Giving Up On Toronto Real Estate

We love real estate. When we bought our house two years ago, we never really stopped examining the market. Over the past few months, we’ve been considering our financial situation, our housing situation, and the real estate market. Now, since we’ve poured a decent amount of elbow grease into our house and since we’ve been aggressively paying down our mortgage and saving our pennies, we think we’re ready for our next real estate adventure.

We put a bid in on a cheap fixer-upper close to our neighbourhood. We lost the bidding war by $100,000.

Then, we put a bid in on our dream house in our dream location. We lost that bidding war by $100,000 too.

It’s been frustrating, but we aren’t ready to give up. Instead, we’re getting creative. We’re considering leaving the Toronto real estate market behind and investing our hard-earned cash into income property in a much smaller city. So, Saturday found us shaking hands with a new real estate agent and following his Cadillac around town to four different multi-family homes. It was an experience, full of walking in on surprised tenants, turning a blind eye to messy apartments and the smell of cigarette smoke, and exploring the bowels of rarely organized retail buildings.

We haven’t made a decision yet. It feels almost odd, not making a decision right away. In Toronto, real estate moves fast. Sometimes, it feels like you have to make a decision before you finish touring the place. Out there though? All of these buildings have languished on the market for months with no buyers in sight. So, we’re taking our time. We have financials to consider. Other options to compare. Things to talk about.

I know this change in plans may have some of you confused. After all, one of our motivations for getting serious about house hunting was the fact that our house is tiny and starting to drive us crazy. Buying an apartment building in a city we don’t live in is not going to fix that problem.

Renovating our attic and ripping out a main floor wall certainly will though.