Displaced from my Job, my House, my Rental!

“Your landlord has decided to sell the condo”, blurted her sales agent. “What? Um...what” I managed, finding my voice. “I don’t understand…what? I repeated putting my cell off speaker and hoping my ears wouldn’t cause a disconnection as I held close to his words. “Well yes unfortunately she is very sorry but that’s what she is going to do”, he murmured hearing my panic. So thus begun the endless showings; ‘please remove your shoes and no they go on the mat not the floor’, did they just test the TV….um hello but it wasn’t for too long.

How did I end up in this situation? Well I did have a house before all this but decided to sell when my contract job ended very suddenly and house prices here in Ontario Canada were at an all-time high. My house for six years which I held onto with all my on and off contract jobs dumping every penny into repairs, here are some of my amateur cheap before and afters:

Basement recreation area and washroom – with my own hands including the tile:

Loft area - again with my own hands including the tile surrounding the fireplace:

Kitchen area again with my own hands and a lot of money (smile):

 
The former owner used the main living room as a wax studio (yuk!):

Well it’s just too difficult looking at all of my before and after pictures of every corner of this house attached with so many memories, but I will manage one more comparison. Yep brand new garage door and windows:

The house left me tired, broke and miserable….how could it be? The work and the work and the work….my parents lived with my daughter and I (yes I am a single mother for the icing on the cake) and they paid $1,400 per month to help me get by. Even they were miserable in this beautiful house, my dad used to throw it in my face ‘oh you want to be rich aye’ and walk all over the new $3,500 carpet with his dirty shoes on. He was always so miserable and for what I don’t know. My mother was unhappy too as she spent her evenings in the beautiful loft as her private living room – not a can of paint did she offer to pay for. Now they live in the rental condo next to me paying $2,000 per month. Are we friends again? YES somehow. Would never live with them again - ever!

I need a break was what I told myself. Hide out in a cute little rental and wait to buy again once prices come down. The little stash from the sale of the house was invested in gold and silver mining stocks and it was good until August 2016, since then downhill. I first came upon Bitcoin with jsnip4 on YouTube and his love for physical silver so I followed suit. Thank God, Bitcoin is my saviour and well the physical gold will just have to wait it out.

So two years into my rental and house prices just starting to crater. For now though, I have to find another rental. I currently pay $2200 for my 2.5 bedroom 2 full washroom condo at the Promenade, one of the lovelier pockets in the area. This condo represents freedom from me. OMG cleaning that house and the yard on my own was a terror…or was it? I did make off with a bit after paying the remaining mortgage to the bank oh and let’s not forget paying off the all mighty credit line and credit card debts! Albeit I am being displaced again this time from the rental condo:

So what’s out there for rent? Well nothing in my building or surrounding area. Our Premier Kathleen Wynn decided to implement rent control in Ontario where landlords can only increase by 2.5% on a yearly basis which resulted in owners selling instead of renting their condos. She also slapped a 15% tax on foreigners who buy our real estate which cooled the market. Also one of our mortgage lenders Home Capital was downgraded citing too many mortgages without proper credentials or rather fake incomes and jobs. This too further cooled house prices, which is good but they are still too high for me to touch – I will probably have to continue renting for the next three years.
I have been on the hunt for about a week now looking mainly at townhomes since the condos have dried up. Result: All filthy dirty! The ones that are decent won’t take our beloved little dog:

My hunt is a challenge to say the least. I was so surprised to see that many areas are building these cube villages, who is the City Planner that agreed on these?

Wouldn’t you love to live here?! OMG breaking down the doors just to get in and the area oh the area – well, you just can’t beat it. Mind you – they are fabulous inside….sorry don’t have a pic. Rent here ranges from $2,500 for no privacy AT ALL to $3,300 with some privacy. I think I will keep looking…