Seems like I am unable to resist the current FOMO when it comes to calgary real estate. Prices have escalated a lot and in a rising market it is easy to convince oneself to jump in with the speculative tide. All the builders, copycat sheep, mindless lemmings, act is if part of the borg collective from startrek. Gotta buy now if I don’t someone else will! This is the sentiment and it makes for silly and irrationally exuberant bids on land. Here is the math, paid $165k more for the same lot on the same street. This was after a period of 40 months from the date both deals were signed. So I’m paying $4125 extra per month for the lot down the street on average for the last three-ish years. That really adds up a lot over time. The increase in price is quite likely more per month than the ability to save for a down payment among those households aspiring to buy. This means housing is getting more out of reach. And the house I got is bad enough it needs immediately rehabbed or torn down. I’m going to tear it down so that means I get to absorb a large carrying cost of the vacant site. Maybe if it continues to increase at $4k a month I can hang on and eventually it won’t cost much to hold by the time we have rebuilt and sold. The other good news is the next lot down the block, also identical, sold for $100k more than I paid. Safety in being part of the herd?
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