White and Nerdy

Microswift Calc was a powerful spreadsheet for the C64, not freeware, it cost $7.99 at K-Mart and was worth every cent as it was almost a complete clone of Lotus 123 and had all the functions we needed for our home budget tracking sheet aptly named "Houseplan"

Microswift Calc evolved into Swiftcalc from Timeworks and became GEOS compatible, I bought Swiftcalc to try with my GEOS setup and it was a dog, looked pretty, but was slow and painful.

Houseplan was honed and converted over the years to different formats, "As Easy As" a clone of Lotus 123, Borland's QuattroPro and finally Microsoft Excel.

It is still being used today as an expenditure/tax planning tool.

Reality and the Cold light of Day

The numbers did not fit in the spreadsheet that well, the home finances spreadsheet at the time was run on the trusty Commodore 64, a program called Microswift Calc. In addition, a few people in the office gave me their advice about the "extras" that were involved when buying a house.

The expected mortgage interest rate in Canada was hovering around 8% and that would be a monthly amount of $1200 for what Remax Dave was proposing. The reality setting in was that, regardless of what the banks or trust companies would lend, we could only rationally borrow about two thirds to keep at around our current rent position.

So, the number was $100,000.00 which looks very big if you add those two zeroes. In reality it seemed much huger, which until right now I did not realize was a valid word.

The phone call (from the one central office phone) to Remax Dave was a little one sided, with the realtor being very quiet about the decision, he was reluctant and encouraged me to reconsider as "there was little out there at that price level" but I stood my ground and asked him to find options.

The deposit at the reduced level, was still an issue, but things would work out, like they do.

Helter Skelter

Dowty was paying me a salary of $34000 a year, which from my UK level of a year earlier was about thirty percent higher than the eleven thousand pounds that APPH paid. The subtle differences were not quite apparent to me at the time, but my time at APPH had given me four weeks paid vacation, whereas Dowty was two (I will have to check, it may have been less) and in addition my mortgage in the UK was about half what the rent was.

So, we felt squeezed.

Remax Dave laid out his battle plan on our $270 auction table, a table that became synonymous with real estate deals over the next twenty or more years. This however, was number one in Canada and it felt very different than anything we had experienced.

I could smell the fear.

The lowdown, was that we would have to bare our financial souls to see if we qualified for a bank mortgage, which was probably unlikely, so the alternate would be a Trust Company mortgage, brokered through a mysterious third party. The insignificant detail that we did not have enough for a deposit was greeted with the knowing look of a man who could work the system.

The $34k salary indicated that we could qualify for a $155k mortgage, so with 5% down we would be looking for an eight thousand deposit, plus legal fees, plus "other" fees so about ten thousand would do it.

That was about eight thousand more than we had.

And so it began.

Why pay rent when you can Owe.

The letter from our landlords read that as from November the 1st the rent was going up, relatively they were spiking the rents by $60 a month, which worked out around the eight percent mark, it was a shocker and was taking our monthly rent into the $800+ zone. It was also somewhat amusing that our landlords official title was "The Shelter Housing Corporation of Canada" and it felt like we had been given a deftly worded eviction notice as we had already been quite grumbly about the level.

Boiling a frog.

I don't know if the reaction was immediate, but it was reasonably quick and helped along somewhat by a mysterious advert in the rentals classified section of the Ajax free newspaper. The tagline being "Why rent when you can Own?" which was really groundbait from the local Remax Office, tempting the little fishes into the housing pond.

I phoned the number and was passed to Dave, a pleasant enough chap, let's call him Remax Dave.

Remax Dave asked a few pertinent questions and wondered if he could visit, I explained that the missus was at work and would not get home until later, he added an hour on and said he would be over, see you soon.

Karen arrived home from her long commute and I dropped the news that we would have shark infested waters before settling down to telly that night, she gave me one of those looks and we sat on our hands until the man arrived.