Not through any direct experience of my own, although my landlord did take the opportunity to raise my rent the maximum allowable by law a month ago, but the city has been moving up the ranks of the most expensive on the planet.
Toronto of course ranks first in Canada as the most expensive place to live in the country, but its our international ranking that is more telling. We now rank 47th out of the top 144 cities, moving up from 82nd last year! That’s a 43% change in just a year, and analysts are basing it primarily on the strength of the loonie.
In other Toronto news, today is our annual Pride Parade, the world’s largest, celebrating our gay and lesbian community. I won’t be attending this year though, because the Netherlands is playing Portugal this afternoon! Go oranje!
The trick, I’ve found, is to own property. ;)
Careful with that orange sentiment, though, if you’re wandering down to anywhere near College Street… :)
Owning property eh? That’s still a few years away for me… And even then it’ll probably be a box in the sky!
I would say Portuguese flags outnumber any other country’s, including Italy. Even in our neck of the woods there are a ton of green and red banners flying. I only occasionally see Dutch flags on cars. Not that I’m Dutch or anything – I just love their soccer team’s bright orange jerseys, and their liberal society.
Yes, I begin to suspect, “are they all *really* Portugese…?”
:)
And the problem with boxes in the sky is condo fees, which from what I’ve gathered, have an ugly tendency to eat up whatever you save on rent, which sucks from my point of view.
Yeah no doubt condo fees suck. But any kind of fee sucks right?
Yes and no… big fees are what suck with especially great force. Like a vacuum attached to your wallet, one would say.
Although the math to consider rent vs. buy is pretty straightforward: is rent > mortgage+fees+taxes? If so, go and buy. Wonder how much longer it’s going to take before baby boomers downsize their homes and cause a real estate market crash – or whether that’ll ever happen?
You have to pay property taxes in a condo?