HawthorneVillager.com

You're absolutely right about an investor's paradise. An acquaintance of mine just sold his house 690K(2yr old Milton Mattamy) and the purchase was facilitated by the bank granting mortgages to 4 different people on the house. The banks are also playing a role in this real estate craziness.

it's true that it is turning into the 'new' normal, but sooner or later, a lot of people are going to get burned.

Surprisingly relevant article from today's FP.


http://business.financialpost.com/2014/07/23/paying-your-debt-at-these-rates-is-a-great-deal-so-why-is-no-one-listening/

There's an important differentiation between "can afford" and "what the bank says you can afford". Just because the bank will give you the money doesn't mean you can actually afford it. Move up buyers in their forties should be buying their next home primarily with equity (60% down payment), not taking out a huge mortgage and being house poor into their 60s. Remember the bank's only consideration is that you can make the payments, not whether it is a sound financial decision.

We just recently redid our mortgage with our long term finance adviser and mortgage specialists.
She told us it is two major groups of her customers she works for, currently.
Two different new canadians groups, both well present in GTA.
They are buying homes priced as in Oakville, but at another part of the GTA, mortgage free. i.e. cash.

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You would be surprised the money immigrants bring in to this country. A lot come with wealth they accumulated in their homeland and come to Canada to escape turmoil etc. Somehow they find the loopholes and exploit them. I know this sounds far fetched but some years ago a supplier that I dealt with revealed how him and his wife came from India with one suitcase so full of US dollars that he had it strapped so it wouldn't pop open. While being processed through immigration, he had his wife sit on the suitcase and all the while sweating buckets in fear of being found out.
In a Mattamy development in Ancaster about 5 yrs ago there was an immigration lawyer who had purchased 25 various units which he proceeded to rent out to, you guessed it new immigrants.
There are many new units that are rented out in Milton but you never see advertised as real estate agents purchased these and make a business of renting them out without too much noise.

You're absolutely right about an investor's paradise. An acquaintance of mine just sold his house 690K(2yr old Milton Mattamy) and the purchase was facilitated by the bank granting mortgages to 4 different people on the house. The banks are also playing a role in this real estate craziness.

There is no loophole, if you bring enough to invest, you can come in, after a few years you can apply for citizenship. You can fit about $1.5m in the average suitcase of $100 bills (they don't make anything higher anymore for exactly that reason), but even if you could, it becomes very very difficult to convert it into money you can use to buy anything substantial like a house. You have to declare it when you try to deposit it and you'll have to pay tax on it, the CRA doesn't seem to care much where the money actually comes from as long as they get their cut... nail salons seem to work well for this

The loophole is that as an entrepreneur class you get to go ahead of the line provided you have so much money to invest and then guarantee that you will create so many jobs and how often is that followed up(like the foreign workers program). If you think that immigrants don't know the ropes when it comes to declaring this mother lode, you've overlooked their creative abilities. They're not just going to the bank with a bunch of dough that they have to declare the origin. They have a network or relatives, well connected friends who will help them launder the funds without arousing suspicion.

I know a guy that went to college with me recently bought a 900K home in that subdivision in Oakville.

He's in his late 20's and works for himself. No kids yet. He's been very successful and can afford it, so why not? Oakville is a nice place and always ranks towards the top of Canadas best cities list every year.

Hopefully those Oakville prices keep skyrocketing and building closer and closer towards Milton. It will help the price of your house increase as well.

Very few people in the new phases "need" to live here, they (including us) have chosen to live here. The Koolaid that the Real Estate industry needs us all to be drunk on is flowing freely in markets like Milton. We all at least have a taste for it, or we wouldn't be here. We all are secretly delighted to know / believe that our investments are working for us - seemingly better than any other investment many of us make.

Not to sound like Garth "Prepper" Turner, but the one thing that I believe WILL eventually cause this to crumble is that more and more people are becoming de-sensitized to being in debt, MASSIVE debt, as posted earlier. I love the general concepts of free enterprise, and understand well that it is key to the success of our economy. However, seeing more and more people stilt themselves up based on theoretically perpetually upward-sloping lines on a realtor's chart seems to me to be absolute lunacy. It defies logic, that there can be no limits.

I think the simplest limit is as posted above, that people's incomes (averages here) have not increased anywhere close to as quickly as debt loads, and are not expected to. Can you imagine someone standing on a soapbox shouting "Our incomes will increase at between 5 and 10% per year, every year, forever". No you can't.

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Come Celebrate Our Grand Opening Tomorrow!
The Doors Open At 9:30 AM, SATURDAY, JULY 26TH!
Please ensure you have the following items with you if you would like to purchase a home:
• Cheques For All Deposits (Deposit details at mattamyhomes.com)
• Photo ID Such As A Driver’s License, Passport, Permanent Resident Card (Please Note: Health Cards Will Not Be Accepted)

There are already families camped out for the grand opening. Absolutely crazy!

Quote from a friend who went to the opening today

Wow! Out of luck with this place better luck for me at remmington! So many people lined up outside of place today with cops patrolling the place! Reports of people camping out since Wednesday! I better go buy my camping gear for remmington to buy a place!

Anyone know what the remington 45 foot lots sold for? The prices are no longer on their website.
I know an email came out asking to sign up and then appts were all booked up within hours.
Thanks.

Both builders sold out there respectful phases. Another phase to be released soon by both builders. Would like to see what the price increase will be like. They could do 50k or 100k increases and everything would still be gone. Unbelivable.

Most people always dream of starting their own business. Plus banks don't want to lend money to start ups. My business venture buy homes, especially the first couple of phases. Plus banks will lend you money because you actually have a physical asset.