TheKingEast
Senior Member
You two should really choose to agree to disagree and move on.
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The Condo Game [CBC Documentary]
- Thread starter Southcore
- Start date
CityPainter
Active Member
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Life is expensive. As an owner in an older condo building that's now undergoing very expensive renovations (windows) I can attest to the real risks of condo ownership. However, if you step back, there's no way to avoid the costs of keeping a roof over your head. Everybody needs to decide what works best for them.
The way I see it your choices are:
- Condo ownership: you get less square footage and you don't get a direct say on when renovations and upgrades take place. You risk being victimized by a bad condo board. But, a condo typically costs much less than a house in the same neighbourhood, and you save a lot of time by not having to do your own daily maintenance work like lawn cutting and snow shoveling (time that some of us can spend working to bring in more income.) In an urban environment where most condos are, you can save tons of money (roughly $7K-$10k per year) by not owning a car, or owning fewer cars.
- Standalone Home ownership: you pay a lot more up front, and you're responsible for all your own repairs, which can cost a lot of time and money. You need to purchase and maintain an arsenal of tools and equipment like lawn mowers, etc. You're at the mercy of unscrupulous contractors when you have renovations done. When you initially buy, you never know exactly what you're getting, and home inspectors are untrustworthy. You have more say over the exact timing of repairs and renovations than a condo owner, but only to a certain degree: if your roof or basement is leaking badly, you can only leave it so long before disaster ensues. If you let the state of your home degrade over time, you lose a lot of value when you go to sell. Also, the most affordable homes are further away from city centres, where you need to rely on a car, or multiple cars, in order to get around, which can cost you $7K-$10K per year.
- Renting: you avoid all the hassle and responsibility of ownership but you pay a lot more per month than an equivalent mortgage would be on a unit: for example, my mortgage and condo fee payments are well under $1000/month but identical units in my building rent for $1500/month. And you are at the mercy of your landlord, whether an individual (who may decide to sell, causing you to have to move, or who might just be plain crazy) or a corporation (a rental company who can, for example, decide to do massive noisy year-long balcony repairs on your apartment building at any time.) And, of course, after 40 or 50 years of renting, in your old age, you have nothing to show for all that rent money: you have no investment you can sell or leverage, as you would with a condo or home.
Basically, pay now or pay later, pay Peter or pay Paul, but unless you are a very wealthy person who can afford to have the best of all worlds, it all comes down to compromise and priorities. All you can do is choose what works best for you, and live a bit beneath your means so you can keep a nest egg for unexpected expenses.
The way I see it your choices are:
- Condo ownership: you get less square footage and you don't get a direct say on when renovations and upgrades take place. You risk being victimized by a bad condo board. But, a condo typically costs much less than a house in the same neighbourhood, and you save a lot of time by not having to do your own daily maintenance work like lawn cutting and snow shoveling (time that some of us can spend working to bring in more income.) In an urban environment where most condos are, you can save tons of money (roughly $7K-$10k per year) by not owning a car, or owning fewer cars.
- Standalone Home ownership: you pay a lot more up front, and you're responsible for all your own repairs, which can cost a lot of time and money. You need to purchase and maintain an arsenal of tools and equipment like lawn mowers, etc. You're at the mercy of unscrupulous contractors when you have renovations done. When you initially buy, you never know exactly what you're getting, and home inspectors are untrustworthy. You have more say over the exact timing of repairs and renovations than a condo owner, but only to a certain degree: if your roof or basement is leaking badly, you can only leave it so long before disaster ensues. If you let the state of your home degrade over time, you lose a lot of value when you go to sell. Also, the most affordable homes are further away from city centres, where you need to rely on a car, or multiple cars, in order to get around, which can cost you $7K-$10K per year.
- Renting: you avoid all the hassle and responsibility of ownership but you pay a lot more per month than an equivalent mortgage would be on a unit: for example, my mortgage and condo fee payments are well under $1000/month but identical units in my building rent for $1500/month. And you are at the mercy of your landlord, whether an individual (who may decide to sell, causing you to have to move, or who might just be plain crazy) or a corporation (a rental company who can, for example, decide to do massive noisy year-long balcony repairs on your apartment building at any time.) And, of course, after 40 or 50 years of renting, in your old age, you have nothing to show for all that rent money: you have no investment you can sell or leverage, as you would with a condo or home.
Basically, pay now or pay later, pay Peter or pay Paul, but unless you are a very wealthy person who can afford to have the best of all worlds, it all comes down to compromise and priorities. All you can do is choose what works best for you, and live a bit beneath your means so you can keep a nest egg for unexpected expenses.
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Colonel Samuel Smith
New Member
Wait, is this guy seriously arguing that the concept of losing money on a condo is so outlandish that it doesn't even bear considering? Be afraid people, be very afraid.
SunriseChampion
Senior Member
Every single Urbancorp and TAS one, I'd wager. Those are just the two builders I KNOW are rubbish crooks. Don't know about the rest too well.
freshcutgrass
Senior Member
Never said that at all. I said if condo owners in Toronto are losing money reselling their condos due to poorly maintained buildings (as in the fault of the condo corp management/board), then there should be some evidence to support this theory within the Toronto resale condo market. Is there?
MisterF
Senior Member
Wow....I thought the last poster was kidding but you guys sound like you're actually serious! You do know that Ontario has a Building Code, right? And every high rise built since the 70s takes earthquakes into account? I can't believe people actually think like this.
Well at the risk of being repetitive, the proof is in the pudding as freshcutgrass said. If the risks you mention don't translate to an actual trend of condos having more maintenance issues than other types of buildings, that means that condos are no more risky than any other type of ownership. Condos have their advantages and disadvantages just like anything else, and for many people condos make the most sense. They may not be for you, and that's great, you don't have to buy one. But that's no reason to be against condos in general.
I was doing nothing more or less than the people whose experiences you used to back up your point.
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freshcutgrass
Senior Member
And one of the advantages of a condo corp, is that they are by their nature, less likely to neglect necessary repairs because they are less likely than landlords and individual home owners to try and avoid the added costs. They are also, again, by their very nature, generally better equipped financially to deal with it.
Which is exactly why you probably can't recall seeing a single condo building in a serious state of disrepair, but are constantly aware of dumpy homes and rental properties.
TheKingEast
Senior Member
*sigh* Of course there's a building code. That means absolutely nothing. Why are some people here so bloody naive when it comes to this topic. "There's a building code so clearly builders do not cut corners and inspectors check everything...sure!"
Mike Holmes is somewhere laughing his ass off.The building code NEEDS to be improved upon, period because too many developers have shown that they will do the bare minimum and likely worse than that. With the cost cutting and sheer incompetence of some builders I think a good chunk of these glass boxes could not withstand a sizable earthquake.
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Uncle Teddy
Senior Member
Can we get back to the one sided nature of this program? One lady can't open her door because the handle isn't working proper = condo buyers are going to hell? Really stretching it aren't they?
NorthYorkEd
Active Member
Did you miss the poorly-poured concrete floors? The piss-poor layouts and design? The cheap materials and shoddy worksmanship? The implication is that if builders can't even install a door handle properly, what other things are they cutting corners on? If they don't even care enough to make sure something highly visible like the main entrance door is working and installed properly, why would they care about stuff you can't see? The answer is, of course, that they don't care at all. And this should concern anyone considering investing such a huge chunk of their cash into what is purely a speculative buy.
But then again, people who wait in lineups for hours to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on nothing more than spec drawings and renderings probably don't have to worry about their cash flow. Many of us actually do.
freshcutgrass
Senior Member
Which is why this doc was presented as a cautionary tale in the first place. People who are speculating need to look past the slick marketing of pre sales projects, which is one area where developers don't seem to cut corners at all.
TheKingEast
Senior Member
Is that what you got from it? *facepalm*
TOperson
Active Member
SunriseChampion
Senior Member
Of course I wasn't being serious. Though, it wouldn't surprise me.
I work in construction and can say two things with conviction:
1. The building code's minimum standards are inadequate in certain aspects of building if you are to build a quality building.
2. Chintzy builders like pushing the minimum to its most minimal if not outright ignoring it where possible. That's saying nothing of the lack of effort and pride taken by some workers who are invariably overworked or underpayed....or both.
I've seen things that have scared me and things that have disgusted me.
I live in an Urbancorp-built building. The finishes are so poor I'd hate to see what the bones look like.
I have worked with TAS so I know even more than I do about Urbancorp being rubbish. Let's just say that some people don't deserve the brain they're given.
I can assure you that I may have been joking but I was nowhere near talking out of my ass.
I work in construction and can say two things with conviction:
1. The building code's minimum standards are inadequate in certain aspects of building if you are to build a quality building.
2. Chintzy builders like pushing the minimum to its most minimal if not outright ignoring it where possible. That's saying nothing of the lack of effort and pride taken by some workers who are invariably overworked or underpayed....or both.
I've seen things that have scared me and things that have disgusted me.
I live in an Urbancorp-built building. The finishes are so poor I'd hate to see what the bones look like.
I have worked with TAS so I know even more than I do about Urbancorp being rubbish. Let's just say that some people don't deserve the brain they're given.
I can assure you that I may have been joking but I was nowhere near talking out of my ass.
SunriseChampion
Senior Member
I won't even bother saying anything about naïveté here if all that's being discussed is 300k flats because I leave that term to describe people who fork over millions for a custom built home and are left with utter shite.
Honestly, some of the things that go on in home construction are downright evil. Yes, evil.
Complete lack of respect for others. Unbridled greed. Etc.
I've been in home construction for 14 years and it comes down to this: where people start to care more about money than about what they produce is where you have trouble.
I have worked with very good builders, architects, engineers, and tradespeople so I know good builds exist, but never, ever try telling me that a building code provides protection from fuckups or I just might have to call you naive.
Honestly, some of the things that go on in home construction are downright evil. Yes, evil.
Complete lack of respect for others. Unbridled greed. Etc.
I've been in home construction for 14 years and it comes down to this: where people start to care more about money than about what they produce is where you have trouble.
I have worked with very good builders, architects, engineers, and tradespeople so I know good builds exist, but never, ever try telling me that a building code provides protection from fuckups or I just might have to call you naive.