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Allons enfants de la patrieeeee-eh
Yay!!!! "Prices of existing homes in Canada's largest city took a stunning drop in the first half of October, down by 15 per cent compared with the same time last year."
(Why yay, you ask? Because most people buy houses to live in, not to sell. When demand for houses inflates the value of small downtown fixer-uppers to double or a third again their real value, it's reflected in the taxes. Property taxes used to be assessed every year based on the house's market value. In a hot market, driven by (where have we heard these words before?) low rates and easy credit, that puts a real strain on low- and fixed-income people, precisely the sort who live in small downtown fixer-uppers.)
Current market value assessment was put in place by the thrice-damned Tory government, who had promised in the elections that they'd do no such thing. 'It's *real* value assessment, not market value assessment,' said Snake Harris, and Toronto has suffered ever since.
Of course, the every-year market-value review law gets changed just as the market crumbles. I'll have to wait a while to see a reflection on my tax bill, by which time the market will probably have recovered. But in the meantime- take *that*, jackals of the real estate industry. A la lanterne!
Oh- and in other news, the pre-school staff's daughter is not a Pratchett fan. She's a Discworld fan, and thus has not bought Nation in hardcover and both editions.
ETA: And the good news just keeps on coming.
(Why yay, you ask? Because most people buy houses to live in, not to sell. When demand for houses inflates the value of small downtown fixer-uppers to double or a third again their real value, it's reflected in the taxes. Property taxes used to be assessed every year based on the house's market value. In a hot market, driven by (where have we heard these words before?) low rates and easy credit, that puts a real strain on low- and fixed-income people, precisely the sort who live in small downtown fixer-uppers.)
Current market value assessment was put in place by the thrice-damned Tory government, who had promised in the elections that they'd do no such thing. 'It's *real* value assessment, not market value assessment,' said Snake Harris, and Toronto has suffered ever since.
Of course, the every-year market-value review law gets changed just as the market crumbles. I'll have to wait a while to see a reflection on my tax bill, by which time the market will probably have recovered. But in the meantime- take *that*, jackals of the real estate industry. A la lanterne!
Oh- and in other news, the pre-school staff's daughter is not a Pratchett fan. She's a Discworld fan, and thus has not bought Nation in hardcover and both editions.
ETA: And the good news just keeps on coming.
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Line of credit secured against the house? Got one four years ago from a bank that would take risks; they gave me a quarter of the house's then value. Maybe if my house was worth more, someone might lend me more money on it, but I doubt it. Not now, for sure. Anyway, banks like people with regular earned income (preferably in excess of $10,000, which is not me) as well as equity. If I have to use my line of credit to pay the increasing costs of my house, and pay interest on top of that, what I have is a zero sum game.
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One of my coworkers spent about $270k around this time last year, to buy a fixer-upper ("two" bedroom bungalow with basement) in the Eglinton and Duffering area. She had to have it gutted, to the tune of $50k before it was livable, which always left me thinking, what is WRONG with the market that you have to pay $270k for a tiny house in an average neighbourhood -- and then can't live in it for three months because it has to be stripped to the ... well, below the foundation, before it is safe??
Gah. Down with real estate prices. Down, I say.
...Meanwhile, there was a big fancy to-do the other night on Sheppard, at the sales office for "Emerald City" condos. People in suits and fancy dresses and waiters floating around with drinks in hand, while the folks in Forest Park Drive apartment units looked down at them and wondered when the evictions were going to start so the demolition could start so the new condos (the fourth? fifth? such development on Sheppard) could start.
Feh.
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And the sad thing is, they'll probably go right ahead with the evictions and demolition, and lose their shirts only after they've caused wide-spread misery.
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which to read next and how to acquire it
Now *I* say you should read some Guards stuff for the Vimes and Vetinari love, but I'm biased. For non-Ankh-Morpork, well, some swear by Little Gods, which is good enough though not the blistering denunciation of religion certain people seem to think. I'm also fond of the witches books, contrary to expectation, because Pratchett's voice is so very much his there, and he's dealing, marvellously, with old (and older) women and the choices they've made, including the ones to be cantankerous and occasionally terrifying. Male authors in general don't do this very well but I can totally get behind Granny Weatherwax.
The Clinton St Lending Library is always open for requests. Unless it means driving over to the next PO. (Maybe send to Tav's workplace if I don't see you before?)
The bags in my kitchen are no problem at all. I live in the section of town that believes in large kitchens and tiny bathrooms, which is at least more rational than the ones that believe in large bathrooms and tiny bedrooms. People raised pre-birth control *families* in these houses? Dear god, how?
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Watch and witch books are best read in order, or at least Begin at the beginning. Guards! Guards! for the Watch, so you can see where Vimes came from and how he changes over time. IME that can be followed by the stunning Night Watch with no sense of disjunction, even though all the other Watch books come between them. However you might want to continue the more normal progression with Men at Arms and Feet of Clay (the last a favourite of mine.)
Witches has a definite temporal progression. Don't start with Equal Rites, which is sort of 'prentice work-ish. Wyrd Sisters, followed by Witches Abroad (still looking for that; I read a library copy.)
I have no idea what's up with apartment building kitchens except that people evidently consider them a utility room where you heat up your pork and beans and that's all. But in the Bain Co-op, built turn of the last centuryish, the kitchens were purposely made small to counter the deplorable working-class tendency to live in the kitchen and not, as proper middle-class people do, the parlour or living room. It may be the fallout from that thinking that dictated the galley kitchen of the mid-50s on.
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Maybe I'll get lucky and prices will stay lower until I've got a down payment saved and I'm facing another round of What Shall I Do When My Green Card Expires?
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