You know what really grinds my gears?

 

It’s when people start accusing me of having OCD while I think it’s just tidiness and punctuality.  And it doesn’t have to be something related to financial matters. Lately, people have been accusing me of having OCD over silliest things.

It usually goes along these lines:

 

- Hey, how come your car is so clean and tidy?

- Cause I clean it regularly. And keep it tidy.

- Whoa, it’s like you have OCD or something.

 

And in financial matters it’s even worse:

 

- Darn, my bank charged me interest again because I was late with my Visa payment. I have worst luck ever with money. Don’t you hate when it happens to you?

- No, I pay all of my bills on time.

- Dude, you must be suffering from OCD.

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Real estate is sizzling hot these days.

 

You know it’s a hot topic when you go to Starbucks on the corner hoping to get some coffee in peace and quiet but end up listening to people having conversation how investing in real estate is a sure way to make money. Then on the front page of Financial Post you’ll see an article how prices of real estate in Vancouver are more expensive than London and Hong Kong combined. On TV you’ll see yet another real estate investing show. Your cab driver will inform you he’s thinking about investing into rentals. Your friends will ponder about becoming real estate moguls while consuming copious amounts of pizza on Friday night.

Seems like everybody is talking about it, prices are going nowhere but up, and today is your last chance to buy it; otherwise you risk spending the rest of your pointless life in misery while paying rent. Paying rent is now a synonym for throwing your money away because you simply pay someone else’s mortgage and have nothing to show for it at the end of the month.

But what everybody fails to mention while praising real estate as an excellent investment opportunity is that owning your own home is not for everybody. You can go on living your life without having your name on the property title. In fact, some people should be prohibited from even thinking about buying real estate yet thanks to the media frenzy they go down this road and in most cases it ends very badly.

 

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