Why Rick Mercer bought a $19,000 house
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
He was 19, it cost $19,500 and Rick Mercer still remembers the day that he bought a row house because he couldn't afford to rent.
Or that's what Canada's funnyman, star of This Hour Has 22 Minutes and The Mercer Report, tells the Toronto Star.
Mercer was profiled in the paper's Saturday edition as part of its series on notable Canadians and their financial habits.
His Maritime upbringing hangs heavy over the comedian's outlook on money and what it can -- and can't -- buy.
He says the house came about because he was a starving actor and couldn't afford an apartment, according to The Star. But with the help of a $4,000 downpayment -- money his parents had saved for his education -- he could buy the house, rent a couple of rooms to friends and family, and meet the $300 mortgage payments.
The lesson? "The down payment from my parents was a hand up that changed my life," Mercer told The Star.
You can find the full interview here.
(1) Comments
Same with us! If it wasn't for the generosity of parents sharing an inheritance from their parents, we would never have been able to get a down payment together to purchase our first house. That was 26 years ago. If we hadn't been able to buy that first house we wouldn't have been able to sell it for twice the amount two years ago when the market was just starting to take off and purchase our current house which has served us so well. As a matter of fact, if we hadn't received that money 26 years ago, we would probably NEVER have been able to purchase. Thank you grandparents and especially parents for sharing!