Life

So on Sunday, Dad and I went down to that other house that I talked about in last week’s blog. Thanks to HonestDoor (local), I knew going in that the half-duplex bungalow was overpriced for what it was, and I wanted to see what Oscar, my realtor, said. I didn’t buy that specific house in the end and the exact house addresses themselves aren’t important, but the stats I had written down about the house were as follows:

Other half-duplex bungalows in the same neighbourhood that have sold in the past 2 years, sorted by date and annotated as how many houses north/south of from the current house we were looking at that the sold house was:
4 north — sold for $328,000 on 2022-06-16 — 4br2ba, 901 sqft, with garage — HonestDoor estimate $369,400.
6 south — sold for $265,000 on 2023-09-05 — 4br1ba, 928 sqft, with garage — HonestDoor estimate $299,000.
11 north — sold for $320,000 on 2024-02-14 — 4br1.1ba, 1,248 sqft, with garage — HonestDoor estimate $349,000.
across/7 north — sold for $323,000 on 2024-03-21 — 3br2ba, 933 sqft, with garage — HonestDoor estimate $357,700.
across/6 north — sold for $345,000 on 2024-05-13 — 3br2ba, 1,015 sqft, with garage — HonestDoor estimate $373,500.

As for the house we were looking at, it was:
Listed for $389,900 on 2024-11-04, then $369,900 on 2024-11-15 — 4br2ba, 1,009 sqft, no garage — HonestDoor estimate $319,700.

I don’t trust the HonestDoor site’s valuation estimates, as they don’t show any sort of methodology but have some arbitrary number assigned to every properly that can vary greatly even between the two halves of a half-duplex bungalow, but I left them there for completeness anyway to show that even that site’s estimates disagree with the listed price. The sold prices that the HonestDoor site listed were the most important thing. All those houses were sold within the past 1-2 years, and were literally within a stone’s throw of the house we were looking at. I had also told Dad that I was testing the realtor and not to mention that it was overpriced.

Instead, when we arrived and Oscar gave us the information sheet that showed similar houses recently sold, it looked like this:

He listed four entries — the first one was in the same neighbourhood, Empire Park, but further away that any of the 5 recently sold units I had noted, and a different kind of half-duplex building altogether. This was the token “it’s a cheaper house, but it’s not the same” than the house we were looking at. Then three other listings from more desirable neighbourhoods that were more expensive and nowhere near the house we were looking at. The last house was a completely different type of house as well. And by presenting that sheet, he made the $370k price, and the $366.63 per Square Feet number, seem reasonable. I was angry when I saw that sheet but I didn’t confront him, nor did I let him know at that point that I had done my research into the prices of the other houses in the area.

Instead, Dad and I looked around the house as per normal — it wasn’t a bad place, and was obviously very recently renovated with nice carpeted floors and clean walls, though one door was off its hinges. The house was also missing its washer and only had a very old dryer — the housing portal that my agent used did not list appliances and so I was unaware that the washer was missing, though he showed me the actual listing (and I corroborated this with a regular realtor site afterwards) that it indeed was not listed. The house also did not have a garage, but had a farm style double gate that could be opened to allow a car to drive directly into the grass backyard of the house. Which contained two tree stumps that were not grinded, and that would cause damage to a car during winter if concealed by snow and bumped into. It also had a wheelchair lift by the front door, which apparently “wasn’t included in the price” but could be “negotiated”.

The house was also toasty warm when we stepped in, and this was worrying because this was even though the furnace was supposedly off, since the thermostat was set to 19 degrees Celsius when we arrived. We wondered if that meant that the neighbour’s heat was being transferred over to the other half of the house, and if the reverse applied too. Also the furnace did turn on when we were there with a loud clanking noise that made us worry too. We later found out that both the furnace and hot water tank were 20 years old, and the furnace hadn’t been cleaned since about 2011 or so.

While the house itself was nice, the best part of the house by far was when we looked out the kitchen window at the neighbour’s house though:

Three cats in the window staring at us! There was a dog too that made a big howling fuss when we went out into the backyard.

Before we left, Dad mentioned that he and I were going to go to the nearby Southgate Mall for lunch, which was about 15 minutes away by foot. We left amiably, after which Dad said that he had been trying to see if Oscar would offer us a lift to the mall or not, since he knew that we had walked here and would be walking back in the frigid weather, and we had been at that house for only about half an hour overall. He didn’t, though, and Dad went on a little mini-rant about his own experience as a real estate agent back in Singapore and how as a good agent it would have been a no-brainer to interject and offer a ride to potential clients because at the end of the day, a real estate agent has very little interaction with their clients and should want to try to make as good of an impression as they can, especially if they’re trying to persuade the client to buy a place.

Interesting. I’m not 100% sure if it’s a legitimate criticism or not, but he did have a point, I suppose. I feel that the inaction wasn’t a make or break event by itself though, more like a lost chance to earn brownie points with Dad and me.

I walked around Southgate Mall with Dad for a bit, and we went to buy some food and then went to the local London Drugs store to look at bedside radio alarm clocks since he wanted to get one, though he didn’t end up finding any that met his criteria. I left for home after that, and later in the evening at 5 pm, I emailed Oscar:

Thanks for the viewing today! In addition to the other questions (age of appliances, price of lift) we asked about, would we also be able to request from the realtor side a list of comparable sales of half-duplexes in the Empire Park neighbourhood itself recently, say within the last couple of years? Something similar to page 2 of the housing info sheet, the CMA Summary Report thing, but specific to the neighbourhood and type of house we were looking at, as opposed to other different types of buildings in different neighborhoods? We’d like to see what the Sold$/SF value is for those as the listing’s one is very high compared to the 4707 106 St one that was listed, and how that compares in terms of avg, min, max, etc.

Have there been any other half-duplex sales at all in the neighbourhood?

A leading question, because I know that there were sales — the ones that I listed earlier. Oscar replied at midnight:

I reached out to the realtor and this was his response.

“Hi Oscar.
The roof is approximately 1 year old. I am not sure of the age for hot water and furnace. I know they have been replaced. I am not sure when though.

Depending on the offer, my clients may be willing to I include the lift. “

I have gone back and asked for them to provide us the age, we can always get this info form the inspection as well. Regardless of the age of the appliances as long it is operating and working there will be not much negotiating we can do. I just want you to be prepared this time around. Properties under $400k are a hot commodity right now especially in the area. As you can see there is no duplex for sale in zone 15 beside this property. So there is basically no supply, that is probably why they listed higher to see if they could get max purchase price. By dropping the price $20k aligns with the market value of the property. So given market conditions and the limited supply. This is a good opportunity at this price. You commented that some of the properties sold in the area were cheaper. They are actually not, the market for semi detached homes (duplex) has gone up in price year over year by 16.9%(see the September Stat Board). Average selling price for semi detached homes in Edmonton is $419k. So if we took the property that sold back in last September 2023 for $345k. Due to market price increase average semi-detached homes today would be $345k*16.9%= $369,404. Which basically is what the house is currently listed at.

My recommendation would be, if you really like this property and would like to purchase it. Your best chance would be to go in at list price. This will remove all chance that someone will come in and decline our offer. Second best option I would say you can come in at a minimum of $360k as a starting offer. I say this for two reason. The property shows very well and is move in ready, so this property will be SOLD within the next 2 weeks. As the average selling days is currently 30 days. My guess is it will sell faster simply because there is no supply currently in the area.

Attached is the CMA for Empire Park only and September Monthly Stat Board.

Let me know what you decide to do, if its a place you want you will need to move quickly.

And he included two documents, one was the list of neighbourhood house sale prices that I had requested:

And the other was the September Stat Board that he had mentioned:

His argument was that the house was well-priced because a “similar” house sold last year for 316k in September 2023, and that plus the 16.9% year over year price increase that the stat board claimed was close to $370k. This made me angry — I was sure he was still massaging the prices as the market was nowhere near that hot, and he was trying to FOMO me into buying the house with his ridiculous statements like “if its a place you want you will need to move quickly”, but here was numerical proof in front of my eyes, and, well, being more or less a former international Math champion, I like mathematical proof of things. I went to bed frustrated at this and didn’t sleep very well that night.

The next morning, I took a look at the statistics with fresh eyes. Firstly, from my list that I had posted further up the page, he left off the first two. The first one is understandable, as it was over two years ago now, but he left off the second, which was sold in September 2023, and was the exact same “type” of house — a half-duplex bungalow — and was just six houses to the south of the one that we had visited. Literally next (next next next next next) door neighbours, 3 duplex houses over. Instead, he included a different, more expensive house in the neighbourhood, and then used that for his 16.9% calculations.

He put the wrong number ($345k instead of $316k) in the email, but the intent of the numbers was there, $316k + 16.9% is $369k. But this was Oscar‘s first attempt at obfuscation, since the house 6 units south (which had a garage) had also been sold in Sep 2023, and -that- number, $265k, plus 16.9%, is just $310k. So, misrepresentation number one.

I then went to look for the stat graph, as I did kind of like it, despite a certain level of distrust because they’re all real estate agents and trying to extract maximum profit from their customers anyway, so who knows how massaged the numbers actually are. But I did like it. And I found it here (local) — every monthly link has an infographic analysis of the previous month’s market and there’s a version of that Stat Board that he linked to me for every month in the last couple years.

He used the “Year over Year” number for “Semi-detached Homes” in the City of Edmonton in his arguments, so I tabulated the numbers (listed below in my email to him) and immediately saw what he did — September 2024 was actually an anomalous month with a much higher % because September 2023 was an anomaly with negative growth last year, and both August and October 2024 showed much lower “Year Over Year” growth numbers, about 6% or so. In fact, the market has been completely stagnant since February or March 2024 or so. Oscar cherry-picked data from the chart to try to show a large price increase that did not exist in order to try to pressure me to make a FOMO purchase on the house. So, misrepresentation number two.

I fired this email back at him:

Thanks for that information and the insight! Wall of text incoming and I apologize for it.

I disagree that this is fair market value for the property, as the prices even within Zone 15 are not really comparable to each other in my eyes, as some of the neighbourhoods are far more desirable than others. I mainly prefer to look in terms of the local neighbourhood, and it is obvious to me that the price for this half-duplex is high compared to recent sales in Empire Park, especially since all those sales were made far enough apart that their listing dates did not overlap as well and so they were the “only” houses on the market in the neighbourhood during that time (though perhaps not in the entirety of Zone 15).

The Sep 2023 property in the summary that you provided actually went for $316k, not $345k, the $345k one was from May 2024, so it’s only been 6 months since then. I can still see what you mean if I take the $345k price and add 8% for half a year onto the price though, or the $316k one and add a full 16% to that, both numbers come up to around $370k.

However, I disagree with that math as well, but I really like that stats website, so thank you for that! I went to the source https://realtorsofedmonton.com/stat-type/monthly-market-statistics/ and got the stats for semi-detached houses for the last two years, and the numbers look like this (GEA is Greater Edmonton Region, the orange stats sheet, and EDM is just Edmonton, the blue one):

Jan 2023 – GEA 355k (-5.2% YoY), EDM 359k (-5.1% YoY)
Feb 2023 – GEA 358k (-0.6% YoY), EDM 361k (-2.1% YoY)
Mar 2023 – GEA 365k (-4.1% YoY), EDM 367k (-6.0% YoY)
Apr 2023 – GEA 379k (-3.0% YoY), EDM 379k (-4.8% YoY)
May 2023 – GEA 382k (-0.7% YoY), EDM 391k (-1.4% YoY)
Jun 2023 – GEA 383k (2.6% YoY), EDM 386k (2.6% YoY)
Jul 2023 – GEA 379k (2.3% YoY), EDM 382k (3.3% YoY)
Aug 2023 – GEA 373k (4.3% YoY), EDM 377k (3.6% YoY)
Sep 2023 – GEA 354k (-4.2% YoY), EDM 356k (-6.8% YoY)
Oct 2023 – GEA 386k (4.2% YoY), EDM 400k (8.2% YoY)
Nov 2023 – GEA 362k (0.3% YoY), EDM 361k (-0.5% YoY)
Dec 2023 – GEA 364k (1.6% YoY), EDM 368k (6.5% YoY)

Jan 2024 – GEA 378k (6.6% YoY), EDM 385k (7.1% YoY)
Feb 2024 – GEA 385k (7.7% YoY), EDM 389k (7.9% YoY)
Mar 2024 – GEA 409k (11.5% YoY), EDM 414k (12.4% YoY)
Apr 2024 – GEA 407k (7.4% YoY), EDM 410k (8.2% YoY)
May 2024 – GEA 414k (8.4% YoY), EDM 426k (9.0% YoY)
Jun 2024 – GEA 422k (10.3% YoY), EDM 425k (10.0% YoY)
Jul 2024 – GEA 407k (7.4% YoY), EDM 405k (6.0% YoY)
Aug 2024 – GEA 415k (10.9% YoY), EDM 414k (9.6% YoY)
Sep 2024 – GEA 413k (16.8% YoY), EDM 416k (16.9% YoY)
Oct 2024 – GEA 407k (5.6% YoY), EDM 410k (2.6% YoY)

It looks like that Sep 2023 sale was made in a dip in the market for that particular month only, and the 16.9% number in Sep 2024 is a correction of that dip, not the actual market price increase. There was an increase over spring, but the prices have been stable from Mar to Oct 2024 despite the interest rate decrease. Even the more recent Oct 2024 YoY number is just 5.6%, and not the 16.8% from September. So I would make the reverse argument that the 16.8% was an anomaly, and was for a different kind of house anyway. Both the 3/22/2024 sale (323k in a 414k market) and the 5/14/2024 sale (345k in a 426k market) that happened this year reflect current market prices instead, and they’re both similar half-duplex bungalows in this older neighbourhood in a similar market. About 80% of the EDM rate, which would put the rate of this house around 328k in a 410k market. And both of them even came with garages.

Some of the overprice definitely is due to the renovations and new fence etc on the place, which I do appreciate and definitely does raise the price, but it does not raise the cost of what essentially was a 330k house to 390k, now lowered to 370k. That’s a joke and it’s disappointing that you’d be pushing me toward buying it now under the fear of missing out rather than highlighting that it is grossly, grossly overpriced and I would be significantly overpaying for it. Especially going into winter when I believe the prices usually seem to hit a slight dip. I do understand your point of view, that you are likely saying that there might be someone who will buy it at that price anyway, and that might even be true, but after reviewing the prices over the past year and what actual similar houses sold for, I can’t help but feel like wool is being pulled over my eyes instead, whether it’s true or not.

I know you’re not the seller though so I’m not really trying to argue with you about the price, but I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I don’t see the value in the place, especially when it lacks a washer/dryer ($2500), a garage (and the weird backyard stall only has space for one vehicle, not two as the listing says), a 20 year old furnace and hot water tank that will both need to be replaced the next time they break ($3000-$5000 and $1500-$2500 respectively), another couple thousand for the grading, etc. I strongly disagree that the age of a furnace does not correspond to a negotiable decrease in price, that was one of the sticking points for me for the last home and it is here, too, but of course I do not expect them to deduct the entire price of a new furnace from the price. It just does not overall correspond to an overpay of 30k. It’d a good home but not my perfect one.

The wheelchair lift might affect the price positively too, but it seemed old from what we could see so we might not want it anyway. Also, after hearing from the last house that they were going to leave all their junk there for us to clean up, I would also need to know what the current owner plans to do with all the furniture they left in this house. Ideally they’d remove all of it.

Sold$/SF seems like a far fairer indication of market price, so working around a 330 $/SF value since it lacks a garage as usable space, it would be 1008.91 * 330 = 332k, rounded up to 335k for an initial offer on the house that I would be willing to make, based on knowing the age of the furnace, the tank, the grading issues, the lack of a garage, the new roof, the new fences, the renovations, and no furniture including the lift at the moment, and pending inspections. And I think that’s a fair offer as to what I think the house is worth, as it’s a bit cheaper than the May one went for, in a May market that was stronger than the current October one and even the September “16.8% YoY” one, and already almost 10k higher than the 80% or so rate of the EDM number. I would be willing to negotiate a bit, but I am not willing to grossly overpay, so 370k is out of the question, and I will just walk if so.

So the market, using the metrics that he was using, has been 410-415k since March or so, besides a brief bump during the summer months. Even the “16.9% Year over Year” September 2024 was around that range. And the September number wasn’t even the latest number available at the time the realtor made the argument, just the highest one (and one that conveniently corresponded to the specific sale of a different house type that he cherry-picked). I argued, and I believe I am correct, that the 3/22/2024 and 5/14/2024 sales showed that the actual market price of the house was much lower, and I made my offer accordingly. And how about the “average price” comment, as though that applies in any way to an old 1964 half-duplex, though I also addressed that in my retort in terms of the % of the total “average price” that the last two neighbourhood houses went for.

The realtor didn’t argue or push back at my analysis, though he did suggest offering $340k (including the lift) instead of $335k (without the lift). I had talked to Dad to figure out my parents’ interest in the house, and factored in my own math to come up with a maximum price, and I agreed to that. Fast forwarding the story, the seller came back with a $356k counter-offer, without the chair lift, down from their $370k asking price. Oscar counteroffered with a $342.5k, and the seller paused for a bit, said that they were going to “see if their relative wanted to buy the place”, which was a very very weird thing to say — what, you expect me to pay family prices now when they can pay any arbitrary amount and you can just hand the money back to them after? — and then came back the next day with a $354k final offer, including the lift.

I laughed and walked. So now the house is still waiting for a buyer, after 11 days at $389k and 7 more days at $369k. And anyone that buys it at that price, or even at anything above $350k, is a sucker. $350k is probably a slightly elevated, but somewhat fair price for it since it was fully renovated, but more than that is grossly overpaying for it. As for me, even if they came back to me right now and said the $342.5k was fine, I would probably not want it anymore and say that $340k was my maximum now, as $342.5k was my “first foot in the door” offer at the time.

So anyway I still have Oscar as a realtor, but I’m definitely thinking about replacing him or walking away from that as well. It might not be necessary though since I know his tricks and know the tools of the trade now, there’s no need to burn that bridge. I still have a cordial relationship with him and that’s all I’ll ever need to maintain. I am angry that he tried to mislead me and did not look out for my best interests and at any point suggest that the house is overpriced, though.

Coincidentally, the housing portal site also died this week a day after the deal fell apart, and I laughingly contemplated for a moment if -he- had fired -me- or something. But no, I think they just depreciated an old version of the site, as the email alerts I was still getting had been pointing to a different portal site for some time now. So I swapped over to that instead. That one doesn’t have a username/password system though, so it’s weirder to share with friends — I found an automatic login link and just shared that instead, but due to that I can’t ever revoke access to it if I somehow need to.

There was also another condo townhouse that Dad and I were considering looking at, but it went into Pending status back near the start of the week, and then into Open status again near the end of the week after all the drama with the other house, and then a heavy snowfall started in the city and we decided it was more trouble than it was worth (and that the $330 monthly fee for it was a bit too unpalatable) so we decided not to pursue that one at all and leave it as a backup option, since condos in Edmonton seem to take forever to sell anyway.

Okay, enough of housing stuff. In lighter news, I went to the nearby Asian supermarket, T&T Supermarket, this week, because, well, one thing I had done at the start of the month but apparently forgot to write down was that I had bought the November 2024 transit pass because the Edmonton Transit System is retiring paper bus passes (local) and this was going to be the last one. I hadn’t bought one in ages because I just don’t travel around much anymore, but I did get this one just to have it since this meant that I had a copy of the very last monthly pass that they printed, and this thus also meant that I have free travel for the rest of the month anyway, so why not use it a bit?

Among other random purchases, I bought something called Tribute Vegetables, or Gong Cai, because it was on deep sale. Weirdly enough, it seems to have an alternate name of Mountain Jellyfish as well. It tasted, well, tasteless, which meant that it adopted the taste of whatever it was put into, and its texture felt like the lettuce in pickled lettuce, like a very slightly crunchy vegetable stem. I sliced it up into many small pieces and threw it into soup.

I did notice that the supermarket seems to have a free delivery offer (local) above a $59 total purchase price on their online storefront that expires at the end of December 2024, and I do need to check this out at some point — it would definitely be convenient if there was no exorbitant shipping or shopping fee on top of that, but it depends on what the exact deal and fee was. From my spreadsheet ledger file though I can see that the online item prices at least are exactly the same as the in-store prices. I could probably use this opportunity to buy a new wok-style pot, as my old one is beaten down but it’s too awkward bringing a pot home via public transit bus if I buy it at that store during an in-person visit. I don’t visit it as often as I’d like to either, especially in winter.

I also got new shoes this week — I got them from the same store that I got my last one, the Ecco store in Southgate Mall, as I’ve been in there a few times and I really like the male salesclerk there, as he’s remembered me the last couple times I’ve come in too, so we built up a little bit of a rapport. My last pair of shoes was only from 2 years ago, Oct 17 2022 to be precise, just before my first trip to Japan. I’ve worn them down in the past two years going to Japan three times, and a large swathe of the rest of East and Southeast Asia once, though. They’re super threadbare and holey at this point:

Those shoes cost $160, and I was very fond of them because the laces were fake, and they were basically slip-on shoes. They had nothing like that in stock anymore though, so the ones I picked up this time were 50% off and cost $120, and a bit of an ongoing sanity drain because they have real laces and I don’t like laces due to their propensity for coming undone.

But it’s fine, they look nice and they have a little loop for the laces to be in, so I wanted to try that out. Time to book a trip to Asia again to break in these new shoes.

I wish.

(I’m actually getting itchy feet again, I feel the wanderlust setting in, but in theory I should be saving for the house and looking to acquire a good one with Oscar-induced haste when it comes onto the market first, before doing anything related to travelling.)

The Santa meet-and-greet display in Southgate Mall is back, and just like last year, the Santa noticed me taking a picture and he waved at me:

Same guy, with the white beard plus a little brown/black streak in the middle. What a swell chap!

WordPress isn’t automatically connecting my uploaded pictures to the diary entry that they’re linked to anymore, so I’m not sure what happened last week to make them automatically connect. It wasn’t the update after all. Hmm. This will require further investigation.

At work, I had booked off some vacation time for the first week of January 2025 after our paid Christmas break (which usually runs from Dec 24 to Jan 02) a few weeks ago as I always do every year, but I realized this week that I had booked off Jan 06-10 but had forgotten about Jan 02-03, the Thursday/Friday directly after New Year’s, so I was scheduled to work those days and other teammates had already taken those days off. This was a mistake and thankfully my boss still let me book those two remaining days off when I mentioned it and how it made the Jan 06-10 vacation a bit pointless, even though it made our team extra lean on those first two days after New Year’s.

Finally, have some sky and, well, ground pictures. The snow came down in full force halfway through the week and the latter part of the week had really cloudy skies and lots of either fog or snow-induced mist, which were all new views to me from this apartment.

This was from Sun Nov 17, 4:11 pm:

And Mon Nov 18, 4:21 pm:

And then the snow and dank skies came, on and off, over the next few days.  My next picture was from Thursday, Nov 21 at 3:59 pm:

And then Friday, Nov 22 at 8:40 am:

That picture was interesting because the tall apartment building in the distance was partially obscured by the mist — the bottom part of the building was shrouded whereas the top part was clearly visible. How weird.

This is Sat Sep 23 at 2:10 am, just before I went to bed, with the mall’s carpark lights shining brightly in the midnight snowscape:

And then when I woke up and dragged myself out of bed at 9:17 am:

And then by the time Saturday night rolled around, it had snowed a lot more and there were snowplows out in full force cleaning up the Southgate Mall carpark. This was a new spectacle to me, so I wanted to catalogue what it looked like from my place. They were really loud even into the night but thankfully the thick balcony doors blocked most of the noise. The temperature was around a steady -13 degrees Celsius through the night, I believe.

Here’s the first Sat Nov 23 evening scene at 5:01 pm, before any snowplows.

And then 11:18 pm, not long after the plows started:

11:37 pm, as three of them circled the area multiple times:

Now into Sunday Nov 24 at 1:18 am, as trucks and I think some of the same plows worked the bottom area:

2:04 am, as the snow pile in the bottom left of the carpark, behind the trees, steadily grew in size:

And then its final form, as far as I could tell, around 3:10 am.

And finally a review picture of the place at 9:17 am in the morning, as a train drifts by in the distance.

Spring can’t come quickly enough. But there is a certain distant, safe coziness and detachment from the world that I feel from my warm perch inside my apartment, while the world outside freezes over. And I love the warmth from stepping indoors after the rush of standing for a few seconds outside in the balcony without suitable winter clothes on to take pictures.