I recently read an article about people who camped out for 3 days to be among the first to own the next “hot” thing on the market. What did those people wait in line for? A new smartphone? Nope. A sale on a 60 inch LED TV? Nope. How about a new condo. Yes! Within the first 5 hours of going on sale last Saturday, the first tower at Brentwood Mall, in Burnaby B.C., sold out of all 247 units. 😯 At least the buyers went prepared and brought with them tents and sleeping bags.
By mid afternoon all suites – ranging from $299,000 to $949,000 – had been bought up. Welcome to the Greater Vancouver Area, where if you don’t camp out for 3 days you have no chance to buy a brand new condo project 😕
Speaking of real estate, last week I blogged about buying my first mortgage fund. So this means I have a new item to add to my net worth statement this month 🙂 On to the numbers.
*Side Income:
- Part-Time Work = $600
- Dividends = $500
- Eating Out = $100
- Others = $100
*Net Worth: (MoM)
- Assets: = $825,200 total (+6,300)
- Cash = $800 (-9500)
- Stocks CDN =$92,900 (+4100)
- Stocks US = $52,100 (+1100)
- RRSP = $42,400 (+600)
- Home = $254,000 (same)
- Farms = $373,000 (same)
- MIC = $10,000 (+new)
- Debts: = $527,900 total (-3,400)
- Mortgage = $198,100 (-300)
- Farm Loans = $206,100 (-400)
- Margin Loan CDN = $30,800 (-200)
- Margin Loan US = $24,900 (-1200)
- TD Line of Credit = $32,600 (-400)
- CIBC Line of Credit = $13,100 (-400)
- HELOC = $19,700 (-100)
- RRSP Loan = $2,600 (-400)
*Total Net Worth = $297,300 (+3.37%)
All numbers above are in $CDN. Conversion rate used: 1.00 USD = 1.07 CAD
June has been a great month. I saw a $9,700 increase to my wealth and there are no signs of the hot stock market slowing down. I suppose this is what happens when the Federal Reserves continues to dump $35 billion a month into the economy. I’m happy to add a new investment into my asset category. As a fixed income vehicle the principal of my MIC does not fluctuate day to day. I may buy more MICs in the future, possibly publicly traded ones next time. Stocks this month has performed very well, especially the technology companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon. I’m extremely happy with Intel’s stock. In mid June Intel announced that it thinks the PC market is still strong. Its share price is up 15% month over month, yay! In terms of debt I’m just slowly paying that down. The large drop of my U.S. margin loan is mostly due to the weakened $USD relative to my domestic currency 😛
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Random Useless Fact:
The 2 concentric circles below are perfectly round. #opticalillusion
Solid month all the way around. I think I would rather live in one of those tents instead of a $900k condo. There probably aren’t many people getting close to early retirement there. By the way, those circles are crazy!
MDP
The dotted patterns form circles themselves which confuses our mind. Sometimes it helps if I try to cover most of the image with my hand and just look at 1/4 of the image at a time.
Wow, congrats to the new condo owners! 3 days off like camping out is totally worth the wait! You have a very impressive monthly income too, good job for you!
Yeah the dividends help pay the bills. It took me 6 years of saving tens of thousands of dollars each year to finally make this rate of dividend income. I’m happy with the results so far but there’s still a long way to go before I reach financial independence.
Great networth gains. Hey can u give me some more info on the MIC? what kind of return, risk, payouts periods? are we looking at ? How did you come across it?
Good Day and Grind On!
MICs typically pay 5% to 10% return currently. But historically their returns move up and down with interest rates. Many of them have a mandate to consistently return at least 3% above the 5 year yield on federal government bonds for example. The current MIC I’m invested in, Antrim Balanced Mortgage Fund, is targeting roughly 7% return this year, and it’s last 3 year average return was about 7% as well. But in the early 2000s when interest rates were higher they were paying 8% to 10% a year, according to the historical returns chart I found on their website, but who knows. Some MICs lock you in for 2 years or more, but the MIC I have gives investors full access to their balance if they want it so there is no liquidity risk for the most part. If I run into a financial emergency tomorrow I can withdraw my principal in full, with no penalty. The other risk is related to defaults. If the borrower fails to pay back the mortgage then the MIC loses out on potential interest revenue. But because each loan is secured by real property, in the event of a default the MIC can… Read more »
Thanks for the info buddy. I was working with a lawyer before giving out 2nd mortgages to borrowers in the Vancouver area for rates of 8-12% depending on term , credit rating and amount asked and it was pretty good for a few years but the demand dried up for us. I like the fixed payments and the yield but a couple borrowers were late on payments and things got a lil messy. Essentially MIC seems like the same thing on a bigger efficient way. Imma look into them some more!
Liquid congrats on another great month! I couldn’t imagine camping out for days just to buy a condo. I swear people put more research into a new TV than they do their new home.
Yes, if only people spend more time doing research when buying a home. Running around and looking for deals to save a few hundred dollars off a TV is good. But looking at comparative real estate sales and using good negotiation tactics can save someone thousands of dollars on a real estate transaction (buy or sell) which is much better.
Great Job Liquid and congrats!!! $9,700 gain in one month is amazing. The graph is going all the way up and up.. :D.
You are well in your way to achieve the financial freedom. Keep it up.
Cheers.
It’s almost becoming surreal. The stocks I buy just keep going up and up (most of them anyway.) I almost feel bad for having all the wealth I’ve accumulated because I didn’t really work hard for it. The market just did all the heavy lifting for me. Sometimes I think central bankers should just give their printed money directly to the poor and most vulnerable in the country, instead of giving it to the banks and the financial markets. Investors who are long stocks and real estate have seen tremendous returns in the last 20-30 years in both Canada and the U.S. And yet investors are still being handed more profit by the Federal Reserve. Ah well, I can’t complain since I’m benefiting directly from all the excessive money printing.
Nice solid month on the balance sheet, Liquid! Though I don’t know what to think about those future condo owners… nuts!
I bet some of those people who lined up were paid to wait in line by the real buyers lol.
All I can say these people are crazy. They sure have deep pockets to camp out for like three days. I drive by there all the time, but I didn’t notice the camp out, guess I just speed through there after work. Wow your net worth is rocking it. You’ll break the $300k mark soon enough!
Thanks. I hope to reach $300K by the end of next month. Happy Canada Day 🙂
Thanks for sharing your recent update and new mortgage fund investment. You really seem to be diversifying a lot of your investments. For now, I’m just heavy in stocks. Crazy image too about the people camping out. How has market become so hot in the Vancouver area? Are people concern over the potential rise of interest rates down the pipe that they want to lock in low rates?
Vancouver has the same problem as New York and Tokyo, but not the same extent. We basically can’t expand outwards anymore, but the city is becoming more dense as people move here so fundamentally the value of land keeps going up. I suppose it’s good for owners who had bought years ago, but it’s hard for new home buyers to get into the market now. Yes, lots of people are locking in their mortgage rates to prepare for the potential interest rate increase. Personally I like floating rate debts so I have a variable mortgage for my home because I don’t think the premium to pay for a fixed rate is worth it, but I’m in the minority lol.