That's the sign you see inside the front of our office when it's lit up at night.
Your Life.
Your Terms.
If you stop to think about it, how often do we really sit down and define what our terms are?
How often do we map out exactly how we want to live?
If our life is as precious as we all say it is...how much time are we spending trying to shape it?
Being back in Toronto after roaming around Europe for a month always brings a fresh perspective to our lives.
Upon returning to Canada after these summer trips I always find myself physically and mentally doing a bit of a cleanse.
I toss out old notes, books that I don't want to keep any longer, clean up my laptop hard drive, and clean out my desk.
And I break out a blank weekly and monthly calendar and jot down the items that I really want to be doing in life on a regular basis.
That includes time to myself, vacations, gym time, and where and when I'll do some of my highest priority work for Rock Star.
Then I stare at it. Sometimes for days.
And ask myself questions like these...
How much time do I have to myself?
How much time am I spending on doing productive work for Rock Star?
How much time am I working on new projects?
How much time am I spending on analyzing my cash flow and finances?
How much time am I reading?
How much time am I working my body physically?
How much time am I spending with the family?
How much time am I spending with Carol?
Will this schedule allow me to grow as a person?
Is the schedule sustainable?
How much time will this schedule require me to do things that I don't want to do (commute, answering emails, taking meetings that don't interest me, etc). Where can I make this schedule even better? So good that I love my life?
And then ultimately I ask myself...
Does what is written down on those days represent what I want to be doing with my life? Does this schedule represent how I want to spend my time?
When I reflect back on my life at the age of 92 will I have wished I had changed anything? What would I tell myself to change?
Does this schedule reflect the terms I want to live my life by?
I love this time of year.
It's exciting entering the last part of the year, energized, focused, and ready to rock!
And speaking of rocking, our summer fun isn't done yet.
Our family is off to Vegas on Sunday with a couple of our nieces.
Somehow Vegas has the right mix of sunshine, pool time, shows, dinners, and activities to satisfy everyone from 16 to 49 years old, LOL!
And the oldest cousins are 20, not 21 yet, so that means no late club nights for them...which means dad gets to go to sleep at a reasonable time! Happy days!
OK, on to some real estate stuff...
This is the largest real estate slow down and correction we've seen since we started this business back in 2008.
However, some people are freaking themselves out and calling for a complete housing collapse.
We don't see it.
Ontario's own government knows we have a massive housing shortage and is setting a target of 1.5 million new homes to be built over the next ten years (source).
There's a small problem with that, of course.
We tend to only build about 75K housing units a year in Ontario (source). That would be 750K homes...a shortfall of 750K homes!!
So we need to DOUBLE what we are building at a time when material costs are up, labour shortages are huge, land costs are high, and the city of Toronto just increased development charges on builders by 50%.
Doesn't feel like we're about to double our building capacity.
Some bank economists (hello, BMO) think housing demand purely comes from interest rate policy. Where low rates drive demand and high rates reduce it.
We couldn't disagree more.
When you shove in more people into a province and don't increase supply at the same rate it naturally puts demand on real estate.
Housing prices are multifaceted...dictated by interest rates, supply, and demand.
There's a brand new housing report coming out on Monday for Ontario and we're waiting for it with eager excitement. We'll share what we find in it next week.
And speaking of interest rates...
Check out this chart from @MacroAlf on Twitter:
What this is telling us is that the bond market is now signalling for the U.S. Federal Reserve to begin cutting rates in February 2023.
The bond market has a freaky good track record of calling this stuff. The circles on the chart are all times when the bond market signalled the exact same thing and it proved to be 100% accurate.
And what the U.S. does with rates, Canada always follows.
So in Ontario we may be in a situation where the demand is still out there for housing but everyone is just circling, waiting for some clarity around the economy and around rates.
When that clarity comes in will we see that demand rush back into housing?
We think so, and it's why some experienced and liquid investors right now are trying to pick up "deals" if they can find them. Making low ball offers to see if any stick.
Time will tell. The next few months should be absolutely fascinating.
That's it for this week, everyone.
Stay happy out there.
And remember, it's a short life, I probably have 40 good summers left myself.
Don't waste time living a crappy life.
Define your terms and begin the process of making them happen.
Tom & Nick
