Hello Real Estate Investors!!
We’re back from vacation, a week at a friend’s cottage and I’m more tired than when I left!!! LOL Maybe I’m just getting old and soft but I suck when I don’t sleep in my own bed with my own pillow yet people invite us to go camping… my tolerance for bugs is way down as well but it’s good to be home, my garden fared well while I was gone, only lost one plant, the silver lining of a moderate summer.
We spent the week in Wasaga Beach and did the best we could with mild weather with rain sprinkled in.  We hit the beach for 3-4 days, Rounds Ranch for the petting zoo, visited an old REIN friend in Trudi Johnston who recently sold her house in Scarborough at the peak and picked up a newer townhouse 15 minute walk from the beach in Wasaga.  Prices in Trudi’s old Scarborough neighbourhood have taken a hit near the lake and University of Toronto Scarborough campus so we’re considering an investment property there that would become our future retirement home. Â
Yes, we’re still buying. As I’ve told every investor who asks me about the market, I’m no economist but I study the subject and the world is still the same, Canada is still a top 2 destination for living and investment.  We still have friends and family in Hong Kong moving to Canada.  Cherry has a Waterloo classmate moving from Hong Kong to Oakville, ON who purchased a four bedroom, four bath detached house, site unseen so her two kids can get a good education, have space to run around, clean air to breath and better Chinese food.  Chinese food in the GTA is better than in China in my humble opinion of being Chinese for 38 years…. My older cousin is moving back to Toronto next year for the same reason and will take a massive pay cut in doing so for the same reasons.
Back to our vacation, we spent the last morning at Elmvale Jungle Zoo, a small fraction of the size of the Metro Toronto Zoo but this was my best experience at any zoo.  The weather was mild so we chose the paid entry of the zoo vs the free beach and as the weather was mild, the animals were more active vs napping in summer heat.  The Zoo also sells bananas and animal feed so we had an interactive experience feeding monkeys, donkeys, lemurs, etc… Mr. Lion was feeling amorous with Mrs. Lion or so was explained to our daughter so here’s hoping we get to see a baby lion in the near future.
The Everyday Investor: Student Rentals
Each year, The Rav Tour Show invites me back to be interviewed about real estate investing, this time on the subject on student rentals and walk through the numbers of one of our Hamilton properties. Â The episode just aired two weeks ago on CHCH and Bloomberg TV. Â We discuss how to make money, how investing supports my family, retirement, and our registered charity. Â We also took an unplanned detour in the discussion on how we bought our daughter a house instead of investing in an RESP.
