Didn’t we just do this?
Is life moving in fast-forward, or is it just me?
This is the sixteenth seasonal sign-off for me on Toronto Realty Blog, and every time I do this, it feels like the last version was just a little bit closer behind.
I’d like to thank all the regular readers and commenters for their continued support, readership, and contributions over the last year, including, but most certainly not limited to:
Appraiser, Condodweller, Ace Goodheart, Derek, Libertarian, Kyle, Marina, Sigruper, Francesca, Ed, London Agent, GinaTo, Mxyzptlk, Jennifer, A Grant, Vancouver Keith, Bryan, Frances, Jenn, Graham, Alexander, Jimbo, Geoff, Bal, East Yorker, Cyber, Patty, RPG, Daniel, Nobody, J G, Ken Davenport, JL, Julia, JF007, R, Adrian, Average Joe, Pragma, Island Home Owner, Buckley B. Buckington, Izzy Bedibida, TokyoTuds, Different David, TO PLanner, JG, Marty, Hoob, J, Anonymous Realtor, TLM, Toad, Peter, Gypsy, Writer, Joel, Anwar, Karolina, ChT, Alex, Nick, Kevin, House Keys, David (Not the David who runs this website), Harvard, Jason, Sunshine, Mike, Phil, Sam, DAF, Chantal, Steve, Mike Stevenson, Katie, M, Dan, Steph, Linda, Andrew, Jordan, Keith, Jonathan C, Edwin, hugh, Pete, TT, and anybody else I may have missed, despite combing through 12 months of comments.
I don’t believe I saw any comments from TRB veterans: Chris, Professional Shanker, Verbal Kint, Kramer, Jeff316, Chroscklh, and others, whose names I have etched in my brain after years of reading their comments.
Trust me when I say that I remember all my blog friends and foes.
This year, we passed 50,000 comments on TRB, and I’m amazed at the names I can remember from as far back as 2007. A lot of blog readers have come and gone over the years, some staying for a short time, others staying much longer. But many of the current readers have been here for as long as I can remember, and I’m truly honoured to see their names pop up in the comments section over and over. Hobbies and interest come and go, especially in the world today where a million different stimulants are vying for our attention on a regular basis. So to see the readers frequent the site on a regular basis warms my heart and confirms a job well done.
I had a great year on TRB and enjoyed every minute of writing. Although my 42-year-old style and voice may have changed from the younger version of myself as I penned blogs in the late-2000’s, the goal remains the same: to bring honesty and transparency to an industry that desperately needs it. While there’s more transparency now than when I started the blog in 2007, I still feel that these behind-the-scenes stories and discussions, and analyses of topics that other people won’t touch are as important as ever.
I was talking to Chris last week about the now-infamous posts I wrote about the condos being built (and fought over…) in Leaside. A few nasty comments were posted on the blog, likely from area residents, and Chris said, “You do realize that no other real estate agent in the city would write what you did, and risk alienating a whole community, right?”
That’s exactly the point.
I grew up in Leaside and I live in Bennington. I’m in that community and I have an opinion. And if my opinion differs from a handful of self-interested NIMBY home-owners, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to share it!
I started this blog in 2007 because I realized that most agents are yes-men who simply smile and tell people how great everything is. But how boring is that?
Where’s the value in a real estate agent if he or she doesn’t have an opinion and speak it regularly?
I may be older, I may be wiser, and I may talk more today about kids and married life than I did fifteen years about nightclubbing and traveling, but I will never compromise my core values.
Some Realtors feel that the way to be successful is to hone in on a community, join the PTA, frequent social clubs, smile, shake hands, kiss babies, hand out pies in the park, agree with everyone and everything, and never express an unpopular opinion.
But it ain’t me, babe. No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe. It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.
I now have two weeks “off” before we start up again in 2023.
What in the world am I going to do with all that time?
I absolutely love this time of year and no, it’s not because I’m not busy and not working. In fact, I don’t do well when I’m out of my element.
It’s just that “warm and fuzzy” feeling you get around the holidays.
As an atheist who celebrates Christmas and Hannukah, it’s tough to explain.
I love the lights. I love the decorations. I love the smell of a Christmas tree (all ya’ll with your fake plastic trees are missing out…), I love baking shortbread cookies (despite the kids fighting), I love making pizza from scratch (despite the flour getting everywhere), I love the warmth of the fire (even if it’s gas and not wood-burning), I love watching my mother ask the kids to light the Hanukkah candles (even if they’re too young and fire scares the hell out of them), and I love the time I spend with my family, which comes without the anxiety that surrounds me for eleven months of the year because of my chosen occupation.
There is so much to look forward to over the next two weeks.
I’m looking forward to seeing my brother and his family when they arrive from London, as I know my daughter is too!
I can’t wait to see my kids’ faces when they come down on Christmas morning and regale upon the bounty of gifts that an intruder left in our house after he broke in, messed up our chimney, ate our cookies, dislodged some shingles with his sled on the roof, and let his reindeer crap on our lawn.
I’m basically already fasting for the mashed-potato-and-gravy feast on December 26th. I might consume some turkey as well, but don’t count on it.
My wife has a ton of events planned for us. She’s good at that. Casa Loma, Glow Gardens, Santa Express Train in Uxbridge, skating at Nathan Phillips Square, the Holiday Lights in Yorkville, the Winter Market in the Distillery, and lord only knows what else.
And I’m really looking forward to watching Elf for the thousandth time. And Home Alone, which I love watching while enjoying an alcoholic beverage…..alone. Is that weird? Is that movie for kids? I just really love the 1990’s. And nostalgia. And my childhood. And anything with Joe Pesci…
I’m also looking forward to starting 2023 with the goal of running 1,000 KM, yet again.
I was off to a great start this year, running 10K’s with regularity in February and March, culminating with that glorious 10KM run in Hampstead Heath when I was in London, England. But I came back to Toronto, mangled my ankle the very next day, and it took me until September to get back to running with regularity, but only 5-6KM at a time. Then just last week, I re-aggravated a lower-back injury that literally kept me in bed for three days. Sigh. Life…
My brother and I made a pact to run a marathon in the fall of 2023. I can’t recall if alcohol was a factor in that pact, but more likely for me than him. Time will tell if that was pie-in-the-sky or something to work toward.
I hope we can all use the upcoming holidays to reflect a little on our hopes and dreams for the year ahead, and maybe acknowledge that despite the trials and tribulations of the last three years, the issues we discuss with regularity that bemoan this city, and a constant stream of wants and needs that go unfulfilled, we actually have it pretty damn well!
Thank you again to the TRB community for reading, watching, commenting, and interacting here on Toronto Realty Blog over the course of 2022.
Wishing you all health and happiness through the holidays and into the new year!
David.
Graham
at 8:01 am
Merry Christmas! Hanukkah Sameach!
David, enjoy the time with your family. That looks like a packed calendar.
See y’all in 2023. Shark City 4 Life.
David Fleming
at 5:36 pm
@ Graham
Shark City. Just those two words gives me goosebumps. 🙂
RPG
at 8:05 am
Merry Chrismukkah to all!
David, thank you for another great year.
Francesca
at 8:40 am
Happy holidays to you David and all your readers. Another great year of blog posts is around the corner for sure. Do you dream at night on what to write about? It must be hard to come up with so many new ideas constantly.
We also watch Elf and Home Alone too every holiday season and Christmas vacation with Chevy Chase too. Nothing beats these classics in my mind!
To 2023!
Alex
at 8:59 am
I enjoy your blogs so thank you and Merry Christmas!
Appraiser
at 9:12 am
Merry Christmas. All the best for 2023!
Jenn
at 9:12 am
Thanks for another year of amazing entertainment David!
Happy Holidays to everybody!
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Derek
at 11:30 am
Cheers, good health, and good times to everyone!! May the interest rates be ever in your favour!
Marina
at 11:54 am
Merry Christmas everyone!
Enjoy the holidays and looking forward to another year of fun stories, educated speculation, exasperation with stupidity, and of course photos of people’s inexplicable decorating choices.
All the best!
LucasJ
at 11:56 am
No festivus pole in your house, or feats of strength challenges with your son?
David Fleming
at 5:35 pm
@ LucasJ
My son isn’t yet 3-years-old.
I don’t plan on have physical competitions with him until he’s at least……….four.
Vancouver Keith
at 1:15 pm
Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah to you and yours David, and to all the commenter community. A peaceful and prosperous New Year as well.
Bal
at 1:45 pm
Wishing a very Merry Christmas to everyone….Have lots of fun ….
Ace Goodheart
at 1:54 pm
Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah!
May it be many years before you need to use an explanation involving magic to convince your kids that Santa Claus really can do what he does (“Dad, how does Santa visit all those houses in one night? The timeline doesn’t work, if you consider average time from Chimney to fireplace, time to deliver, and then journey to the next house…he would need like a million years to do it once…”) – “He just uses magic, son. That is how it works”
– and I unintentionally introduce my child to the primary driving force behind modern scientific explanations as delivered to the General Public “we don’t really understand it, but we know that it works….it’s magic!”
Dear Santa: Please bring us lower interest rates in time for our mortgage renewal….It’s magic!
Marian deWever
at 2:46 pm
Thank you for your blog posts this year. It has been a tricky year and your blog posts have been a great source of information and entertainment. All the best for 2023!
Sirgruper
at 11:48 pm
Happy Holidays and thanks for all the entertainment. If you run for the same time you write and make Pick 5, 2,000k is in the bag.
DAF
at 2:47 pm
‘Twas a tough year and your blogs, posts, Pick 5s were so helpful in keeping up the humour (and sarcasm). Merci, mercy! Have a great holiday with the family and I look forward to a chuckle in January.
London Agent
at 7:48 am
Merry Christmas David! It is a warm and fuzzy time of year, my wife and I have a list of almost 30 Christmas movies that we watch ritually every year and this week is the stretch run.
I am curious to hear how much work you do during your two week “holiday” when you return in the new year. Cheers
David Fleming
at 7:34 pm
@ London Agent
I was in the office today – the 23rd, right up until the “storm” began.
Not to sound old, but……….”in my day,” we didn’t freak out because there was a little wind-driven sleet and frozen ice! I remember walking to school through snow up to my chest! I could have fallen over and they would have found me in the spring!
I don’t think I’m heading to the office on the 24th though. There are cookies to bake and pizza to make!
Appraiser
at 8:21 am
The Causes of and the Responses to Today’s Inflation:
~Joseph E. Stiglitz and Ira Regmi, December 2022
“Our analysis concludes that today’s inflation is largely driven by supply shocks and sectoral demand shifts, not by excess aggregate demand. Monetary policy, then, is too blunt a instrument because it will greatly reduce inflation only at the cost of unnecessarily high unemployment, with severe adverse distributive consequences.”
https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/RI_CausesofandResponsestoTodaysInflation_Report_202212.pdf
Appraiser
at 8:47 am
Just a friendly reminder that raising interest rates does not reduce the demand for housing:
“Average rents in Canada soar above $2K for first time ever…” https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/rental-costs-canada-1.6685602?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar
Bal
at 12:45 pm
House demand always going to be there….but due to high interest rates, affordability is not there unless house price is dropped.
other words, if price is right, house is selling otherwise sitting for months….
Ace Goodheart
at 9:54 am
Inflation is a many headed beast, unfortunately.
Our current situation is pretty much all the spare parts coming together to build the perfect long term situation for inflation to settle down, build a space for itself, and wreak havoc in our economy.
We have had:
1. Excessively low interest rates. This situation doesn’t always lead to inflation, but when you couple it with bubble like behavior in residential real estate markets, it often does. Usually, when low interest rates are going to lead to hyper inflation, you see a lot of fraud and corrupt practices in residential real estate, particularly when it comes to mortgages.
2. Government “money printing” programs. You usually get this in tandem with the rise of left wing, socialist governments. It usually is done to address some “crisis” or other (socialism lives on crisis, it is socialism’s food. Without crisis, socialism cannot exist. There must always be an emergency, a crisis, an urgent situation that requires the socialists to exist, otherwise they disappear like a muddy puddle on a hot day).
3. A population that does not want to work. Our current “work from home”, “mass resignation” situation will lead to inflation. Couple this with lock downs and business closures (still going in in China, where about half of the world’s manufactured goods are produced) and you get a relentless push for higher prices.
4. Hot job numbers. Again, people simply do not want to work anymore. We were all given a taste of the home life, we got to see our children in the morning, and eat dinner with them in the evening, we laid off our nannies, put our babysitters on long term furlough, and tried out family life. We liked it. Getting people back into positions where they never see their house in the daylight, is hard. No one wants these jobs. Talk to the TTC. They are hiring drivers right now. They can’t find enough people. You go to the interview, and they explain to you how a “split shift” works, and what the working hours will be, and people just walk out.
5. The “woke” movement. This is the biggest single driver of inflation known to “people kind” right now. The idea is, tax functioning economies into recession. Anything that makes us go, must be taxed. Trudeau and his former green peace dude turned minister of the environment and “climate change” put a massive tax on farms and their input costs. This led to food inflation, which the government is now trying to blame on profiteering by grocery stores (anyone who has been in the grocery business knows this is nonsense – grocery stores operate on razor thin profit margins and they make their money on volume, not profiteering – you have to sell a lot of groceries and you have to buy in bulk in huge quantities, to even get past the break even point).
At some point, we will all wake up (not “woke up”, actual waking up) and understand that an economy only works if people are working (not sitting in Starbucks debating their pronouns).
We just have to wait for that to happen.
In the meantime, there is going to be a lot of road kill (particularly in the residential real estate sector, where people are already losing everything, being pushed into bankruptcy and court cases, and generally learning about life the hard way….)
David Fleming
at 7:31 pm
@ Ace Goodheart
Is it possible that you and I were separated at birth?
Libertarian
at 10:52 am
Happy holidays to everyone!
May everyone’s holidays be as entertaining and fun as this blog.
David, thanks as always for all the insight into Toronto real estate. The best to you and your family. Buy your mom something nice for all the comments she leaves on here.
David Fleming
at 7:32 pm
@ Libertarian
You can’t imagine the flak I get in the office on the subject of buying my mother a house. They tease that I take longer than any client I’ve ever had… 🙂
Libertarian
at 10:44 am
Buy your mom a house? That certainly would be a lot nicer than what I was thinking of.
What’s wrong with her house in Scarborough?
Kyle
at 1:32 pm
Looking forward to more great blog posts in 2023. Happy holidays everyone!
Appraiser
at 1:10 pm
As per Statistics Canada inflation report today today: “Slower price growth for gasoline and furniture was partially offset by faster growth in mortgage interest cost and rent.” https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221221/dq221221a-eng.htm?HPA=
So increasing interest rates is contributing to inflation on one hand and taming it on the other?
Joel
at 10:21 pm
Happy Holidays!
Condodweller
at 7:52 pm
Interesting year for sure. Next year looks even more interesting. Happy holidays. Until next year!
Sirgruper
at 12:58 pm
David
Happy New Years. Hopefully in the next few weeks you can post a blog about the new Toronto Home Vacancy Tax. Apart from feeling this tax is wrong on so many levels and just government wanting to look like it is helping society without actually doing anything but taxing, the first year and its implementation and fall out will be huge. I have already seen the following:
1. On sales of properties, the tax department has not updated their records as to ownership and the old owner doesn’t bother with the declaration as its not their property anymore.
2. The tax bill and thus the yellow form goes to the bank that pays the mortgage and its not sent to the owner.
3. A person sells their large home in order to live at their cottage full time and has a small place in the City. You are taxed if you live more at the cottage then in the City but not the other way around.
4. At the end of life, grandma is in hospital and care facilities but doesn’t want to sell her house and belongings in the hopes of possibly returning. Better decide within the year.
5. Grandma dies but it straddles 2 tax years. God forbid grieving families should not be efficient in selling off the house and possessions upon death. Besides, families always act and agree on whether to sell and thus estate litigation is non-existent. (my wife says I use too much sarcasm but I can’t seem to help it)
6. The wording of the declaration is so poor. If you buy a house in September and you think the old owners lived in it what do you declare; that it was vacant? Occupied. Who knows?
The hypocrisy of government with respect to the vacancy tax is crazy. If Muskoka, Kawartha, Halliburton, Innisfil do the same thing and tax cottages that are not occupied for 6 months of the year, how with Toronto politician like it.? I would love to see their audited declarations. While they are at it, let’s do bedroom audits. Two people living in a 4 bedroom? Tax em. Kids may come back or sleep over for the grandkids? Better have a 6 month sleep over. (there’s that sarcasm again)
David, I suspect that your rant will be far more coherent and eloquent that the above as you have a flair for writing and especially about stupidity and hypocrisy of government. I await same with great anticipation.