Toronto Life on moving to Hamilton

[holymoly]

http://www.torontolife.com/features/...own-revisited/

Steeltown Revisited
By Bert Archer

It’s easy to joke about Hamilton (The factories! The smell!), but word is drifting down the QEW of a revitalized downtown, detached homes for less than $150,000 and an influx of Queen West refugees. Who’s laughing now? ...

[FairHamilton]

Great, Add another 5% to the price of my home.

[DC83]

Interesting. Talk about some sweet advertising for Locke Street Bakery!

Hamilton—with its downtown-centred 19th-century layout, industrial heritage and fiery smokestacks—is as urban as it gets. Though it’s uneasily close to Toronto, it is not a satellite; it has an orbit of its own.

Great Quote!

[highwater]

My favourite line:

...for the moment, Hamilton is for people who want to be Hamiltonians...

Let's hope it stays that way and doesn't become just another bedroom community.

[Jon Dalton]

downtown Hamilton is no longer (quite) the cultural wasteland it once was

My favorite part

[thistleclub]

Originally Posted by Jon Dalton

My favorite part

That made me chuckle too.

[rousseau]

His latest purchase was a five-bedroom, three-storey detached Georgian Revival home built in 1890, which he picked up in July 2007 for $139,000.

Andrew McPhail, a 47-year-old Toronto artist and a long-time anchor of the Toronto gallery scene, moved in 2005. “We sold our house in Riverdale and bought a three-bedroom 1894 home here for $150,000, slightly less than a third of our Toronto house’s selling price.” As a result of the windfall, both he and his boyfriend, a former social worker, have retired.

Am I missing something? There's no way you can get houses like that for less than $300,000 west of James. Those places have got to be pretty far east and/or north, don't they?

I find it daunting when people in their 40s "retire." Jeez, I'm 42 and only bought my first house four years ago, and won't have it paid off for another 18 years.* I'll be working into my sixties, without question. Good thing I like what I do!

*(25-year-mortgage but the low rates have sped up the amortization, don't ask me why--we got a variable rate loan at 3.5%, the banks don't even offer that kind of loan anymore because it's too good of a deal!).

[HackD]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Am I missing something? There's no way you can get houses like that for less than $300,000 west of James. Those places have got to be pretty far east and/or north, don't they?

I find it daunting when people in their 40s "retire." Jeez, I'm 42 and only bought my first house four years ago, and won't have it paid off for another 18 years.* I'll be working into my sixties, without question. Good thing I like what I do!

Sorry for the comparatively old thread dig-up..

I was actively looking on the market from October '06-March '07 on detached housing $150,000.00 and below - the limit of my budget. I went through about 20 houses in this price range in a period of a month - I find it hard to believe also . What i did find for $150k was generally rough or in a sketchy area - and often needing about $25k on average in additional, immediate work like roofs, foundation repairs, interior guts, etc.. I was looking for property with a parking spot AND a garage though.. I don't know if the price goal is meetable even with those requirements absent.


I chose a townhouse instead. I didn't consider such house "bonus" features like a grow-op room, much of a bonus. (I'm not kidding, one house had one still set up in a room in the basement). I can live with condo fees, vs short term financial ruinaton with immediate major repairs.

40 here, 23.5 more years of mortgage payments *sigh*

[raisethehammer]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Am I missing something? There's no way you can get houses like that for less than $300,000 west of James. Those places have got to be pretty far east and/or north, don't they?

I find it daunting when people in their 40s "retire." Jeez, I'm 42 and only bought my first house four years ago, and won't have it paid off for another 18 years.* I'll be working into my sixties, without question. Good thing I like what I do!

*(25-year-mortgage but the low rates have sped up the amortization, don't ask me why--we got a variable rate loan at 3.5%, the banks don't even offer that kind of loan anymore because it's too good of a deal!).

Don't quote me, but I think I remember hearing that they got that house in Stinson area. And it was 2005. The same house today would easily be over 200,000.