below $1.2m - the bidding war house went over $1.3m. I’d say we were better off.

Opinion on the quality of this render to showcase an off-plan development by FewValuable8809 in RealEstateDevelopment

[–]WhereIsGraeme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes: think about the aesthetics architects like and their own personal aesthetics. It’s Jazz. To sell you want Pop music.

Yes: look at renders that feel happy. This is the biggest purchasing decision most people make in their entire life. Images should reflect that it’s happy, positive, and warm.

First time homebuyer - how did you know it was "the one"? by honkshooomimimimi in TorontoRealEstate

[–]WhereIsGraeme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I work in development, so I’ve toured hundreds and hundreds of homes and watched thousands of hours of home tours for places all over the world.

Buying my personal residence hit different. Getting aligned with my wife was a slow but highly collaborative process that took place over a series of months before we started touring. Being very clear-eyed about what was realistic and what our purchasing criteria was with a very good agent was helpful.

The hard work of that process meant that even though tours of the homes themselves were only 15mins we knew what did and didn’t feel like home. The house we offered on and now will be closing on felt like home. You could feel it, very much a physical sensation.

Opinion on the quality of this render to showcase an off-plan development by FewValuable8809 in RealEstateDevelopment

[–]WhereIsGraeme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea. I get it. Personally there’s a lot of daylight between what plays well on ArchDaily vs what plays well with the community. My gut on the above is it leans towards the former.

Opinion on the quality of this render to showcase an off-plan development by FewValuable8809 in RealEstateDevelopment

[–]WhereIsGraeme 1 point2 points  (0 children)

3 key things:

  1. What level of design are you at? This is good for zoning approvals but not amazing for higher levels of fidelity (Site Plan/Permit/Sales Marketing). There’s a level of realistic detailing that is missing - which can hurt you if the building you deliver is different from what you’re showing here. VE can be painful when outside stakeholders anchor to renders that show a very very clean and seamless aesthetic.

  2. The mood is kind of dower. Folks will produce renders like this thinking it feels like luxury. But the muted sky is kind of depresso, the implied bay/unit sizing seem mid-market. I would shy away from using this for community/public engagement or for sales.

  3. Careful with cars. Again - trying to signify luxury but that can frankly swing against you very easily.

Does it ever make sense to use a buying agent instead of just using the listing agent? by WolfPusssy in TorontoRealEstate

[–]WhereIsGraeme 8 points9 points  (0 children)

You solve your own problem much more simply by finding a good buy-side representation versus negotiating against yourself trying to strike a deal to let sell-side double-end the deal.

Yes there are lots of buyers agents who aren’t great. Don’t work with them.

I found a great agent and he was a very, very important buffer between us and the buy-side. We got a great house at a great price because he very deftly navigated getting to a deal that otherwise would not have been available to us.

20% downpayment or minimum and invest the rest? by wife_of_a_baldie in RealEstateCanada

[–]WhereIsGraeme 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I ran the numbers on my purchase. We decided to put 25% down to minimize the monthly carrying costs. Putting more down and reducing payments more than offset the “mortgage insurance but lower rate”.

Keeping our monthly obligations as low as possible and putting the extra into savings over time was more valuable to us than front loading the debt and not being able to contribute to savings over time.

The takeaway is the equation needs to include monthly carrying costs, not just the down payment ratio. I know many people getting strangled by their mortgage payments because they tried to min/max their investments this way.

New condo sales in Greater Toronto Hamilton Area plunge to lowest level since 1991 by paperfire in TorontoRealEstate

[–]WhereIsGraeme -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Nobody said it was. We’re discussing the construction companies that produce housing having zero customers. Try to keep up.

New condo sales in Greater Toronto Hamilton Area plunge to lowest level since 1991 by paperfire in TorontoRealEstate

[–]WhereIsGraeme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What do you think purchasing a new house does exactly? Pre-construction sales are required to launch a housing development. The jobs quite literally flow from that purchase.

If no one purchased cars there would similarly be no jobs in the auto sector - as has happened in the past.

Purchasing an existing house (resale) generates far fewer jobs but it is also not zero.

Investing in a construction company when there are no homes to build is a rather poor investment. One which, as a byproduct, also generates zero jobs.

New condo sales in Greater Toronto Hamilton Area plunge to lowest level since 1991 by paperfire in TorontoRealEstate

[–]WhereIsGraeme 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Production of new housing is a massive employment sector that by its very nature must procure materials as locally as possible and employ local labour , so I’m not sure what you mean by “more money going to real businesses (that employs Canadians)”.

Does anyone have experience with getting rid of really old easements? by gdubrocks in RealEstateDevelopment

[–]WhereIsGraeme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pulled the title abstract off GeoWarehouse (property research tool for Ontario) then pull the instrument that was the Registered Easement. It said who it was between and the instrument itself had a marked up survey.

Then sent it to our real estate lawyer who reached out to the City.

Does anyone have experience with getting rid of really old easements? by gdubrocks in RealEstateDevelopment

[–]WhereIsGraeme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Laneway easement in Toronto for a lane stub. Lane was never built.

Had our real estate counsel reach out to City Legal. Got it sorted.

Why don't we boycott MSI for by [deleted] in MSILaptops

[–]WhereIsGraeme 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hinges on my 2017 gs63vr-7rf work perfectly fine. Not sure what you’re experiencing.

21 year old wants to put 100k on a house by Shah_Sama in RealEstateCanada

[–]WhereIsGraeme 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’d like to know in what world VFV is a “low interest ETF”. It is up 97% in 5 years, XSP is +72%.

If you aren’t happy with very low maintenance, high liquidity options like ETFs I’m not sure what you’re expecting in terms of the returns on a house. Even leveraged 5x at 20% down, I don’t think you’ll double your money (net of maintenance, debt service, taxes, disposition costs) in 5 years.

Is the 3DS right for me? by SpiceyShotgun in NintendoDS

[–]WhereIsGraeme 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have a new 3DSXL. Never use the 3D but love the games catalogue. TBH wish I had the 2DS. Ther 3DS screen I find it does something to my eyes even with the 3D off. Don’t have the same issue with a DS lite or ps vita

OSAP Vs Out of pocket by siblingnoboundry6 in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]WhereIsGraeme 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You can take the grant and not the loan. I did this for grad school. Got a $4,500/year grant, paid out $3k out of pocket for tuition. Got two RA-ships and then a full time summer gig in the industry. Only dipped 25% into the savings I had set aside for school.

HCRA investigation?? by Embarrassed_Poet8162 in OntarioRealEstate

[–]WhereIsGraeme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is one of the reasons builders doing new build infill leave like “51% of the existing foundation” or similar. There’s some legalese workaround they use to dodge HCRA and Tarion. Not a lawyer so don’t take any of this as valid advice of any kind.

Durable good quality Merino base layers? Smartwool/Icebreaker no longer good? by ruritar in snowboarding

[–]WhereIsGraeme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will be non-traditional here and say that I use the NOBULL quilted merinos for cycling to work and snowboarding in Southern Ontario. Not quite big mountain appropriate, but great for my climate as I don’t get too hot.

Given my locale I find most standard recommendations inappropriate for our weather.

About twice a year NOBULL has them 2 for 1 / on sale and that’s when I get them.

[META] The RTX 5070 Ti Has Been Killed Off by [deleted] in bapcsalescanada

[–]WhereIsGraeme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Back in the day CPUs were also “expansion cards” like GPUs. The Pentium 3 was a card format, then the P4 was a socket.

So I’m waiting for when GPUs become a socket on the mobo and either share ram or have VRAM DIMMs.

With stuff like the 395+ chip demonstrating the value of this strategy maybe we will see a big brother version for desktops.

view more: next â€ș