Comparables:
#503 – Asking $347k – $680/month condo fees (1200 sq ft) + 2 parking spots
#807 – Asking $365k – $723/month condo fees (probably >1300 sq ft with those fees)
#2007 – Asking $375k – $681/month condo fees (1200 sq ft?)

Nuts! Say we were to put down our liquid cash now that we pulled out of our condo of $125k and get the lowest priced one at the average for c14 of 95 cents on the dollar ($329,650 – 95% of asking) … That’s 37.9% down and a $204,650 mortgage (5 year at 4.49% – ING’s rate) is $1,131.54 ($750.97 Interest + $380.58 Principle) per month.

$1,131.54 + $680 condo fees = $1811.54 / month and we haven’t even paid taxes yet which will probably be higher than the $195/month we were paying at the old condo we once owned since it’s bigger. Let’s say $225/month. That’s $2036.54/month + cable … We’re at 2136.54/month (all-in to compare apples to apples). All to force a savings of $380/month (which is slightly eaten up by the extra $136/month cost of owning above renting).

At a 3.94% annualized decline (calculated based on the Toronto’s decline from 1989 to 1996 using TREB’s Market Watch) which is fairly conservative considering that we’re already down 9% since peak levels in Aug 2008 – http://tinyurl.com/n7r5b5 … On a property that’s worth $330k … We’d also be losing $13,002 / year or $1083.50 / month with is significantly higher than the $380/month of “forced savings” minus the additional cost of ownership … So that “forced savings” quickly disappears as does another $703.50 per month from the 125k down payment.

It’s good to be liquid right now.

The first quote concerns mortgages from page 225:

“Consider the mortgage. Canadian banks are into mortgages in a very big way, and mortgage rates have been shoved up in recent years to unprecedented levels. There was a time, before the banks got into the act, when buying a mortgage was a long term proposition. You trotted around to the trust company – or mortgage firm or insurance company – filled out the forms and, in due course were assigned a mortgage, for, say, twenty-five years at 7%. The trust company did very well out of the transaction, in its role as mortgagee; the mortgagor did less well, but at least he got his house….But after the 1967 Bank Act amendment, the banks took over a major part of this market. In 1963, all the chartered banks in Canada held less than $100,000 in residential mortgages; a decade later, they held $2.3 billion. From a fraction of one percent of the market, they shot to twenty-eight percent; today they hold more than $55 billion in mortgages. They are now the dominant player in the mortgage game. Their availability – with branches almost everywhere – their easy access to funds and their gigantic size gave them an instant edge on their competitors, which they have never lost.”

The second quote concerns inflation from pages 227 and 228:

“”Real interest” – the economic rent of money – has historically run at about 3%. That is, if inflation is running at 5% and interest at 7%, the lender is the loser; if inflation is 5% and interest is 9%, the borrower is the loser. By making high interest rates the weapon to combat inflation, we have handed the banks an excuse to widen this gap. In 1981, inflation ran at 12.5%, and interest rates ranged from 16.5% to 22.75%. That is only for Prime loans; the gap was much wider for consumer, credit card and mortgage loans. Such a gap adds to inflation; it cannot help but do so, because it piles onto the ordinary push behind rising prices the extra impetus of an inflationary surge in one of the chief components in every transaction, the cost of money.

That is why I say that banks are in the business of inflation.”

What a badly disguised real estate shill you are. How much is your commission? Professional curiosity.

They won’t avoid maintaining the roads and sewers unless they can bulldoze entire communities. Are you advocating forced relocations?

Give the salvageable housing to Habitat for Humanity, and bulldoze the derelict properties, and then give the land to Habitat for Humanity. It’s seems like a solution custom fit to the problem.