Canadian Rent

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Rent vs Buy

In preparing for my recent BNN Interview (July 9th) the producers sent some queries in advance of the spot; one was "Is it time to rent or buy?". We never covered it on air but my response would have been: 

It’s always a time to rent or buy unless you're Hikikomori. 

One should look at the fundamentals of one’s present balance sheet and not rely on past performance or future speculation. If you are risk averse then buy or rent what you can pay for if the scenario of your household income were to suddenly drop. Contingencies are for the unexpected. Two income households may have a cushion, one income households have a greater risk.

I mashed up the chart above from Mercer via ZeroHedge which shows the high rent cities (petro-finance-centric) and I included Manhattan averages with or without doormen as well as the 3 hot Canadian markets of Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. 

The fundamentals don't support buying in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto especially since interest rates are at a low (will they drop?) and rents and resale prices are at the highs (will they rise?). 

There is little room for improvement on cash flow unless buying hot market real estate to rent out has some potential for improving the ability to increase the revenue. As I demonstrated in my case study last year of buying a Vancouver condo for investment, the risk of a negative return is only going to be alleviated by a 25% reduction in purchase price if comparison to a 10 year bond is rational. Also last year at the time of the study, inflation (CPI) was running at half of what it is today; a rising CPI erodes the bottom line.

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