Hi All Experts & seniors,
I understand that this topic has been covered in the REal Estate board...but no board helps to make a decision..

I am renting out a condominium paying 1000$/month in Burlington, Living in Condo style means that i have enjoyed the benifits of POOL, GYM,SAUNA.. but as the lease expiry time approaching near, i am getting very confused of whether to go for a condo/townhouse.

Well i have been looking at the condos and the fees is around 460$/month.including all amenities + utilities.
I dont mind snowing/mowing.

The main motto of buying house is to stop paying the rent & build up some equity.I plan to keep the house for 2-3 years.

Thw way i look at is , if i take a condo townhome paying 150 $/month for the maintenance, the utilities bill will be approx 200-250 $ which comes out to be 400$ +.....so how to decide....

Do u think within a span of 2-3 years , atleast the cost of condominium will rise enough to bring the cost to breakeven ( will it cover the buy/seel associated costs) ..

In burlington the costs of condo is around 200k and cost of townhouse is 260 K..I dont know paying the maintenance cost will be good enough or to pay individual utilities bill..

Kindly suggest for the confusion/Dillema i am passing through....

I am in the same boat as you but in Mississauga. Here are my calculations (approx) based on Mississauga:-

Cost of a decent Highrise Condo 200-220K
Average maintainance approx 500

There are two types of townhomes, Freehold ones dont have a condo fee and the condo/townhome have condo fees. Freehold ones are more expensive to buy

I have seen condo townhomes with the same Area (Sqft) maintainance fee varying from 70$/month to 320$/month. The cost depends on the age.


Depending on how much mortgage you start with it is a challenge for you to find a condo with a reasonable price limit and a reasonable condo fee.

In your case if you move to a condo/townhome you will pay around 200/month for maintainance (Heat, Hydro etc). So you still have 300$ (500-200).
Theoretically if you find a townhomw with 300$ maint fee the you break even but this is not true because the mortgage cost of a towmhome condo will be more. So you have to put a part of that 300 into mortgage and keep the rest for condo fees. Lets say you put 150 for condo fees and add 150 for additional mortgage. This 150 will get you an additonal of 25K in mortgage. So if you originally budgeted 225K condo/apt you can now look for 250K condo townhomes.

250K condo townhomes are not very hard to find but with <150K maintainance is a little hard but not impossible. If you want only 1.5 washrooms you can easily find them, but what i am looking for is 2 washrooms which means the area is more and that becomes a little more hard to find.

Ofc if you can get a freehold/semi for 275K then you should go for that as then 150k condo fee will again additionally go for the mortgage and you dont have to pay any condo fee.

I have been looking at the Mississauga area and only in the last 3-4 days i ahve started looking at Brampton. I dont know much about the areas there but on paper you can get a 3 br Semi/Detached between 270-300K. If the neighbourhood is crime free and well connected and travel to work is reasonable then i may go for a Semi/Detached because they are usually big in area and the basement can be rented out and you can make atleast 500/month out of the basement.

OFC for me the hard part is to pay for even these
For a 220K morgage you need to pay 1350/pm and then there is 500 maintainace so thats 1350 + 500 maintainance (or additional mortgage for a townhome), so you need 1900$ just to live and if its more than what the family makes in 15days then you wont have money for other good things in life and will become house poor, some people dont mind living like that but i do.

The trick is to save for down and bring your mortgage down and then buy whatever you can afford till your mortgage+maintainance (minus prop tax) becomes <= your family's 15 days income after tax..

Here's my 2 cents..





When prices go up Semi/Detached/Freehold go up more then the Condotown home and then the Apt. The problem is that some condo/townhomes really suck in layout and maintainance. Not that apts dont suck but i have seen more badly designed maintainanced condo townhomes than condo apts...

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Live and Let Live

Thanx a lot for sending the reply..yaar life me itna confusion kabhi nahi hua, Well I agree for all u said..

i dont trust the basements,( iN mISSISSUAGA/BRAMPTON AREA, THATS OK)
BUT IN Burlington area where the inflow of immigrants is very less, seems hard to me, also In a townhouse, u dont have a seperate access/entrance to the basement,THe calculation of 15 days salary is very good, i am on the border but that does not give very much flexibilty( Bade ghar le ke tension kyon lena) , Yahan life banane ke liye aaye hein, aapne aap ko debt mein dubane ke liye nahi..

What do u think abt the freehold townhouses? Jab yahan ke gore 60-70 saal mein snow removal/mowing kar sake=te hein, to humhari hadiya itni bhi kamjor nahi hein..

I am getting inclined towards the freehold townhouse( Pata nahi kyon)

the way i look at it out of 450-500 condo fees, may be 250 goes for the utilities bill, the rest will for security/amenities, and the amount paid by u in 25 years will be 50,000$ -60,000 $, Is it worth?

How much do we Indians use these amenities, Like i have been living in Rental Condo for 6 months, and I think I used the pool the max times ( max 50 times) and gym ( max 20 times),,,IS it worth???????

Do let me know abt ur comments abt this??????????

Renting basement:

I wouldnt depend to feed myself in basement rent, but you can think of it like:
I am going to add the money collected from renting basement to put down for my new car. or prepay my mortgage. Mississauga, Brampton, Burlington they get rented sooner or later as long as it is in a rentable area..

Gym/Pool,

Well if you buy a townhome you can put some exercise equipment in one of the rooms or the basement (if you dont rent). It may not be as classy as the gym in the apt but it is more convinient and WILL keep you fit. Snow removal is not a problem unless you live in a huge mansion or are not physically fit (handicap or weigh like 300lbs)


Condo townhouse fee/Condo apt fee
I think the Condo townhouse fee is a ripoff. Sometimes they give you water which is hardly more than 40$/month. Atleast the Apt fee includes heat and hydro. Very rarely u will find a Condo townhouse fee including heat hydro and water.

If you have the money go for a Freehold even if 20-30k more..

Personally the major challenge for me will be to keep my mortgage+utilities+fees to <=15 days of my family income, if you can do that then go for freehold..if not then we have to make compromises.
I know people who get 3000$pm and spend 2200$ keeping up the house..They have to think 100 times before even going to a restaurant or buying something from walmart.
I know a couple who lives like this and their car had a major engine problem and since the last 3 months they havent repaired their car..with winter coming they have to take a loan (line or credit) and fix the car..
I am hoping i will not make a mistake like that..
OK Fine..house prices go up and they will get a good price if they sell etc but is it worth living the initial years house poor... i think not...

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Live and Let Live

Hi Chitesh, So finally have u made up the mind of what is to be done,Its really very scary,Atleast for me

What is ur time fgrame to buy, Are u in rush, have u got the preapproval from the bank,,,HAve u signed the contract with the realtor?

keep me informed abt the progress.....

MAy be that will be helpful to me also....


Keep updating me

Rohit,
I hate paying interest and taking mortgages..but in this country it is
1) convinient (less rates compared to india, longer term so it looks affordable)
2) inevitable.. its very hard to get 200-300k down.

But i am going to save for atleast 1year before buying. 3 reasons

1) Right now i pay only 500 rent so its not very high
2) House prices are not going up as drastically as it did in the last 1-2 years. Economy is slowing down, so will salaries and home prices. Someone told me home prices today were the same as they were in 1989.. Its not coming down but it isnt going up drastically either..
3) It is expected that interest rates are going to come down by .25% in dec and by a whole 1% by Nov next year so mortgage will be more affordable

Secondly i dont have kids and a lot of responsibility so i am will try my hand in high risk mutual funds maybe stocks (5k-7k) and see how much down can i collect by Nov next before buying the house.the more down you pay the lesser the interest and if you pay down enough you can avoid CMHC, i may not be able to avoid CMHC but i will try...

Till then keep on looking and researching..

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Live and Let Live

We have so many seniors in this forum, but with the talls & reply, no body is firm abt the Candian market, SAY it clearly do u guys think its going to crash?DO u think one should not buy now, wait for few months?GIVE EXPERT COMMENTS.......For a first time home buyer which is aiming at 200,000, still he has to look into lot of factors?the new townhouses are good or to have 3-5 years old,or its better to have a developing area where the roads are getting constructed, malls are coming up?????pls advise