Waterloo – finally facing my waterloo

I was just informed this morning that my little brother, Freddy Fortine, and his fiance are moving to Waterloo, Ontario. Fiance is an up and comer in a big insurance company and she’s just been promoted to Director of Giant Projects or some such title and they have to leave their home in Kingston and resettle in a new city.

First, you need to know that I am a HUGE (imaginary)buyer and (imaginary)seller of real estate. I know the market in BC forwards, backwards and sideways. I’m on mls.ca at least once a week and if you drove me down any street in my city, I could tell you what the asking price was of any house with a For Sale sign in front of it. I think this idiosyncracy stems from when we didn’t own a house and I would troll the mls daily wishing that someone, anyone, in any way would give me $100,000 downpayment (pennies from heaven? lottery windfall? bank robbery gone bad? I didn’t care) for a house. I just wanted one so badly.

So when I got this news from Freddy Fortine and fiance this morning, I immediately went to my trusty list of Favorites and clicked on the mls listings. I was curious to see what their money could get them in Waterloo, Ontario.

Turns out if Richard and I were selling up and moving there now we could tell the Real Estate Agent “we’ll take TWO please!” Because? Compared to where I live real estate there is dirt cheap!

(this is all ironic when you consider that I grew up in a house that cost my parents $64,000 in 1979 and I never thought that I, as a married person, would ever pay over $150,000 for a house. Oh to live in the 90’s again…where 10% down would have meant twelve thousand dollars. Haaaaa!)

This is what you get in Waterloo for $364,900:

Well appointed, huge, uber-pretty, 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom almost-mansion that probably comes with its own butler. Drool worthy kitchen included:

….and, this is what you get for the same money in my hood:

Attached three bedroom, one bathroom former grow-op. This baby comes with its own family of rats to keep you company and neighbours who keep their extra automobiles on blocks. Classay! And wouldn’t you just kill in for this kitchen?

That Waterloo house would easily command $800,000+ here in our overly bloated farce of a BC economy. And that just makes me sad, because it means that no matter how hard we work or save we’ll never have a cherrywood and stainless steel kitchen of our own like that one.

I have every intention of going home tonight and talking Richard into moving closer to the Centre Of The Universe (Toronto), so I can enjoy the benefits of a bulter too.

Question. In your area of the world, is your 10% downpayment more likely to be 30,000 or 100,000? Cherry or upchucky kitchen? Rats or butler? I’m nosy.