Right now, BUYING is cheaper than RENTING!

06/27/20 • 5 min

Still renting? Interest rates are super low, and there is even a way to buy without having 5% down. Let me show you how.
For more real estate info, check my blog at (https://blog.winnipeghomefinder.com)
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[00:00:00.240]Are you currently renting and thinking you can't afford your own home? Let me dispelled that myth right now.
[00:00:22.680] 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.
[00:00:40.720]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.
[00:01:32.780]We got them a three level townhouse condo in Bridgewater. 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.
[00:02:03.760]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.
[00:02:31.510]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 is the interest.
[00:03:06.670]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.
[00:03:22.300]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...

Previous Episode

Buying a Home in 2020 - Challenges and Solutions

If you're serious about buying a home in 2020, you will face 2 main challenges. Here is the one solutions to both:
For more real estate info, check my blog at (https://blog.winnipeghomefinder.com)
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[00:00:00.240]Are you serious about buying a house or a condo in Winnipeg in the summer of 2020? You're up against two challenges. I'll talk about those and how to get to the head of the line right away.
[00:00:26.710] Hello again, everybody. It's Bo Kauffmann Remax Performance Realty. I'm a residential real estate agent in Winnipeg for the past 15 years and I enjoy working with buyers and sellers of houses and condos.
[00:00:37.420]If you're serious about buying a house or a condo in Winnipeg in the summer of 2020, you're up against two challenges. One is a super active market. And the others is Covid. I'll talk about both of those challenges right away and then give you a shortcut to get you to the head of the home shopping line. Please note I said if you're serious about buying a house or a condo in Winnipeg, I get a lot of calls from people saying, hey, I just want to see your listing.
[00:01:01.750]And when we talk about it a little bit further, they say, no, we're just starting to look or we're just curious. We just want to see it. So let me explain.
[00:01:10.180]When a seller hires a listing agent, that agent owes the homeowner a set of duties and responsibilities,.... responsibilities, which I take very seriously. Those responsibilities include not showing the home to anybody who is not pre-approved, not pre qualified, may or may not be able to afford it, and more importantly these days, to show the home only to those people who have been deemed to be covered free to the best of our ability.
[00:01:36.080]So if you're just browsing, just starting out, just looking, there are plenty of open houses still. You can go online, see virtual tours, even virtual open houses. Now, that's a great way to start, but don't call a listing agent to show you a house, because here is what's supposed to happen if you phone me. My first question to you is, are you pre-approved? Now, even that question has offended some callers, and I'm sorry for that.
[00:01:59.160]But as I said earlier, I owe the home seller, a responsibility that I'm not going to show the house to anybody who just makes a phone call. You've got to be pre-approved. My next question may be who are you pre-approved with? Because not all lenders are the same. I'm just now dealing with somebody who has gone through their third week of financing, continuing to get extensions on the financing condition. It's not acceptable. And these people were supposedly pre-approved.
[00:02:25.060]And another example, I met a young couple who came to me pre-approved by one of the smaller credit unions when it came time to make an offer. That credit union wanted a full week financing again in this active market, that's not sufficient. So not all lenders, not all mortgage lenders are the same, and some are definitely better than others. Another example may be that you need to sell your current home before you can buy one. There really is no point in looking at a house, especially these days, because when we make an appointment to get you into a house for a showing, that homeowner has to pack up and leave.
[00:02:58.120]That's under the COVID rules. The homeowner is not supposed to be in the house at the time. So we are really inconveniencing that seller to show the house to somebody who is not ready to buy. But

Next Episode

Winnipeg Housing Market July 2020

Update on the real estate market for Winnipeg. Housing sales and listings stats for July 2020
For more real estate info, check my blog at (https://blog.winnipeghomefinder.com)
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[00:00:00.240]Let's take a look at the real estate market conditions for July 2020 in Winnipeg.
[00:00:23.090] Well, hello, Winnipeg, it's Bo Kauffmann Remax Performance Realty, and it's July 2nd, 2020. And I take a look back at the sales and listings which happened over the last month or so, all of June.
[00:00:34.580]And you're going to see that we are in a super hot sellers market right now. And for example, last year for the month, we sold 786 houses in Winnipeg. This year we sold 861. So that alone is 10 percent more sales. But you're going to see that the listings for actually way down, which makes it an even hotter market. Similar story with condos last year and this time period, we sold 82 condos and Winnipeg this year we sold 108.
[00:01:03.030]So that's about 20 percent more or even 25 percent more. As for the market highlights for June, the most expensive house sold was 1.45 million in South Headingley. In fact, during the month, there were four houses sold for over a million dollars. And the most expensive condo hit one million dollars. And that's in the North Henderson Highway area. And as I mentioned earlier, the number of available houses substantially down quite a bit from last year.
[00:01:28.190]So let's take a look at available houses in Winnipeg. Last year this time, we had 1,866. And today we got 1,232. That's that's a huge drop. That's about a 35 percent drop in listings available for the buyers to pick from breaking that down among the different price ranges for houses under two hundred and fifty thousand. Last year we had 486 available this month, virtually the same as last month, 265 available in that price range.
[00:01:56.770]The mid-range homes, 250 to 500 thousand dollars. Last year we had 934. This month, we have 584 way down. So. And it's just about 10 more than last month. Luxury homes last year. 446 available. This month, 384. Again, a big drop over last year. Now the available listings are down, but sales are keeping up, or actually better than last year in most of these categories.
[00:02:25.400]Under two hundred and fifty thousand dollar homes last year, in a time period of June, we sold 203. This year, 199. virtually the same. Quarter million to half a million dollar homes last year, we sold 504. During June this year 570.
[00:02:41.630]And luxury homes as well. Last year we sold 79 in that time period, this year, 92. If you've been listening to my real estate reports over the past few years, you know, I put those numbers, that is the sales and the listings, together. And I come up with a quotient I called days of inventory that is kind of giving a number to how hot the market is. So let's take a look at houses under 250thousand dollars. You can see that maximum would be about 120 days. In fact, an average market would be around 90 days or so. Last year we were at 74. And this year, right now, this month, we're at 40 days. That is super, super hot sellers market.
[00:03:20.860]Houses for 250 to 500 thousand dollars are in a similar predicament. Maximum is 120 days. Average would be around 90 or so. Last year, 57. This year 31. If you've got a house in the 250 to 350, 375 range and it shows half decent, it's going to be gone in a few days.
[00:03:42.200]Luxury homes over half a million dollars, you know, a maximum about...