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Canadian couple saved money during the pandemic to collect down payment and bought an apartment

A couple of young people in Toronto have lived in the city center for many years, and they have always wanted to buy a house in the city. Unexpectedly, there was an epidemic last year. The two saved a large number of expenses during the blockade and finally made up enough down payment, realizing their wish for many years.

27-year-old Megan Ryder is the head of a clinic service organization, and Marcus Gverzdys, the same year as her, is a business development manager. The two met in business school and fell in love in 2018.

In October 2019, they rented a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment near King and Spadina, and they lived together at a monthly rent of 3,000 yuan. They all want to own their own house as soon as possible, but the premise is to have enough down payment.

Marcus said, “We both like to live in the city center. We go out for dates and dinners 3 times a week, and sometimes hang out with friends. We both work in the city center, and now we live close to both of our offices. It’s recent. But we didn’t expect an epidemic to happen and we could only turn the kitchen central island into our office area.”

In order to save money to buy a house, the two developed a series of money-saving plans during the epidemic. Megan said, “When the epidemic was blocked, we reminded ourselves to save the expenses we saved, such as buying clothes, haircuts, etc.. We used to like to buy new technology products, but now we don’t have to. And the biggest source of savings is The cost of eating out and traveling. Before the epidemic, we often ate and entertained outside at night. Later, due to travel restrictions, we canceled our original plans to go to Portugal, Vietnam, Chicago, and Bali, and all this money was saved.”

“By September of last year, we had saved more than $35,000, and we felt that the apartment we lived in was too small. We decided it was time to visit the house. We wanted to find a place where the monthly rent was about the same as the current rent.” Megan said.

Because they are used to living in the city center, the surrounding friends live in this area, and the two are reluctant to move out of the city. “We like the nightlife in Toronto and are not ready to move to another place. So in October last year, we set a budget of 1 million yuan and planned to find a place with at least two bedrooms and a parking space. ,” Marcus said.

Megan said, “In December last year, we finally found a very good house in the Riverdale community. It was a warehouse built in 1914 and then converted into a loft-style apartment.”

“We finally found the apartment we wanted with stairs and large windows facing south,” Megan said.

The two eventually used the saved money to make up the down payment and bought the two-bedroom dream house near Queen and Broadview for $1,060,430.

Megan said, “We are not ready to move to live outside the city. We think Toronto will definitely return to the way it was before the epidemic, so we want to live in the city.

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