Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Than the day I bought it about nine years ago, which is not a bad investment. I base this all on the wacky assessment notice that I got from MPAC . I don’t actually believe the evaluation as a real value that I would get if I sold my house (without taking into consideration all of the associated costs with selling a house), however it is an interesting number to start with. 

The actual evaluation will not be implemented right away, it will be gradually raised until 2012 when this value will be in place, which is more interesting, since if the housing market in Ottawa remains robust, my house may be worth even more by then? Maybe not, but it is something else to consider in this wacky equation.

Does this mean I will be paying more property taxes? Given that my evaluation has gone up about 11% from the evaluation I had in 2005, I think my property taxes will not go up that much in reference to this evaluation, however, my guess is other charges from the City of Ottawa will increase my property taxes by a fair amount this coming year. My first property tax bill arrives some time in January.

Percentage of Home Ownership

If I am to assume that this evaluation is relatively close to what the market will pay for my house, it does change how much (as a percentage) of my house that I own. Figuring out how much I still owe on my property, I actually own about 60% of my house currently, which is a reassuring feeling, however, it’s not like I can jettison 40% of the house and thus be out of debt. 

The other problem is, all other houses around me are appreciating in value as well, so the value of my house as an investment is not that great, in that it is unlikely I will move out of it and into a much cheaper house in the near future.

Gas Below 90 cents a Liter

Speaking of wacky, in Ottawa gas dropped below 90 cents a liter for a little while, which is very interesting. The Canadian Dollar has swing like a pendulum, but now with lower gas prices, suddenly traveling becomes much cheaper than it was going to be six months ago. Will gas prices stay down? Don’t know, but it’s nice to see for now, as it makes running my cars (and snow blower) much cheaper right now.

Stocks Still Dropping

The world continues to be jittery about stocks and they continue to drop in value for now. Rate cuts continue in most countries trying to stimulate spending, but a lot of folks are just worried and are going to keep their money in their wallets for now, until they are sure their jobs are safe.

More Job Cuts

Rumor has it that my former employer will soon be adding to the employment pool, by laying off another 18% of their work force (I have heard, this is unsubstantiated rumor), which will make looking for jobs in Ottawa that much harder. Not all the job losses will be in Ottawa, but their continues to be a steady flow out.

Jim Flaherty is predicted to announce this to help ease the credit crunch, but is this going to help? We shall see, but it isn’t bad news, except for tax payers like us, who are now on the hook for these loans as well. This whole “bail out” thing seems to be another possible area where governments will overspend and this will lead to higher taxes. 

Stock Decline Continues

Not that you hadn’t noticed, but, stock prices continue to drop on sentiment (and not much else), as we seem to be in a “shame spiral” in terms of investing, where folks are getting out now just for the sake of getting out. Yes, some companies are announcing pretty shaky numbers, but not enough to justify this kind of sell off.

Is it time to buy yet? Not sure, call me in six months, I’ll tell you whether now was a good time to buy.

Ontario Deficit Provincially?

Evidently the forecast now is for a $500M deficit for the Province of Ontario this year, which means the province is going to have to make cuts or increase taxes to get their books balanced again, or make sure they make more money next year some how . Word is that the cuts will not happen and they will be protecting Education and Health Spending, and should be able to reverse this problem soon. I am skeptical about this statement, and hope this is not a trend we will start seeing at more levels of government.

Competition in Wireless World?

Quebecor announced they will be launching a wireless phone and data service to compete with the incumbents in the area (Bell and Telus).  This is very good news, as I feel that Bell and Telus are both gouging the hell out of the customers (I am a Bell customer currently). More competition is a good thing, and the fact that this offer is a GSM and HSPA play says again that CDMA (the incumbent North American technology) is not doing well either. Rogers, and Fido run a GSM network, whereas Telus and Bell did run only CDMA, but have since announced an “overlay network” with HSPA and GSM technology as well.

For those Nortel watchers out there, CDMA is one of the remaining “cash cows” in Nortel’s war chest, and this technology continues to erode (less and less spending worldwide).

More competition in this market is a very good thing. Time to walk into Bell and ask, “Why is my bill so darn high?” and see what “deals” they have for me.

Expenses of School

Today is back to school for pretty much everyone in my house, and that means the ensuing spending of money on a thousand small things that adds up to  a huge bill at the end of the month under the category of Education in my Quicken. With the added excitement of University costs (yes you should be putting money in an accredited RESP, or education savings plan) should make for an interesting end of September.

Quick Impressions of University

• HP Printers seem to be the printer of choice in my daughter’s dorm (she also has a printer/scanner system). The number of Hewlett-Packard boxes I saw wander up the staircases on Monday, suggests HP is doing quite well in the area of printers.
• HP computers also seemed to be leading the way in dorm rooms (in my very unscientific sample), however my daughter’s roommate had the other choice I was thinking of, and that was the Mac Powerbook. I like them, and they are “chic” technology wise (being a UNIX based OS and such). Didn’t wander down to my Alma Mater to see what was in the dorm rooms at the University of Waterloo, my guess is a more “geek” oriented computer line up.
• American Eagle seems to be the clothing of choice, for now.
• People show up mid-day to drop off their kids and wonder why there is a traffic jam all the way down University avenue all the way out to Highway 85. My father-in-law and I showed up at 9:30 AM got all registration done and had my daughter out for lunch by 11:00 AM.
• Kitchener has a lot of brew pubs.
• Rogers Cell phone system on line is a piece of poo poo. If you attempt to move you Pay per use phone using their on line system, you get 3 pages of JAVA exceptions and the phone number is never changed. The phone based system is not good either, because it won’t let you call from  your phone to do this (the phone you are trying to move), even though you can get to it on the menu. The “oral translation” software does not understand WATERLOO, when you say that as the city you want to transfer the phone to, it keeps saying, “You said WALKERTON is that correct?”. We finally managed to do something, we’ll see if it is correct or not later.
• People move a lot of crap to University, only to throw it out (witness the number of Dead TVs and sofas by the curb in Waterloo).
• Labour Day gas costs were nuts

Sorry for the frenetic theme today, but I only got home last night and didn’t have my article ready ’til this morning!

Any other stories of University beginnings appreciated.

Carnivals

Got mentioned in the Carnival of Personal Finance #168 hosted by One Caveman’s FInancial Journey . My article about Financial Planners an Opinion was my submission.

Leasing Cars a Thing of the Past?

I have commented previously about why I do not lease cars, and it is mostly because it becomes cyclic and you never have your debt paid off, because you end up getting a new leased car.

It seems our firends and General Motors agree with my view on this. This is not actually true, but as of August 1, you will not be able to lease a GM car from GM any more (I am sure there will be leasing companies out there somewhere, but not directly from GM), instead GM will offer you a 6 year ZERO-Interest loan to take their car home with you.

Why? Resale value of Vans, SUVs (or is that SUKs?), and other monster gas guzzlers is such that leasing has actually become a money losing concept for GM (or someone has figured out it soon will be).  Interesting to see if other large North American car makers will follow suit or not, but the only problem with a GM Lease OR zero-interest loan is, that at the end of it, you still have a GM vehicle (speaking as the owner of a Montana VAN).

Evidently Chrysler in the U.S. is also following suit and will be withdrawing from the Leasing business as well.

Right now, I have to pay off my used Toyota Carolla, but that is about it. I drive cars until they are DEAD and then wait 6 more months after that, so leasing never made a lot of sense to me (I used to drive a 12 year old ‘72 Dodge Dart with black vinyl interior, so no, my car is not an extension of me (or maybe it is)). I am not sad to see leasing, go the way of the “Great Awk”.

Is anyone upset that they won’t be able to lease directly from the manufacturer any more?