True Patriot Love - March 09, 2026


Rent or Buy in Canada? The Answer Just Changed | with Chris Chopite


Episode Stats

Length

54 minutes

Words per Minute

192.56392

Word Count

10,531

Sentence Count

62

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

8


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 today on true patriot love we're going to talk about housing and whether to rent our own and
00:00:10.800 i'm lucky enough to have our resident friend chris chipote in today to talk to us about the
00:00:17.520 age-old conundrum do i keep renting or do i buy good morning buddy good morning thanks for having
00:00:23.520 me it's always a pleasure to come on the show um yeah it's a it's a thing that people come
00:00:29.600 you know we were talking prior to the beginning of the show about what happens when somebody comes
00:00:33.680 and sits down across the table and says hey chris i want to buy um the funny thing is that we don't
00:00:39.360 even talk about the house or where they want to live i go straight to the individual's life um
00:00:45.120 and i think that's wow that's that's the key it's it's you know where are you working what's your
00:00:49.840 game plan for the next five years it's really more about because in some cases paul i have suggested
00:00:55.120 people not to buy and in some cases based on their finances it's like yeah it makes sense to buy
00:01:00.080 because you can weather any type of fluctuation in the market but if you're going to freak out
00:01:05.520 over a particular little fluctuation here like that maybe it's best to stay put stay in your
00:01:10.000 in your parents basement or stay renting or whatever the case would be there's a lot of
00:01:13.920 details that we're going to get into obviously you have a lot of stats so i'm uh so you know
00:01:18.480 hit me with the stats i know you're an info guy you're an info guy but the reality behind it is
00:01:22.880 that it's very it's it's it's very particular to the individual i'm gonna i'm gonna blanket
00:01:28.560 statement with that and we'll go into some we'll go into some some granular stuff in a second well
00:01:32.800 you know and you know i woke up this morning and the all the all the mainstream tv is talking about
00:01:39.920 the year over year decline in sales 6.3 percent uh houses across canada have dropped i think we're
00:01:47.520 down to 652 000 national national nationally i mean uh less than a million bucks in toronto
00:01:54.640 right now so you hear all this and i'm constantly hearing all these people saying and and they're
00:02:00.560 mostly uh baby boomers uh or a little younger saying oh my child will never have a home my
00:02:07.920 child will never have a home and i keep going to these dinner parties and i meet friends and i say
00:02:13.040 them well that might not be a bad thing and like oh my goodness no you know we were told as young
00:02:21.680 people we had to buy a home so we could gain equity and we could appreciate and you know over
00:02:28.240 time our house would gain value and i'm like well i don't think that's the scenario anymore so
00:02:36.400 why is that a good idea explain to me and they're like because it is because it is because your
00:02:41.520 parents who were baby boomers or pre-baby boomers were telling you that you had to down double down
00:02:48.320 in real estate and then sit for 40 years and quite frankly they told you they were this huge
00:02:56.320 you know and my dad does this to me all the time but look you know god love him he's just turned 90
00:03:00.720 he's a terrific guy but you know he he tells the story as we're sitting there all the time in the
00:03:05.680 car and we're driving to my place and he says you know i bought my house for 32 000 right guys you
00:03:12.000 know and i bought this house he doesn't own it anymore he sold it but i bought this house and
00:03:16.080 i sold it for a million bucks right he said yeah and i said so what did you pay in property tax
00:03:22.800 over the years he says what do you mean i said well how much property tax did you pay on that
00:03:27.520 house uh i don't know and i said how much maintenance did you put in the house because
00:03:32.560 at the end the foundation cracked we were in there i know i ponied up for two floors in his basement
00:03:39.520 for him i put them in i bought the flooring i bought the under bed i did that twice to him i
00:03:44.400 said the pool cracked and leaked i said you know so i remember all those things that i said so did
00:03:49.920 you take your repair maintenance did you take your property tax did you take you know the opportunity
00:03:55.760 cost of the money that 32 000 that you could have put into a t-bill or you could have bought apple
00:04:02.080 or did you look at any of those things and did you say was that a good investment right
00:04:06.400 because you're looking at it like an investment now you're telling me the story like it was an
00:04:10.080 investment right so if you're treating real estate like an investment then was it a good idea so let's
00:04:16.560 and then he goes and he does that he's not doing the hero clock and he's like i'm sure he's like
00:04:22.240 under his breath on that you know you know but but you know it's true right yeah it's true
00:04:27.680 True. You've got to look at, okay, if you took that $32,000 50 years ago and you took that million dollars, is that a great investment?
00:04:36.320 And could you, if you look at the incremental interest component to that, was it, right?
00:04:45.260 Now, I get your point, right? You made it to me earlier in the show. You said people need a place to live.
00:04:50.100 So that's the social cost, right? There's the financial cost.
00:04:55.240 That's really why they're doing it, though.
00:04:56.500 Right. I truly believe because if it's a numbers thing, we're going to lose the battle.
00:05:02.140 Like, I mean, I believe that we're going to lose, especially if you're entrepreneurial and you have, you know, but here's why people buy homes.
00:05:09.260 People buy homes to have a foundation, you know, so that you can be part of a community.
00:05:15.920 So I'm going to talk to you about the, you know, about the Mickey Mouse stuff that most people would say.
00:05:20.520 If we're talking, you know, if we're talking dollars and cents, maybe not, to your point.
00:05:24.560 but if we're talking about um our our purpose and fulfillment let's talk about that for a second
00:05:30.980 okay um foundation is important because now you have a house you know where the library is so
00:05:36.460 that your kids can develop you you you have you're a walking distance to the school you know where
00:05:40.880 the grocery store is so that you can go in there you know which aisle has everything you know where
00:05:45.000 the nearest walmart is you know so now foundation and then there's legacy you know there's there's
00:05:49.840 certain sense of pride that your dad was saying was like i own a home for 40 years that word
00:05:56.000 ownership has something that that just it just it enlightens us you know it just brightens us up
00:06:02.320 then we have leverage at some point during that time he had the leverage that he he had some
00:06:07.520 equity in that home that he was able to perhaps i'm not too sure but perhaps use it for other
00:06:12.160 endeavors we also have privacy right if you're owning a house in theory you can't have a landlord
00:06:18.720 come in here knock and say hey i'm just doing an inspection um i'll be there in 24 hours they have
00:06:23.120 to give you 24 hours but anyway i'll be here in 24 hours to check the house like all of a sudden
00:06:26.880 it's like oh my god the house is a mess so you get privacy and another thing is flexibility when you
00:06:31.920 own you can you can sell but when you're renting you know i guess i guess you have the flexibility
00:06:38.320 of you know getting up and leaving but you also don't have the flexibility of taking back any of
00:06:43.360 the money that you put into it right that's my that's that's me on the other side uh paul i know
00:06:47.920 we talked about putting a a glove here and just duking it out but that's from from my perspective
00:06:53.680 i just find that um i think that ownership is definitely more of an emotional thing than a
00:07:00.320 business transaction and i'll drop it there because i don't want to get into the numbers because i'm
00:07:03.600 gonna probably i'll lose that battle no no i'm with you yeah i'm with you so you know it's
00:07:09.680 interesting at these dinner parties i get these parents right and they talk about billy and janie
00:07:14.560 and the fact that they'll never own a home so the next thing i say to them is how old are they
00:07:21.120 you know and they turn white they go all sheepish right and they're 30. i go well are they married
00:07:28.800 no do they want to have kids no you hate it like well that doesn't shock me and they're like all
00:07:37.440 of a sudden they grab a drink and they come back and they go you know i want to tell you about my
00:07:40.800 problems i don't want to hear about your your kid problems the fact that they live with you
00:07:44.800 all i'm saying to you and i'm not trying to be difficult though is they're 30. they don't have
00:07:49.040 kids they have no interest in having kids they haven't settled down they don't have a girlfriend
00:07:52.880 or a boyfriend they haven't figured out a relationship so quite frankly the odds are
00:07:58.400 birth rates in canada right now there was just an article great article yesterday came out and it
00:08:04.000 said the only growth in the in canada will come from new immigrants going forward so the only
00:08:11.440 population growth in canada in the next it's expected next few years will come from immigrating
00:08:16.640 people from other places so now you're not a poster child for that i know you and your lovely
00:08:21.680 wife have four kids yeah so you have four kids there aren't a lot of chris's around yeah right
00:08:27.120 so so as this new generation as as people get older now so we have this kind of interesting
00:08:33.920 dynamic and which is i think is when i say rent for its own it's going to be a very interesting
00:08:38.640 scenario because you have a bunch of we have 25 of our population aging over 65. so we have a
00:08:47.440 for sure like it's it's a huge it's going up to 10 or 12 million people uh in canada uh 25 of
00:08:54.640 our population out of 40 is going to be over the age of 65. we have a younger population that
00:09:01.040 doesn't want to have children you know so what's what's going to happen is we're catching this
00:09:05.600 weird wave and i know we're we're seeing these people getting older they need to sell their
00:09:10.640 houses so now they see a declining market they need to sell their house so when i see this stat
00:09:17.680 it's interesting and you know it's kind of funny because and i'm not trying to be tough on the guys
00:09:22.960 from uh gta realtors and from treb and all those other things but they say there's a hundred
00:09:30.560 thousand buyers sitting on the sideline waiting to come in no there's not no there's not i totally
00:09:37.040 disagree with that scenario and the reason why is you have a lot of sellers sitting on the sidelines
00:09:42.480 a lot of people getting older and they're thinking oh crap i missed i missed the window of selling
00:09:49.360 this house at a premium price and now i'm stuck in this declining market i have a bunch of younger
00:09:55.840 people coming up who quite frankly have no interest in having a family the new immigrants
00:10:03.440 i'm bringing it's not like uh back in the 50s and 60s when we brought the europeans over and they
00:10:09.360 came with a bag full of cash yeah right yeah the new immigrants are coming over they're starting
00:10:14.240 from zero right they're coming from they're they're starting off with they're coming out like
00:10:17.760 this yeah they're coming with school loans right yeah we loaded them up with school loans you know
00:10:22.960 well you know we did a dreadful job of doing that we loaded them up with school loans they're
00:10:28.400 sitting there now and they're saying i got to live in a home with with uh you know 10 people
00:10:34.960 and i got to take a single room which by the way it's very interesting i tell this story which is
00:10:39.200 a crazy story i'm going to go off for a minute i got invited to a uh i'm going to call it a baby
00:10:44.640 event a baby shower it's to celebrate someone having a baby um i went on the weekend and i
00:10:50.320 went up to brampton right i don't go to brampton a lot quite frankly because i don't do any business
00:10:55.680 there i went to brampton and i tried to get into this uh subdivision and uh the snow
00:11:04.720 as the snow banks were still there so i get off and just imagine where this is going i get off
00:11:10.320 the highway i get into the subdivision i try to wind through the subdivision to get to the home
00:11:17.840 right cars are everywhere right so they are lined up along the street so if you for those of you
00:11:26.240 who don't go to brampton recently you should go to brampton and you should check out what a disaster
00:11:32.800 most local subdivisions are so i'm trying to go there i'm winding in there's cars parked in every
00:11:39.920 direction on both sides of the street inside outside the driveways on the street also hanging
00:11:47.360 off their driveways over sidewalks um and basically up on snow banks no way if there's a fire in this
00:11:55.520 subdivision do the fire trucks get into the subdivision so these are all the people that
00:12:00.400 live in the homes right so it's okay in the summer doesn't work in the winter right that we have all
00:12:05.840 these people living in the homes then i get to where this event is and there's a hundred people
00:12:10.400 in this house it's loaded up that street is a disaster right so it takes me 45 minutes to wind
00:12:18.000 into this house i get to the house there's too many people so we do this thing and then we leave
00:12:24.720 right we decide okay we'll leave it's a nice event we love the guy who's doing it he's a wonderful
00:12:28.960 guy his baby's beautiful but you know what we're driving i said to my wife i said
00:12:33.360 this is just uh it's housing and immigration that's gone awry and this is just the case study
00:12:43.460 for and someone should look at it because it's not safe it's not healthy and it doesn't work
00:12:49.040 but unfortunately that's a segment of our population right now who needs a decade to get
00:12:56.800 out of their debts to get into home ownership so my my my thinking on this right now and this is
00:13:03.600 where i'm rent versus buy right i'm going to go back to that now you know those people have to
00:13:09.640 rent i agree right people coming from 100 people coming from uh parents baby boomers that were born
00:13:17.780 here you know could be given the down payment by their parents but i think where you're making
00:13:23.980 sense where you're talking about it if they don't want to have a family they don't want absolutely
00:13:29.580 they don't want to uh set down roots and quite frankly if they don't have a stable job because
00:13:35.260 that's the next thing is i'm sitting at the dinner party and i'm talking to that person
00:13:38.700 who just told me about their 30 year old son who lives in the basement right you know they don't
00:13:44.780 have a stable job so quite frankly giving them money to do a down payment when they may need to
00:13:51.340 move no that's a massive risk it's a massive risk rent rent is the way to go i'd love to disagree
00:13:57.900 with you but in this case i i totally agree with you everything that you stated right um you know
00:14:04.700 no no intentions of kids they're not they're not they're not coupled up um no yeah like i'm
00:14:10.620 absolutely in fact i tell my son you know as long as if you're working and and you show me that you
00:14:17.740 have some sort of vision in terms of in terms of being able to stand on your own you can stay in
00:14:22.860 the house i mean as long as long as you want which is a total opposite as oh yeah absolutely the total
00:14:29.020 opposite my mom was trying to get me out like as soon as possible she's like listen as soon as you
00:14:33.180 turn 18 i want you to go and get a job unless i was going to school which i was but you know that's
00:14:37.500 another point um you know for my son i tell him you know save i have a different approach and and
00:14:45.740 this is stay here stay home but save and then invest and and and you're probably thinking
00:14:53.900 hold on a second what do you tell him to invest in so it's it's kind of twofold all right so right
00:14:59.500 now he's a little investment account um and i i'm just trying to show him the power of compounded
00:15:05.660 interest and how important it is for him to put money into a savings account an investment account
00:15:11.500 mutual funds whatever right now and forget about it and then it when he's 65 he's gonna he's gonna
00:15:17.820 thank himself for it so that that's one piece but the other piece is safe to invest in real estate
00:15:23.420 but as an investment tuplex you know triplex that type of thing in in in in areas outside of the gta
00:15:32.300 where you can buy you can go to windsor and you can buy a 350 400 000 house and then what what
00:15:39.020 I'm telling him to do as well as the minute he buys that house go on YouTube you can't there's
00:15:43.580 nothing you can't learn learn how to plaster a wall learn how to install laminate learn how to
00:15:49.020 put baseboard learn how to install a toilet because in the absence of money you need to apply
00:15:55.180 time and effort yeah so that's how you can build up your your wealth so that then eventually when
00:16:02.060 you decide to have a wife some kids whatever you know then you have you have all of that
00:16:08.460 wealth at knowledge that you've acquired and now you you're you're a contributor to society now you
00:16:14.220 can be a better father a better husband a better whatever like i think that's the the now the
00:16:19.420 people that are coming in you know internationally that are already 20 years old 25 years old i don't
00:16:25.900 have a game plan for them yet but but because my son is at home i'm like this is this is this is
00:16:30.380 the vision that i have for him so that it's it's you know it's going at his pace and at the same
00:16:36.300 time it's going to turn him into i think uh uh you know a contributor to society yeah well you know
00:16:42.780 what fantastic i think you know you kind of got ahead of me again like you usually do right no you
00:16:49.020 did because that's where i was going with this quite quite frankly my advice right now and it
00:16:53.420 a little bit of uh different logic but i'll take you how i got to your same conclusion
00:16:58.060 so i started watching the government i'm i do these budget shows here at tpl a true patriot love
00:17:03.900 and i basically started watching the government encourage affordable housing and rental units
00:17:10.140 so annie bayul they set up a build canada homes fund where she's building a bunch of uh low i
00:17:17.020 call them low rental or affordable housing uh units uh through the government then they're also
00:17:22.860 spending about 115 billion dollars to uh subsidize or to support municipalities doing
00:17:32.220 affordable housing so then i started watching the municipalities and they were struggling
00:17:38.940 and the federal government was saying you better build rental homes you better get them fast
00:17:44.220 because no one's going to have the money to buy and quite frankly they don't want to buy
00:17:48.940 because they figured out not only have they figured out the rent first buy equation and
00:17:54.300 the fact that they could probably make a better return um something that the generation before
00:17:59.420 me didn't figure out um but they also figured out uh appreciation's not going to be as high
00:18:04.940 they're not going to see the growth like like my dad so the municipalities um started to say to
00:18:12.380 people here's some programs where you can get in where if you build a duplex or a triplex you can
00:18:20.860 get some tax benefits that didn't work toronto was a huge flop they tried six plex they tried
00:18:26.780 duplexes honestly the six plexes people revolted because you think about it what happened was
00:18:32.620 every senior that still got stuck in their home so that 25 of the population those who are you
00:18:39.740 know 65 to 75 still living in their home right away they saw through it they were like time out
00:18:45.740 if you're going to do that and we're not going to vote for you because quite frankly that's going to
00:18:51.020 hurt our home value because the more uh rental properties six plexes you build in my community
00:18:57.420 you're going to take down my property value of my single detached home they got it right they're
00:19:03.740 right so they cut it off yeah so government said okay i don't know what to do but i still have the
00:19:08.380 money there so they're still federally trying to push this initiative it's still slow going forward
00:19:14.380 but they're giving the money so i went through before the show and i took a look at all the
00:19:19.500 provinces where we've waived development charges we've waived uh permit fees we've eliminated uh
00:19:30.940 hst wow almost every province in canada except ontario except well ontario uh actually i don't
00:19:40.620 think i don't think we ever waived the development i've never heard of it just did it on rental homes
00:19:46.700 oh wow right toronto just did it on duplexes and six plexes so we're just starting to do it now so
00:19:54.140 the message we're sending so this is an interesting message so i got there a
00:19:57.660 different way but i got the same way as you all of a sudden the system you know somewhere along
00:20:02.460 the way they've realized i guess they've looked at the numbers and that's being they being the
00:20:06.780 government at different you know levels provincially and federally have realized that
00:20:13.580 home sales don't have a good shot at going up yeah right they haven't said it publicly but
00:20:21.020 quite frankly they've seen the stats and they've seen just looking at the normal demographics of
00:20:25.980 aging versus birth rates it's not that hard to figure out so they said okay what do we do we
00:20:30.620 can't have a bunch of new people and the only way we can grow our population is bringing in new people
00:20:37.340 what a conundrum man well it is but but but all that we need new people they need they can't
00:20:45.660 afford to buy they gotta rent there's not enough rental you like there's there's quite a few things
00:20:51.100 that we gotta we gotta think about that's that's where this war it's another show for another day
00:20:55.700 but there's a whole show that we need to talk about because this war right now happening in
00:21:01.240 iran has a number of challenges especially if it goes long and and the the country is decimated
00:21:08.440 because there isn't a country to put these people the problem the problem we have now is
00:21:13.000 every country is full and they're full because there's no housing and there's no social programs
00:21:18.200 to accommodate them anymore it's not that no one wants them it's the fact that this is that this
00:21:23.240 is something that's got to be dealt with and that's a whole other show but but you know here
00:21:27.640 we are so in canada we're sitting here and we're looking at this and we're trying to in we're
00:21:32.760 trying to incentivize people to build affordable rental properties through government subsidization
00:21:40.840 so we're working against if you think about it we're working against our actual homeowners
00:21:48.120 right so now you don't have to comment i know you're in the institute but that's my view so
00:21:52.600 my view is we're we're really working against the value of our own so so now if i'm if i'm sitting
00:21:58.680 there and i'm sitting with uh jimmy and janie's uh parents at the at the dinner party you know
00:22:06.440 i say to them the same thing i just said you buy a rental property so have them have them rent go
00:22:13.800 you know go get them to stay on the first floor that too right so they they they take the first
00:22:20.920 floor and the two floors above them are rented out absolutely but don't live room by room don't
00:22:27.000 do what some of these people are doing now the the challenge is that brampton story i just told you
00:22:31.800 the challenge of that story quite frankly is it's a nightmare for your social for the for your social
00:22:39.320 mental well health uh it's not good and that i've never tell anyone to do that because i've seen
00:22:44.920 that model before it very seldomly works quite frankly it's hard on the guy who's levered he's
00:22:52.920 levered multiple homes basically the wear and tear it's it doesn't pay off but so by the time
00:22:58.760 he goes to sell it he's rebuilt the home you know i had someone call me uh a year ago and it was an
00:23:04.920 old friend of mine uh who i met through shara um and he called me and he he said to me he said do
00:23:11.320 you want to buy this home and i said i don't know he said he said i've redone the home and it has
00:23:16.760 multiple rooms it has 10 rooms for people to rent and he said but i said does it meet code
00:23:23.400 right he goes no crickets oh right and i said so so you're saying to me if i take the home i have
00:23:28.760 to gut it rebuild it inside you know and then i have to try to sell it my the neighborhood is full
00:23:35.800 of exactly the identical type of people who have bought these homes and subdivide them illegally
00:23:41.160 into multiple homes it doesn't work the way to go right it doesn't work so no you know i i say to
00:23:45.960 people buy go out and buy yourself a rental unit that's segregated by family pay it on the way
00:23:55.000 then buy the next one and then buy the next one that's the way and and if by luck you meet a nice
00:24:01.160 lady or man along the way and you decide you want to have then you have a nice little nest
00:24:05.640 that you haven't over levered yourself and you can get into it and that's the way to do it and
00:24:10.680 you know then okay i'm the parents look at me go but but aren't they going to lose that
00:24:15.160 opportunity to to you know have their money grow and everything else i said well their investment
00:24:21.240 will grow the money aside from what they're paying for the unit so number one once it's built
00:24:26.200 the unit will carry itself yeah right they're going to live on the first floor they're going
00:24:31.240 to then pay off what they brilliant you know it'll pay for itself it pays for itself they
00:24:36.200 They can take the money from their other job.
00:24:39.480 They can go out and actually, you know, invest in something.
00:24:44.420 Invest in another Apple or NVIDIA or whatever.
00:24:48.240 Make a ton of money.
00:24:49.320 Precisely.
00:24:49.920 And have a great life.
00:24:51.160 100%.
00:24:51.720 Retire early because, quite frankly, I don't think there's going to be any pension plans for them when they're ready.
00:24:56.780 So they got to set themselves up.
00:24:59.160 So this is a really nice way to go.
00:25:01.260 You're not fighting the government.
00:25:03.240 You're using the money of the government.
00:25:05.180 so you're not you're not going out and buying a home trying to struggle through against the
00:25:10.060 government you're actually working with the government's objective to build these homes
00:25:14.940 if they're going to bring in people you got to make sure you get nice renters hopefully the
00:25:19.100 renter laws will be get better you know and they are getting better they're they're developing uh
00:25:25.420 you know eviction laws and everything to get people out because you do hear horror stories
00:25:29.580 yeah that's true you know you have to be very selective so before the show it's interesting i
00:25:33.820 did a uh uh little analysis and we took a look at uh basically rent first buy over a 10-year period
00:25:44.780 on a million dollar home and we ran it off or the average price per home by province
00:25:51.180 and we ran it off to see if it said buy or rent i'm interested yeah sure sure what is that what
00:25:58.940 what did you get the only province that it told you to 100 percent rent based on the pure
00:26:07.660 economics can i guess yeah the only province that told you to rent over by yep
00:26:15.820 i only have two that come to mind and i have to take a guess um i'm gonna go with the highest
00:26:24.060 home price average so i'm gonna go with vancouver i'm gonna go with bc well actually because
00:26:30.300 uh the rents are so high in bc right now they still haven't come down so the rents are still
00:26:36.060 asking the rents uh the rents so i lost no no it's all right the rents in vancouver right now
00:26:41.020 are still four thousand dollars for a two-bedroom i see so it didn't catch so there was a slight
00:26:46.940 increment so basically it told us that buying saves you over 10 years about 40 000. interesting
00:26:54.700 yeah so it is still it is still if you think about it right amazing now that's over 10 years
00:26:59.980 it probably again if it's not comparison it to it's not comparing it to another investment it's
00:27:04.940 just saying rent first buy right let me take something from there so so you said 10 years
00:27:09.900 and i just want to to highlight the fact that before you're thinking of buying or renting i
00:27:17.740 mean we started the show with this and i'm going to say it again yeah it is critical to look at the
00:27:22.860 individual's lifestyle their vision their goals what are they trying to accomplish it's not
00:27:29.260 you should buy because chad gpt said it is so based on the individual so that is 10 years if
00:27:36.780 If it's in your cards for you to be living in Canada for 10 years, then yeah, sure, buy.
00:27:44.700 But some people are adamant that they're like, nope, I want to live here for the next five
00:27:48.640 years, and then I want to travel the world for five, and then I want to...
00:27:51.640 Well, in that case, then we need a different strategy.
00:27:54.180 And that's why it's important to look at lifestyle and future.
00:27:58.060 Like, what are you trying to accomplish in the future?
00:27:59.800 It's not a blanket statement of you should buy anymore.
00:28:04.420 and that changed ever since I made a note here that changed ever since people started to make
00:28:09.520 money online so I just want I just want to just drop another nugget here yep initially okay like
00:28:16.960 you know your parents they they decided that purchasing a home was the best way that they
00:28:23.980 knew how to preserve wealth and build wealth there was no other option or or you you go and you buy
00:28:30.760 farmland and you start farming or like you know what I mean it was just more yeah you know it
00:28:35.060 was more ding ding ding like you have to actually do stuff yeah yeah but now we have a new generation
00:28:41.180 and a new way of making money people are making money online in fact it's so easy to make money
00:28:48.520 now and and you know sometimes I see the money that my son he has a little investment account
00:28:54.860 I see the money that he's made in his investment account and inside I'm like irritated in a way
00:28:59.660 I'm like oh my god like you've been investing for less time than me and you're making more money
00:29:03.420 than my investments so it's it's something that has changed we we have to realize that this way
00:29:11.020 of making money from being at home and investments and in and instagram and marketing and facebook
00:29:17.260 and meta and all the stuff that happens online that has changed the way that we preserve and
00:29:22.460 make money therefore it'll change the way that we we see home ownership and and honestly at the end
00:29:29.340 of the day all we really need is shelter that is the part that we want to highlight shelter whether
00:29:35.980 we own it or rent it it's pretty if you think about it it's pretty insignificant what we want
00:29:41.660 is the wealth so that when we can't work anymore we have something to leverage so that we can
00:29:46.780 continue to live our lives until we take the last breath but that's really the the in in the most
00:29:52.300 basic way that's really the whole concept is preservation of wealth yes so so now if there's
00:29:57.340 other ways to make money then maybe owning is not necessary however if you're going to be there for
00:30:02.220 long term i agree and i would i would argue not argue but i would i would probably uh it's not
00:30:08.620 an argument i would i would predict that if you ran this for 20 years it would make even more sense
00:30:14.700 to buy so for someone that is established and this is what i love to do this is my community
00:30:20.300 i'm having my kids here i love that school i want them to go to that school i want them to go to
00:30:24.060 to UFT and to York and whatever, and you know exactly where you want your family to kind
00:30:29.780 of put roots down, then buying is always going to be the option, but it's all dependent on
00:30:36.280 the individual.
00:30:37.280 And if it appreciates.
00:30:40.780 And if it appreciates.
00:30:41.780 Yeah.
00:30:42.780 Yeah, for sure.
00:30:43.780 So now the interesting thing is, so this-
00:30:44.780 So what's the appreciation that you calculated in here?
00:30:47.640 So this is just-
00:30:48.640 3% to 5% or?
00:30:49.640 Yeah.
00:30:50.640 uh inflation is okay yeah to this but yeah but you know the interesting part of this when you
00:30:56.320 look at it that's all assuming it goes up gradually it goes up gradually right now that
00:31:03.000 doesn't always happen and that's that's why i think we've learned but but you know it's it's
00:31:07.960 interesting as we go through this and we looked at the analysis ontario was the only one
00:31:14.940 where you should rent and you should rent because you save yourself eleven thousand six hundred
00:31:22.600 dollars over 10 years more wow so there's no there's no advantage to now it's it's interesting
00:31:28.160 you could say well you know i i got some equity in it you did quite you got a little bit of equity
00:31:34.500 quite frankly depending on what interest rates and your payment plan and what your term is and
00:31:38.520 all that good stuff so you got some money in it but quite frankly you could take that additional
00:31:42.280 monies that you didn't pay in property tax and all the other things you can invest into other
00:31:46.680 things and you probably should have caught it then we didn't even we didn't even account for
00:31:50.280 that in this analysis this is just straight up rent first buy and uh looking at a million dollars
00:31:55.640 or whatever the average price was per region was so that's what we did so it's a very interesting
00:32:00.760 analysis yeah yeah and now when i'm sitting at that dinner party i always ask them that did you
00:32:06.040 run the analysis no no we didn't run it but i'm okay well maybe you need to run it so
00:32:13.160 now all these people sitting so now you have you got a marketplace full of and we just saw it from
00:32:18.120 the stats today we have a hundred thousand apparently from all the agencies across canada
00:32:23.640 we have hundreds of thousands of people sitting on the sidelines waiting right we have hundreds
00:32:28.440 of thousands of people that are aging that are waiting to sell yeah so at some point they should
00:32:34.280 marry up the issue is when do they marry up and at what point and how low does it go before they
00:32:41.560 meet each other and that's you know it was interesting you you said something very uh
00:32:46.280 compelling on the last show that i remember i use this now everywhere i go you know real estate's
00:32:52.040 not about when you buy real estate or sell real estate it's not where you are today it's where
00:32:57.560 you're going to meet it where it is tomorrow right so that's kind of following that trace
00:33:01.480 line and figuring out where to hit it right so now you have a bunch of people aging who
00:33:06.600 are trying to figure out when the magic number so the interesting part is that they're not selling
00:33:14.440 now so the inventory on the market now hasn't gone up you're seeing it you haven't seen more
00:33:22.440 homes enter onto the market so they're sitting saying oh it's going to go up at some point so
00:33:25.960 they're trying to they're trying to time it they're trying to create a shortage in supply
00:33:30.280 but father time father time is is is gonna be against them they're gonna get older they're
00:33:36.280 gonna i mean and even i even when i'm consulting people that want to buy or sell i always tell them
00:33:40.680 i mean it's very difficult to time the market you just have to make the right decision in the time
00:33:45.400 that you're in right now and i wrote down here where you while you were speaking i said we need
00:33:49.720 perhaps i don't know i'm gonna say this but maybe i'm gonna get in trouble we need better familial
00:33:54.360 support. So I think, I think there comes a time that, you know, uh, children, grandparents and
00:34:00.120 parents, and that, I mean, we all need to kind of hold hands and just say, okay, well, how does this
00:34:04.460 work better? And perhaps the time is that, um, uh, you know, these folks are getting out of their
00:34:10.340 house, allowing their, their, their children with their families to move into their home.
00:34:14.680 And then instead of paying for the house that has been paid off, maybe they buy a condo and they pay
00:34:20.420 for the condo for the for the grandparent and then it's kind of like a trade i think there needs to be
00:34:24.660 more barter trading happening right now and and avoid the transaction there's a lot of fees a lot
00:34:29.860 of costs actually that we can avoid if we can barter trade with with within family barter trade
00:34:37.380 and just go back to prehistoric days man we need to go back to some basic stuff i'm sure they do
00:34:43.220 because you can't even buy well there are some places like in london good luck trying to buy
00:34:46.740 something in london right it's headed down from generation to generation right so you get yeah
00:34:51.940 they have 50 year mortgages right yeah 50 year mortgages that they'll get paid off between
00:34:56.900 generations of people before they extinguish like i know that sounds crazy but but i mean it makes
00:35:03.140 sense and we need to adopt some of the some of the the the the the strategies that these guys
00:35:07.300 have in europe perhaps i don't know so now here's the other piece and this is the piece i haven't
00:35:11.700 brought up but this is also what i'm sitting at the dinner party and there are you know they go
00:35:15.620 to get their second drink because i'm sure you know they're like i'm by that time i don't even
00:35:22.820 eat a drink i need six shots right now yeah yeah where is jamie and jimmy gonna work oh boy they
00:35:32.180 look at me what do you mean i said well last time i looked there's not a lot of people i know
00:35:38.580 that are having a job for life yeah right yeah and here's the thing i say to them
00:35:45.140 where you know because where i'm meeting most of the people from ontario so i'm saying if you live
00:35:50.420 in a major city in ontario infrastructure wise if you buy that house it better be as close as
00:35:58.340 possible to the work that you have number one you're the amount of uh time people require
00:36:06.260 whether at home or in the office right now is a lot so the amount of effort it's not like the
00:36:11.140 old days you know eight hours a lot of people aren't working eight hours anymore right especially
00:36:15.780 now times are tougher they're working harder to pay the bills so you better not be working
00:36:20.820 eight hours because if you just work in eight hours you're probably not doing enough and you're
00:36:24.500 gonna get lego yeah probably in the end probably it's not gonna work out right so if you're only
00:36:29.380 doing your eight hours the next thing is quite frankly given the commute times you know the
00:36:35.540 fact that we've got the social infrastructure strain from having massive immigration over the
00:36:41.620 last few years into the major cities in canada it's caused us to have a lot of travel time
00:36:47.700 travel time sucks yeah right so yeah the chance to have a great marriage and a great relationship
00:36:53.700 and a great family life and go see bobby and sally's baseball and uh gymnastics if you're
00:37:00.740 working in scarborough and you're living in mississauga good luck isn't so great right and
00:37:06.420 i i know you know it's interesting so you know we made a couple decisions for our family in the last
00:37:12.020 little while that required us to move closer to a school right has it been great for us good home
00:37:19.860 yeah uh neighborhood okay right travel time sucks right we're spending more time on the road now to
00:37:27.700 the businesses and to get everything done our quality of life we're a little more tired you
00:37:32.820 know that extra half hour 45 minutes of travel a day isn't you know really beautiful to have
00:37:38.740 but that's what we have to sacrifice so you got to be as close as you can if i'm younger and starting
00:37:44.260 my career right now and struggling through and and i can tell you even in my generation at points
00:37:50.180 in my life in uh jobs that i had i was on the road 300 days a year wow so i traveled to make a living
00:37:58.580 300 days a year if i'm a young person starting out and i'm seeing where all the money's being
00:38:03.220 sunk into canada right now defense you know defense is a huge one right all that defense
00:38:09.380 spending is going to happen in outlying areas energy energy all those are going to happen in
00:38:14.580 outlying areas right they're not happening in the core of a major city yeah good so moving into a
00:38:19.300 core of a major city and having to drive to oshawa moving into the core of a main city and
00:38:24.020 having to drive to hamilton all those infrastructure and defense and all the core
00:38:31.140 services and infrastructure items the government is spending and investing in right now is something
00:38:36.340 you need to watch and that's where you have to be absolutely now if you go there should you buy
00:38:42.900 when you get there no no you know i didn't when i moved to the different cities and built the
00:38:49.060 different properties i would go first and i'd spend the first year scope it out yeah and figure
00:38:54.260 out did i like it did i feel comfortable you know if i lost this job could i find another job in the
00:39:00.740 area that gave me a living that i was accustomed to that i'd be happy with so those are all those
00:39:07.700 are those social decisions as well as family that you're talking about that you got to figure out
00:39:12.260 i don't hear those conversations which i find it interesting it's you know it always starts with
00:39:16.820 that conversation well you know jimmy and janie can't buy a home it's not affordable and then i
00:39:24.020 get down to after you know the second drink we're having the conversation of should they buy a home
00:39:30.660 ran first by and quite frankly given where work is going to be where should they buy a home so
00:39:36.100 that becomes the conundrum of figuring out kind of your lifestyle yeah yeah absolutely um yeah i
00:39:42.500 also think that um it's it's changing drastically where people are starting to not be afraid to
00:39:48.820 uproot i'm i'm seeing i mean people yeah yeah it's it's well you know you did yeah yeah yeah
00:39:54.900 you know you immigrated yeah right absolutely you get it and also you know we have we have we have
00:40:00.820 you know house in in in in mexico as well so it you know we we are seeing that people are more open
00:40:07.540 to to to start to test other areas of the world right i had um i had a really good friend of mine
00:40:14.420 uh mike who um went to portugal he had no roots of portugal um and uh they went to portugal and
00:40:21.460 they're living there and they're having a blast and i'm just hearing a lot of that stuff that that
00:40:26.100 that's happening now that it's that's extreme they they are they went out of the country but
00:40:31.540 what i'm thinking as well is that there are there are different areas of this country that are
00:40:35.540 developing that um i think people are are starting to to to be open to to you know uprooting and
00:40:43.700 okay you know let me let me try it in in sudbury let me try it in in north bay let me try it in
00:40:49.060 in uh in windsor let me try it in manitoba different province calgary like there there's
00:40:54.500 i think there's like there's a flavor happening when people are open to trying different things
00:40:59.460 and and um i think that's gonna help i really think that's gonna help you know you know having
00:41:04.580 lived in america for 12 years right back and forth i know that right like i know what it's like you
00:41:10.500 know to uproot and go somewhere and then i saw americans who quite for me for a thousand extra
00:41:16.260 dollars would move from michigan to california so if you made an office and i'm going to pay you a
00:41:21.060 thousand more dollars they're gone they were gone they were in the u-haul driving they didn't even
00:41:25.460 fly right they were they had their own furniture on the back of the truck and they were gone right
00:41:30.500 And again, given their history and the way the world's gone and the number of wars,
00:41:36.740 where they came from, they grab the bull by the horns and go.
00:41:40.840 And a country that has many natural disasters.
00:41:44.300 So if you think of it from tornadoes to hurricanes to forest fires,
00:41:48.620 America sees a lot of action across it that we don't.
00:41:51.560 Yeah, absolutely.
00:41:52.140 And so quite frankly, they've learned to be more transitory and to uproot.
00:41:56.500 And I think we will too.
00:41:57.800 you know the one of the things i wanted to chat with you about today i didn't want to leave it
00:42:02.820 because you're a real estate you know you this is what you do full time you're great at it
00:42:07.260 you coach people you sell it you do the whole gamut infrastructure and when i say infrastructure
00:42:14.600 it's a new thing that my parents didn't have to worry about and i also on the third drink
00:42:19.400 i also say to people okay i wonder what happens on the fourth okay are we gonna make it to the
00:42:24.820 more than this show no I cut them off no no I say to them I say you know what you have to pay
00:42:33.940 attention to where you're buying now so it's not like the old days a little more complicated for
00:42:38.960 younger people than it was in my days when I was young you go out and you would buy a house
00:42:44.500 you know and we all had trades we all grew up with trades so we'd renovate our house just like
00:42:49.300 teaching your son we go out and we'd you know we knew how to to build things so we knock walls
00:42:54.980 build walls bathrooms and we did it ourselves yeah so we did that all great if you can learn to do
00:43:00.100 that now now think about it this is the interesting thing that we're doing so this is kind of and as
00:43:06.500 governments i don't think we focus on it and as taxpayers we don't spend enough time on it right
00:43:12.340 so right now and before the show we took a look at it we said okay what are the provincial
00:43:18.100 projected deficits for uh this year so march 20 2026 is ending and we're we're looking at what
00:43:28.020 the deficits by province will be so i went through bc is 13 billion alberta's 9 billion
00:43:36.340 saskatchewan's 1 billion manitoba is 1.6 billion ontario is 13 billion quebec is 12 billion new
00:43:44.740 brunswick is 1 billion uh 1.3 billion nova scotia 1.24 367 million for pei and newfoundland labrador
00:43:55.060 is 372 million dollars there's not one province that's profitable we as a country for the up
00:44:03.620 this upcoming year are going to surpass a 78 billion dollar deficit as a the country of canada
00:44:11.220 the federal government and we expect going forward in 2027 uh 65 and then 28 63 and then 60 60 on
00:44:21.860 so we're not looking at getting out of the deficit deficit position we've went and deferred
00:44:29.700 development charges permits right which traditionally are used for infrastructure of cities
00:44:35.140 right so what we've done is we've made the decision given we're in rougher times to defer
00:44:43.380 maintenance so if you think about your own business your own house you know i'm paying
00:44:47.780 the mortgage but i don't have enough money to fix my lawn i don't have enough money to fix the shed
00:44:53.540 i don't have money to you know put a new toilet in i don't have enough money for those things
00:44:58.580 so i defer it i say okay honey we'll do that next year we'll do it so in essence that's what we've
00:45:03.380 done right we said we're going to do some maintenance on this we're going to keep the
00:45:06.980 only thing is that next year it could be more expensive next year it could be more expensive
00:45:10.460 or it could be worse so you know we did a show on salt and infrastructure and we use calgary as
00:45:17.680 an example with the main water drain that keeps bursting and people go months and months without
00:45:22.800 having to take a shower to ration their water right calgary a main city right so we did a show
00:45:29.660 that so i say to people now i said you know what if you're going to rent first buy the thing you
00:45:35.260 have to think about now and it's something number one you're going to those people who are getting
00:45:40.460 older right you're going to buy that old fixer upper now i know i had a father i had uncles who
00:45:46.860 did it i specifically had uncles who bought old fixer uppers and i spent most of my childhood
00:45:52.620 either gutting or building an old fixer upper right and i was there when they saw the mold and
00:45:58.460 they cried i was there when the plumbing was just terrible when we opened up the floor i was there
00:46:03.660 when the ceiling you know fell down i'm you name it i was there i was there in all those circumstances
00:46:09.260 so now all these 25 people that are going into the over 65 are going to have homes their homes
00:46:17.260 are past their best before date for sure yeah a home is only meant so you know this is something
00:46:24.860 to think about for younger people now a home is only meant to last so long and my father had a
00:46:30.620 hard time with that you know it's funny my dad you know he tells the story about his 32 to million
00:46:34.780 dollars and all that stuff right i go through it and i say to him but but dad you know like
00:46:39.420 when we left that house like that house was bad and the guy who took it poor guy poor guy right
00:46:47.580 you know but but you know he he was a guy who was in uh uh recently to canada had a few bucks
00:46:54.620 and i think he was going to ride the right wave he bought it at the right time and he probably
00:46:58.540 he did hit it where he renovated it and resold it i hope and i hope that's what he did because
00:47:04.140 i hope he didn't hang on to it we should we should check we should check that out yeah because he
00:47:07.580 yeah truthfully my dad's old home is right down at the average again so he would have made no money
00:47:12.780 so the the decade that he's had it now he'd be at zero appreciation right he's back where he started
00:47:18.540 so you know he can sell it i hope he sold it but he he also had the renovation cops on top of the
00:47:23.980 so because you got that old house right and that's a lesson learned but but so now you know
00:47:28.980 these people they're going in they have the infrastructure of the home so that's the the
00:47:34.120 sewage the water everything running into the home the pipes the mold everything in the old house
00:47:38.800 that you have to deal with so you can take that house but then you have all those things that
00:47:43.100 it's not the best before date doesn't help you with the value of the house because quite frankly
00:47:47.760 unless you're super handy and you can gut the house and you have enough money for
00:47:51.020 a very costly renovation because wood is still crazy yeah the metal is still crazy as far as
00:47:57.120 cost you got to deal with it right so you have all those issues now on top of that it's something
00:48:01.840 we didn't have as a generation you have to be nervous about now now you have to really pay
00:48:07.720 attention to the infrastructure of your city right and we did another show on this which is very
00:48:14.480 interesting a lot of the cities this year because we're going into an election municipal election
00:48:20.860 We're going, you know, the city of Toronto, Mississauga, all the Edmonton, everywhere.
00:48:25.360 They're all going to have, we're looking at new councils, right?
00:48:28.960 New city councils.
00:48:30.180 So all of them said, okay, we don't want to put up property tax.
00:48:33.320 So we're going to take money out of our reserve fund, right?
00:48:36.260 And we're going to pay for our bills with money that we put in this reserve fund for a rainy day.
00:48:41.180 So we don't show property tax increases, right?
00:48:44.540 Smart.
00:48:45.220 I think for now.
00:48:47.060 But now think about it.
00:48:48.360 Think about the combination.
00:48:49.140 Think about where we are right now, right?
00:48:50.860 So now you've taken money from your reserve fund, you've deferred development charges for anyone building, so you're not getting that revenue, and now you have a war that could cause spikes in gas and everything.
00:49:10.680 So all the rainy day scenarios, unfortunately, are culminating, right?
00:49:14.740 Now, I hope it doesn't go long, and I hope we don't have all these issues.
00:49:18.140 but again yeah these are all the reasons you have rainy days so now is if i'm buying a home
00:49:23.160 i gotta really spend some time and i gotta look at the city i'm buying it sure and did they spend
00:49:29.260 enough time and is their infrastructure young enough to carry me for a decade so i'm not sitting
00:49:36.340 there and i'm not in the calgary situation or i'm not in another city situation where i'm diminishing
00:49:41.180 i'm not in a flood zone look at you know there's cities today due to development that when if when
00:49:47.700 it rains get flooded out and you know we all sit there and we go man i don't know what you do it i
00:49:53.700 do it i'm glad i don't know a home in there you know i'm driving around toronto and you know those
00:50:00.180 houses they're built and the garage is underneath the house yeah and you drive down into the garage
00:50:07.300 and i look at i look and i'm like oh yeah that's going to be a nice you know that's a mini lake
00:50:12.420 ontario waiting to happen there you know and and they think that with a with a with a sewage with
00:50:17.220 a linear sewage they have a linear sewage line that they think that that little thing is going
00:50:20.740 to solve and then of course it backs up and off it goes right so well um yeah i'll throw some
00:50:26.980 that horrible design then a new wrinkle in all this comes up a friend of mine uh works with us
00:50:35.060 and another business comes in the other day he goes i got this notice in the mail i said notice
00:50:41.140 what notice did you get they want to test for radon in my house oh boy i'm not even going to
00:50:47.300 say the city because i'm not even going to say because it's going to i don't want to
00:50:51.700 he says yeah the city's testing for radon in my neighborhood now
00:50:56.180 right and i'm like and he's got any any he goes what do you think and i go well i don't think good
00:51:03.300 there's nothing nothing good about that right yeah and he goes well hopefully it's negative
00:51:08.260 and i go yeah i said first of all i think how old is the house out of curiosity oh the house
00:51:14.980 is 50 years old and he renovated it so he's the guy who bought it uh same situation as my dad almost
00:51:21.540 the guy who bought my dad's house he bought it fixed it up now he's sitting on this property
00:51:25.860 beautiful piece of land but i i said and so he came back to me about two hours later he goes
00:51:30.580 oh i just went and researched this i go yeah ooh right what do you do with this now yeah right so
00:51:37.300 now again red first bye yeah there's so many there's so many x factors uh paul it's not as
00:51:44.740 easy as your parents so when your parents are sitting there and i the reason i tell it for
00:51:49.220 people who are younger and i always say that to them i said hey listen i i love my parents i love
00:51:54.180 my dad and i love the whole crew you know i've talked about them on the show before but the
00:52:00.340 advice i got from them was very limited because they lived in a generation where all these
00:52:07.060 concerns are not on the table anymore right they're not and so you know as time went on i
00:52:12.740 kind of realized and i was lucky enough to grow up in a family of tradesmen and stuff
00:52:17.220 where i realized that their experience was very limited to what they knew and so you know there's
00:52:23.860 all these other wrinkles you got to consider now and i think yes i think then i mean going back
00:52:28.740 going back to this idea that there's a lot of money being made online um there's also a lot
00:52:33.860 of learning that's happening online as well right so um you know like the the the amount of ways
00:52:40.420 that you can educate yourself prior to becoming a homeowner or or or an investor i i just i just
00:52:47.460 still think that option one for anyone that's thinking whether i should rent and buy is how
00:52:52.580 about how about both why don't like why don't we talk about like we have to think about that
00:52:58.500 there could be both why don't you rent where you work and buy where you can afford yes how about
00:53:09.380 how about that if we can blanket statement something in this rental property rent yeah of
00:53:14.500 course a rental property absolutely so rent where you work and buy where you can afford the only
00:53:21.540 caveat is yes of course it has to be a rental property yeah so you're happily renting you know
00:53:26.660 if you work downtown toronto no problem go rent a little spot downtown toronto but at the same time
00:53:31.620 you can go to peterborough buy a house turn it into a legal duplex rent that out you know check
00:53:36.660 it out on the weekends or not pay somebody 150 bucks a month to manage it for you and you've
00:53:41.700 you've i i think that checks off all the boxes in terms of travel to work in terms of proximity to
00:53:48.420 the things where you need to be in terms of man do am i building generational wealth for myself
00:53:53.620 yes you are you're getting a house paid off you know like it checks off all the boxes um uh if
00:53:59.300 you stayed this late on on the show that's the nugget that's that's what i want to leave you
00:54:04.020 with condition though can i add a couple conditions hit me all right city infrastructure your own
00:54:11.300 property infrastructure i think you need now more than ever you need to do your due diligence and
00:54:16.900 dig in make sure all those things are on your side and you're not gonna end up being on the
00:54:21.860 wrong side of this equation i think if you do all those things i still think it's a great investment
00:54:26.740 i think the amount of due diligence you have to do outside of your property and inside your
00:54:31.540 property has to be increased yeah great thank you chris thank you always a pleasure always a pleasure