Owning Your Home – Fire Your Landlord

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Are you currently renting and thinking you can’t afford your own home? Let me dispelled that myth right now.

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So are you renting right now and wondering if or how you could afford a new home? Let me tell you what happened to a client of mine very recently. They called me at the end of May to tell me that they were they had been renting for about five years and everything was going okay until a noisy tenant moved in above them and they finally had it.

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So they were looking at alternatives, but they didn’t initially think that they could afford it. I put them in touch with my mortgage specialist and this is what we came up with. So they were pre-approved for $300,000 and their initial plan was to find a stand-alone home.

But in the south end of the city, St Vital, , Fort Richmond, Richmond West. Now there are neighborhoods in Winnipeg, where I can find you are really nice. home for 300,000 dollars or less. Standalone house. But St. Vital, , Fort Richmond, White Ridge. Those kind of areas are not among them.

So after a few disappointing showings, we switched focus and we started looking at condos. Currently they lived in about an 800 square foot apartment, two bedrooms, one bath, outdoor parking, and they were paying 1,210 dollars a month. After looking about three or four condos. This is what we found them for $275,000 dollars.

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Owning a Condo is an excellent alternative to renting

We got them a three level townhouse condo in Bridgwater. Here’s what you’ve got on the main floor. You have a small office area plus closets and the laundry room, and that is the door to the attached garage. So they go from outdoor parking to a single attached indoor garage.  On the second floor, we have a half bath, a really nice, open, modern kitchen with all the appliances, all stainless steel appliances included the patio door leading to the balcony and a large living room area.

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And the top floor features two good sized bedrooms, a main four piece bath and the large master bedroom with a full en-suite and lots of closet space. Now, as I said, their apartment was 800 square feet. This condo is 1,350 square feet. So let’s take a look at how those costs compare. As I already said, they initially paid twelve hundred and ten dollars for rent plus hydro. So this condo, we got them for two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars.

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They put five percent down, but there’s CMHC fees lumped into it, which is around four percent. So let’s say that they had to mortgage a two hundred and seventy five thousand dollar mortgage and figure out what the interest is on that. So let’s be generous and say they’re paying 2.4% , which makes a monthly interest costs of 550 dollars.

So, yes, the actual mortgage payment is going to be higher. But anything above the interest goes against their own mortgage payment. So that money is not lost. It’s not an expense. It goes to pay down their own debt. The only real cost in owning your own home is the interest.

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After this, a property tax of 250 dollars per month and then a condo fee of 225 dollars a month. Now, hydro costs are going to be very similar as their rented space, as will insurance. The condo building insurance is actually included in the monthly condo fees.

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So all they have to do is add condo owners insurance, which is similar to renter’s insurance. So add up all these costs and instead of 1,210 a month, their cost of living in their own home is $1,025 dollars per month. So that’s nearly two hundred dollars a month less than renting the garage. Lack of noisy neighbours. All that is just a bonus.

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So here’s an interesting tidbit. If you’re looking for a house right now, houses are at a premium.  There’s only about 1,300 homes for sale in Winnipeg as opposed to last year, this time when there was nearly 1,900. So houses are harder to get. But you know what remains a buyer’s market?  It’s condominiums. And if you’re renting right now and you’re itching to get into the housing market, a condo might be a great stepping stone. It’s true that condos probably will not appreciate as much as houses, but it is a stepping stone into owning your own property.

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There are many benefits other than increased property values to owning your own home. Homeowners benefits include renting it out or borrowing money against it, fixing up the inside, paying down on the debt. So you know that that savings is basically it’s tax free because that’s your primary residence. So if you’re thinking of getting into the housing market or into the owning your own home market, condos are a great option because right now there are still over 600 condos for sale, which is comparable to last year at this time.

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Here’s another tip. Those clients of mine didn’t actually have 5% down. The mortgage specialist was able to find them a mortgage which used borrowed down-payment. So that is a way of using a like a line of credit at your bank. Now, in order to qualify for that, you have to have exceptional credit. You have to have above average credit rating. But even so, even if you don’t have five percent down, there may be a way to get you into owning your own property with borrowed down payment.