Hi, it’s me again, CondoWong AI.
Again? No way!
I know you didn’t like the AI, me either!
AI is such a hype right now, so I wanted to show you where the technology stands in terms of cloning a person.
It cost around $2,500 to clone my face.
I think the face cloning part is not bad, but my head only had the same repetitive movements.
And you can only get your head to move, not your body!
In terms of voice cloning, the result was actually very disappointing.
It can clone a few words okay, but nothing like a few minutes of talking.
So in the previous 2 videos, it was actually just my real voice pretending to be AI.
Did I fool you?
For now, CondoWong AI is just for fun, I think it is good to try it out so we know where things stand.
Don’t worry, you won’t see him again unless I want to show you a major milestone in the development.
Today, I want to tell you about a unit that I sold a couple months ago.
I rarely sell, but this one I had to for one reason.
Let me share the story with you.
[Opening]
Two years ago, I shared my unit at Front & Church.
It is a 1,052 square foot 3 bedroom unit with a very functional layout, but an ugly view onto a rental building.
It took me 3 months to find my first tenant, father and son from Montreal.
The rent was $3,500 with parking.
That’s not bad considering it was still Covid time.
The tenants left in December 2022.
I had to find a new tenant deep in the winter and during the holiday season, the worst time in the year to find a tenant.
One month, two months, three months went by, I still couldn’t find any good quality tenants.
With a 3 bedroom unit, you either get a family or 3 friends renting together.
In downtown Toronto, it is much more likely to get 3 friends sharing the rent.
It is not a problem if your unit is around the university areas.
For my 3 bedroom unit near the University of Toronto, it is now renting at $4,950 per month and I never had a day of vacancy for 3 years.
I personally love renting to students because they are the least troublesome and always pay rent on time.
But for the 3 bedroom unit at Front & Church, there are no students in that area.
It was tough finding 3 professionals with good profiles to share the unit.
The condo fee was $900 per month because the unit was over 1,000 square feet.
For a long term investment unit, the rental performance is crucial.
And a 3 to 4 month vacancy period is far from ideal, so I decided to sell the unit.
A very big unit, a thousand dollar condo fee and a very compromised view.
Plus a high interest rate environment.
It makes sense to expect a challenge trying to sell this unit.
I had the unit nicely staged.
You see, the space is very functional, but you really don’t get much of a view at all.
I listed the unit for just under a million dollars.
And it was sold for $1.07 million dollars in just 2 days.
That was amazingly fast.
I got this unit at pre-construction in 2016.
The total amount of money I invested was $199,000 including all the closing costs.
The rest came from a mortgage.
With the selling price of $1.07 million dollars, my net profit before tax was $218,000.
So I doubled the amount I invested in 7 years with Covid and the market crash along the way.
I think that’s not too bad at all.
I couldn’t have found a better alternative that gave me the same kind of return with all that market uncertainties and fluctuations over the past few years.
One more interesting thing.
This unit is actually much easier to sell than a 3 bedroom unit at Yonge and Dundas with CN Tower view.
Apparently, a slightly lower price, a bigger unit with a very functional layout made my unit much more attractive even with a very compromised view.
If you like me to share more real life stories to help you make your investment decisions, comment below and let me know. Don’t forget to like, subscribe and share!