The Real Estate Podcast

TAX INCREASE on these Homes | The Real Estate Podcast EP308

In this episode, Adrian Trott and Ariel Kormendy dive into the details of Toronto's Vacant Home Tax and its potential effects on homeowners, buyers, and the real estate market. We also discuss how the market might evolve in 2025, touching on the role of real estate training, market predictions, and broader economic trends. Tune in for an insightful conversation! ************************ 0:16 – Intro: Recap on mortgage changes and 2025 market predictions 4:05 – Overview of Toronto's Vacant Home Tax 5:54 – Tax increase from 1% to 3% and impact on rentals 10:28 – Does the tax meet its goal of reducing vacancies? 11:58 – What's considered as “vacant”? 14:07 – Immigration number and housing startups 15:41 – Long-term market implications 18:13 – Immigration statistics 22:20 – Construction applications take more time to be processed for approval 30:01 – Outro/recap ************************ Want more real estate podcast discussions? Watch it here: youtu.be/uLhNb8fdHt4 Listen to it here: http://www.soundcloud.com/ktrealty Catch clips and highlights of the show here: http://www.instagram.com/kormendytrott ************************ Our Social: Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/kormendytrott  YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/kormendytrott  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kormendytrott  Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/KormendyTrott Soundcloud:http://www.soundcloud.com/ktrealty  LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/ktrealty  Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.ca/KormendyTrott  TikTok: http://www.tiktok.com/@kormendytrott?lang=en ************************ In 2011, Ariel Kormendy and Adrian Trott formed The Kormendy Trott Team, now often referred to as KT (thanks to our logo!). The foundation of KT is built on providing unmatched value and attention to detail in everything we do. From our ever-expanding, comprehensive list of exclusive services to our expertly trained team, you will receive the highest level of care throughout your entire real estate journey. Originally a team of two in Milton, Ontario, the KT Team has grown into a large team of exceptional REALTORS®, a client-care department, and now includes KT media, KT Commercial and KT Property Management to provide our clients with a complete lineup of genuine, professional, and proven services across Halton Region, Peel Region and the surrounding Regions within the Greater Toronto Area. We’d appreciate it if you’d subscribe and follow us for behind-the-scenes footage, real estate tips, industry secrets, exclusive listings, The Real Estate Podcast, and more!

Broadcast on:: 07 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

So initially the program started, it was a 1% annual tax. If you had a home that was classified as vacant, you had to pay 1% of the estimated value of the home per year, which is substantial. And this year, 2024, it raised up to 3%. All right, all right, here we are again, Episode 308, the Real Estate Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Today, Ariel and I are talking about the changes to the vacant home tax in Toronto and how it may or may not affect you and the real estate market, enjoy. Welcome to the Real Estate Podcast, your go-to source for raw, unfiltered stories and expert tips. Whether you're a buyer, seller, tenant, landlord or realtor, join us as we dive into the world of real estate. What's up, partner? Oh, I didn't even, I didn't put two and two together. Hey, got his cowboy boots on again. It's just the first thing that came to mind, which means- How comfortable are those? Would you wanna wear them? What are the same size? No, you don't want to put it on? No, although I do like the fact that it makes you like five inches taller. Yeah, we're the same foot size, just try it on. Okay, not right now. Not right now, okay, no. So last week we spoke about mortgage changes. And how that will or will not impact the market, heading into 2025. And since then, I've gotten quite a few inquiries, like quite a few questions. Well, even before that, I was getting a lot of calls, which we discussed in the podcast. So if you miss that one, listen to it, 'cause it will give you a lot of insight into where we think the market will be heading in the next couple of months or a few months anyways. And then this week we're talking about the vacant home tax. Actually, just before you get into that, because that's really us giving our opinion. Yes. And the reason I wanted to just touch on that is the sales team and I, or most of the sales team we went to a training event, Richard Robbins, for those in the real estate world. That is a gentleman that owns a real estate training company and he put on an event in Burlington. So we went. And one of the key takeaways for me was, and we've chatted about this before, how Realtors will post something on Instagram, Facebook, wherever, and it's just a stat, but they don't actually talk about how there's no context. There's no context, there's no, and we've set it, get in front of the green screen and do a little recording about how this might affect a buyer, a seller, the market, whatever. And then I was thinking about you and I and how that's essentially what we do every week on this podcast. That's a great point. As we give our opinion. And sometimes we're right, sometimes we're wrong, sometimes you might like what we say, sometimes you might not, but that's what we do every week. 'Cause we talk real estate, we give our opinions, and usually they're pretty good ones. Well, that can be reduced down to back in the day when social media wasn't such a phenomenon, where there was very little context with everything, like the stats would come out every month for real estate sales, real estate agents would put up, sold over asking signs on their, for sale signs, and there's zero context, which bothered me to the wins, like I hated it, because in many cases, it was just nothing fantastic, nothing to brag about, right? And nothing to get excited about, or sometimes it was really important, but nobody knew why or how or what the difference was. Yeah, so it's nice to have these conversations so people know if and how it affects them. - You wanna get into your topic? - Yeah, so the vacant home tax, which applies to, for those of you who don't know what it is, it's a program in the city of Toronto that's been designed to try to reduce the number of properties that are sitting vacant, and in turn, increase the available homes to people to buy or to rent. And it's been around for, I think it was implemented in 2022, I wanna say. - Yeah, it's been a couple of years. - And there's a recent article. It was on CP24, so they were talking about some of the changes that have come into place this year and some of the changes that are going to be taking place. One of the big problems with it was that it was just poorly orchestrated, like logistically, it was a nightmare. And there was, in 2023, there was over 100, there's like 111,000 complaints from homeowners about the program, you know, for various reasons. A lot of it's surrounding not knowing how, where or when to be disclosing whether or not their property was considered vacant or not. And there's still over 1,000 of these requests that are being processed. And basically the home has, if the home is unoccupied for more than six months, then it's classified as vacant. So what do you call it? I can't remember the term when you have a room, a condo of downtown that you use as an occupancy. No, no, there's like a, there's a French word, I can't think of it. Pied the tail? Yes, that's what I'm looking for. You know, so they're trying to make that less feasible for people. And so initially the program started, it was a 1% annual tax. If you had a home that was classified as vacant, under the vacant home tax program, you had to pay 1% of the estimated value of the home per year. Which is the appraised value or the assessed value. Yeah, which is substantial. And this year, 2024 raised up to 3%. The 1%, so if homes are sitting vacant for half the year, which happens a lot, by the way, with condos. Yeah, I actually wonder if it sits vacant because they can't get a tenant, how that affects it. Yeah, so if it's being advertised, but it's on the market, this is interesting now that you were talking about this. That is a gray area, right? Is that a way people are getting around it? Right, and it skirted because, oh, it's on the market, but if you get offers and not accept them, how do you govern that? And then there are people, I mean, the market in Toronto for condos is not particularly good, it hasn't been for a while, there's tons. So what if you just genuinely cannot get an offer or genuinely cannot find a viable tenant? But nobody's living there. But nobody's living there. So how does that affect it? Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. We gotta look into that. No, no, so for them, that is a substantial hit. You know, they're already losing income, plus they're losing, I don't know, 10 grand a year, whatever equates to, for them. And you got your property taxes, you got your property taxes, condo fees, everything, yeah. There are though going to be, there, I mean, there's plenty of condos that sit vacant by speculators, they just buy it. And they sit on it, a house near us, that is on the corner of- Farmstead and- Farmstead and- Letterman, yeah. It's been vacant for 13 years. I love it in 13 years. And that must be somebody who, I would assume bought it, has money, they don't care about the carry- You should look into that, maybe that person's dead and didn't have an estate or- Could be. Like, who knows? I mean, somebody maintains it. Property taxes cared for. Property taxes must be paid on it. Yeah. But there's a lot of that- Why would they rent it out at least? I've heard stories about people buying entire floors in condominiums. Yeah. And just sitting on the vacant 'cause they need expenses to write off too. So for them, they don't care. And at 1% cost, probably don't care still. At 3% maybe. Sure, because if they're hoping for a 10 to 15% return, a 3% gouge is pretty substantial on top of their expenses that are already incurring. Yeah. So for them, maybe just all of a sudden doesn't become as lucrative. Well, and if you think like any time I chat with, and this is probably going to happen in the lower price points, like a million dollars-ish, like average price. We're not talking for a $5 million homes, although, again, what if a rich person that has multiple properties in the world globally wants to have a property like Justin Bieber as an example who has a property in Pusslinch, which actually is his primary residence, but he's got- But how much time does he spend there? Exactly. And he's got- I'd be surprised if it was six months a year. He's got six or seven quote unquote primary residences. Well, that's why he's in Pusslinch and not Toronto. Yeah, maybe. Because the vacant home tax on something that he could afford there would be substantial. Right. And he could probably afford it, but it doesn't mean that he would want to pay for it, because there's a waste of money. I don't know. That's how I would feel, because I'm frugal. Yes. And I can afford anything near that bracket anyways. How much were those cowboy boots, by the way? 200? Oh, that's not bad. U.S. That's a deal. U.S. dollars. Yeah, I gotcha. You would probably- You can buy cowboy boots- They're $4,000. They're $4,000. Yeah, $800,000. I remember when I was in Nashville, that was 20 years ago, and I was looking at the cowboy boots, and I was like, wow, that's- Yeah, these are just more like mainstream, not like super fan color of them. Thanks. Yeah, they look like, remember mine you commented on? You're like, oh, yeah, that's kind of cowboy bootish. Yeah, bootish, yeah. Yeah, my first pair, I just wanted to get something reasonable and see how I feel with them. If I wear them, then maybe invest in something nicer. So, I guess the question is with the change- I'll say the other change, which is less relevant to our conversation, though, is they're changing the way that people are notified about the program. So people will get two phone, two automated phone calls, two emails and two letters every year to remind them to register and declare the amount of time that the home is occupied. But what I think is more important is, do you think this program will, I mean, the whole purpose of it is to bring more houses to the market for buyers and renters. Do you think it will accomplish that? I don't see it changing really anything, especially if interest rates come down. Right. So if interest rates are coming down, which they are, is that offsetting the increase on the vacancy tax that an investor that's in that position says, well, I'm no different last year and this year. So I held onto it this long. I'm going to continue to hold onto it 'cause now the prices, everybody's forecasting the prices of real estate is going to go up. Yeah. So why now would you all of a sudden dispose of it? Right. The, I don't have a number here. I think it was there was something in the range of 10,000. Let me just see it quickly. Yeah, I don't see it off, offhand. The property is considered vacant and the tax does apply if the property was not the principal residence of the owner or any permitted occupants or was not occupied by tenants for a total of six months or more during the calendar year. The property was deemed, it does apply if the property was deemed vacant because the owner failed to submit a declaration of occupancy status. So that's the problem they ran into is nobody knew how or when or that they had to do it every year. That was a big thing too. So another interesting thing here which would imply that the program's not working is that in 2022, there was about 8,700 homes estimated as being vacant. And then 2023, there was over 10,000. That could be a combination of people not know what they're doing and not registering properly. But I would assume that these are estimates based on them taking that stuff into consideration. So one would assume that vacant homes are increasing still. Yeah, like there's, there's some gray areas here. I would be interested if someone's declared it or had to try to fight this and find a way around it if they comment and let us know what they've experienced because we don't have to worry about it out here in Milton and Halton and Peel. Well, you know, I feel sorry for owners of condos that bought even in speculation in Toronto because you think their property taxes are higher, their land transfer taxes are higher and now the vacancy tax on top of it, like you're getting taxed, you know, every which way. Yeah. And there's all these condos that aren't selling. If you do rent them out, you're at a significant loss and they're still building a lot of condos too. Yeah, well, so I think it also. And now these, all these immigrants, like I want to get into, we didn't chat about it last episode. I want to talk a little bit about immigration and the housing startups because the numbers don't line up that, you know, we talked about supply and demand. There is still more demand than there is supply, but we have all of these condos sitting vacant or on the market and nothing's happening. And when you see that in the markets like Toronto, in Vancouver, in the bigger, you know, mega cities, it does affect the surrounding areas in some capacity, either positively or negatively. So all of it does play a factor in somebody's shape or form. Well, and it may push investors, I'm sure it has encouraged investors to go outside of the city. Well, that's what I mean. Yeah. Like we've seen more people in Milton and Guelph and Cambridge that are coming from the east end of the province of the GTA. And it's, you know, good for the outskirts, but what's happening in Toronto and, you know, Toronto also now encompasses Etobicoke as we knew it. Yeah. So you were right on the borderline of Mississauga. Yeah, I still think all of these initiatives, well, they may have, they will have an impact on, I don't know, micro level, we'll say, with individuals, depending on their circumstances, on a macro level, looking at the industry as a whole, I don't think it'll have much of an impact. I think the biggest factor is still going to be in the long term of supply and demand. So until they can ramp up, you know, approvals for construction and get things moving that way and make it more feasible and encourage developers to build and actually break ground, it won't have a big impact on the market. The residential unit was actively offered to the public for sale in the taxation year for which the property is being declared. That makes sense, that's an exception. Offered for sale. Yes. So you listed for sale and then pulled off the market. As long as it was offered to the public for sale in the taxation year for which the property is being declared. That's interesting. So that's gonna skew the stats. That's brand new construction. So if you have a new home, you close on it. So in the year you close on it. Correct. If it was listed for sale, you got an exemption. All right, so there, that by somebody. There you go. Yeah. Where did your tax? There's a $30,000 savings for year one. Yeah. That's funny. You guarantee you there's only one photo of the exterior. Yeah. And you try and send them an offer, no matter what that number is. You won't get a hold of the realtor. Yeah. Realtors in the real lives. Anyways, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. This is the first year with the increase. So we'll have to wait and see how many homes are considered vacant next year to see if it goes up or down. So what was it, a hundred and something thousand? No, there's only, there were 11, no. So well, it depends on what you're referring to. There was 111,000 complaints. Complaints. And there are still about 1100 being processed. There are... But do you have the number as to how many homes are falling within the... About 11,000. 11,000. Fall under the program. So I don't know how there was 111,000 complaints. And only 11,000. Yeah. Being taxed. Yeah. You should probably get an accountant if you're unfamiliar with the program. Okay, a few stats for you. Gonna shift topics real quick. 'Cause I think this is also going to affect the market. So last episode, things that affect the market. This episode, things that affect the market. To help you, we do this. To help you decide what to do. Help you understand it. Yeah, help you think. You know, get that hamster wheel going. That's right. Would love some engagement. So comment and let us know if you have any thoughts or feedback. Excuse me, I just... You okay there, partner? Swell it down the wrong hole. In recent years, Canada has seen a significant increase in immigration. So here's some numbers for you. In 2021, 401,000 new permanent residents, which was a record high in this country, which we break every year. Which since then has been broken every single year. In 2022, it was 437,000. In 2023, 465,000. In 2024, projected for the end of the year, 485,000. And the target in 2030 is to bring in over half a million permanent residences, residents in annually. Over half a million people a year. Seems crazy. Moving into this country. One thing I'm hearing a lot lately of those, they are tightening up. So I don't know how that's gonna work. Yeah, well. Who knows? Who knows? Definitely it's playing a factor in the real estate market. There was... Actually, I'm gonna pull up that graph I was talking to you about earlier. So we all know now there's not enough supply to keep up with the demand as a whole. Doing part, like in the '80s, there wasn't that problem. There wasn't that much immigration. And they were building homes and it was actually a buyer's market because there was more than six months of supply available. That's why you saw a little bit of a crash in the real estate market in the '80s because there was too much supply. Interest rates went up 'cause inflation was crazy and interest rates went into the '20s, not five, six percent. But here's an interesting stat. Because we're in Milton, I thought this was interesting. And that's the average timeline for the development applications to be processed. So if you think what's happening in two years, five years, and in Milton, there's still a whole lot of undeveloped land. And I assure you, if you haven't been to Milton for a while, if you drive around town, there's always something popping up that you didn't recognize, new construction-wise, whether it's condos, industrial, commercial, lots of homes, where we live, which is just south of the hospital. - Not so much commercial. Like outside an industrial for sure. - An industrial, not so much commercial retail, that sort of stuff. - Well, I sent you a message a couple of weeks ago the 14-0s plaza broke ground. - Finally. - Finally. - It has been years in the making. - It was supposed to be completed in 2021, I believe. - Yeah. - So they just broke ground. So there's some retail going in. We might get a rest, we are getting a restaurant in there. - I would think so. - Sit down. - Oh, really? - Yeah, yeah. And a bunch of takeout and all kinds of stuff. Anyways, this that I found interesting in 2022. So just two years ago. And this is, I guess that's just coming out of COVID time and construction was pretty nuts during COVID and coming out of COVID and all that. But in Milton, it took 10.2 months for a developer's application to be approved by the municipality, which was the lowest, the fastest time in the GTA. - Way to go, Milton. - Fast, yeah, that was two years ago. Fast forward to 2024. It is now 23.3 months. So more than double the amount of time to process or approve the development's application or the developer's application, which is an increase of 13.1 months, which puts us in the worst change as a percentage. So we went from being the fastest to one of the slowest. The slowest is actually Richmond Hill, which is 33.6 months, which is the average for a development application to be approved, but it's gotten better 'cause two years prior to that in Richmond Hill, it was almost 36 months, three years. - So I wonder if part of that is, well, there's several components to that. I think one is the number of applications has probably risen significantly. - Given all the construction we see happening. - Yeah. - I was chatting, I can't remember who I was chatting with recently. I was chatting with somebody who was telling me a story about how they were trying to get a permit through. Who was it? I can't remember. Anyways, the story goes, they were trying to get some work done to their house. They needed to get a permit put through. They called the town, I don't remember if it was even Milton, but they called the town. And at this point, it was after COVID, but everybody was still on this hybrid work schedule. So they were mostly working from home. And the guy was speaking with somebody at the town about the permit, but in order to make any progress, they had to get an update. He had to send the application to another department. And because he was working from home, he couldn't just walk it over to them. He had to send it by email, even though he was basically across the street. So he said, okay, well, I'll send it to them, I'm gonna take it 10 days for them to respond to an email. And versus if they were all working in the same building, you could have just walked it down to the next cubicle, handed it over and probably had it resolved pretty quick. So it's just ridiculous how things are going. - So the point of my immigration discussion, the expected, just looking at the exact numbers here, the expected housing starts, 'cause that's what you look at, how many houses are expected and how many applications are in, how many applications are getting approved, and it's about half. That's half of what? The applications, half of the immigration number. - Oh, I see what you're saying. - That's right, if 400 coming in 200 houses. - Correct, but you gotta keep in mind-- - Where are those other 200,000 people gonna live? - You gotta keep in mind that's individuals and individual people and individual housing units. So you gotta at least two people to a house, realistically more like four with immigrants. In many cases, I would think. - Sometimes 10? - Sometimes 10, 'cause they can't afford it. So that's very common that immigrants will, a couple of families or several families will get together-- - All the time now. - Buy a big house, sell it in three years, buy two houses, sell those in three years, buy four houses. Smart. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know what to say. Until these, obviously change something though, increase or reduce the amount of time. They just need to encourage builders. I know a lot of builders I've spoken with that are sitting on land. They just don't want to break ground. Doesn't make sense to. It's too costly. - While that's been a discussion in the news lately, is the reason that there are fewer applications to build. Even the applications that are in it doesn't mean it's going to end up being built, right? So we chatted about the cost of building right now as a per square foot cost has gone up significantly over the last five years. And now you're talking like $400 might be cheap per square foot. Whereas six, seven years ago, you were talking $200, $250. So it's gone up quite a bit. And that would be fine if the builder had a commitment from an end user essentially. But if you think about building a 2000 square foot home at $500 a square foot, that's a million bucks to build the house. You need the land, which you can't find. And if you do find it, you're paying the significant penny for it. And then if you're the builder, you got to make some money on it. So you've got your carrying costs, you've got your labor costs, you've got your materials, you've got all of your application and processing fees and costs that way, your municipality costs and whatnot. And you got to build in a profit. Yeah. So are you going to buy a brand new home at $2 million, which you could buy a resale home of similar status and quality and location for $1.3 million? Right. I think that's why they're also pushing, I mean, that circles back to the vacant home tax, trying to find other ways to create more inventory, whether it's parental or for purchase. The other scenario is the provincial government enforcing that municipalities have to change zoning bylaws to permit additional dwellings on the same property, assuming they meet the setback requirements. That's a big one. And I think we still haven't seen that really take off, but I know there are people out there that that's exclusively what they're doing. I think that's a huge opportunity. But the challenge is most new neighborhoods will never accommodate it because of the lot sizes, but a lot of new builders, it's also changing the dynamics of what developers are doing because now we're seeing homes like we've talked about where their builders are finishing basements as separate units. I'm surprised that we haven't seen a lot of courtyard homes or whatever we're calling them. Yeah, rear lane homes or, yeah. Just, I think Oakville actually allows four units per lot if I remember correctly. Most is three. I'm pretty sure it's off. Oakville, you can up to four. So you can have like three in the main building plus a separate building. Anyways, will the vacant home tax change the industry? Probably not. I don't think so. No, but it will affect some people's bottom line. Anything else you want to chat about? Off topic? No? Not really, I'm feeling very bloated from eating so much Nashville hot chicken. Oh, you went there, right? Yeah. I've been craving a good, well, what's Dave's hot chicken? Oh, and the chicken's great. You became a fan of Dave's hot chicken once-- Well, just the chicken, the fries are horrible. Well, that's because you're not eating them at the restaurant. You've got it delivered or you're taking it home. Yeah, I don't know, fair enough. So-- I have to try it, but I still think they're not freaking good. In Nashville, did you have some better? That's basically all I ate. Really? 'Cause I'm not eating beef and stuff, pork. So I just had chicken. I had pizza, chicken, pizza and chicken. Potentially, and while you were only there for a few days anyway. Yeah, that started to eat very well, whereas before that I was-- And next month, you're on another vacation. November 2nd, going to Dominican. Yeah. So again-- Celebrating your anniversary. No, no, that is, my mom is, when her mom passed away, my grandmother, she left her with a little bit of money, and she's always wanted to take the whole family away on vacation. Oh, this is a whole family trip. Yeah, that's how she wanted to spend the money. That'd be nice. Yeah, so she's taken 12 of us. For a week, to Dominican, Punta Cana. So, yeah. What resort? Majestic colonial. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it looks nice. I've never been. It's been there for a while. I know some people that have been there and liked it. Yeah, it looks good. Punta Cana is a great-- That's where Alicia and I only really ever went for a few years. You can't go wrong because it's a relatively short flight, if you think about it. Yeah. The beaches are great, weather is great, people are great. It's a bit too touristy. The first time I was in Punta Cana was in 2001. OK. And stayed at the Ryu Bamboo, I remember. And I like the Ryu Resorts for quick getaways, and if you're not looking for too high luxury stuff, but you got the-- Ryu's are decent resorts. They're OK. Yeah, they're OK. The food is kind of meh, like you can find stuff to eat, but you won't have like a wow meal there. Right. Anyways, at that time, there weren't all the resorts, like it just started becoming a sun destination. Right. But now, like, you see-- The whole beaches lined. You go to Pearson, and they probably have like 40 flights a day to Punta Cana. Anyway. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Well, Alicia told me, because she's never really done anything for herself. Like, she's always just a household kids, you know, just takes care of stuff and never asks for much. So I said, what do you want it to? Like, there's got to be-- what do you want it to? She said travel, so that was our goal. So, OK, we're starting doing shorter, smaller trips. So that was our BAMF trip, few days in BAMF, snowboarding, few days in Nashville. That's great. I'm a big fan of little getaways, as you know. Yeah. So that's nice. Yeah. So that's what we're doing. Cool. Yeah, thanks for asking. Now, you need to plan a trip. It's been a while. Yeah. While the last time, the last time that Natalie and I went on a vacation was before she was pregnant. So that was in St. Lucia, which was an amazing trip. That would have been eight years ago. A long time. Nine, nine years ago, eight, nine years ago. So I'm not going to rush anything. You know, it'll happen when we feel good to go and if we go-- You just got to book it, though. If we go, if we plan a trip, it's going to be something like super nice. Yeah. Like not a normal trip, like not going to Punta Cana or something that we've done or been like we've been to Mexico, Cuba, all these typical sun destinations. We haven't been to Hawaii together, which would be nice. But I really want to look at European trips and things like that. Like, I'd love to explore the world a little bit more. I'd love to go to Japan. OK, big ones. Yeah. Japan's good for snowboarding. But kids are still too young for that kind of stuff. Can you imagine traveling that far with-- Some people say a lot of people are doing things. So depends on what you're doing. Well, we went on this trip with the couple from the UK that we met in Mexico a couple of years ago, and they're fun to travel with. We get along really well, so we decided every two years we're going to go away. And we're just going to put-- each couple is going to put five destinations in a hat. And the year before, we'll draw the destination. Oh, yeah. So just random. Random? Yeah. Something fun. I feel like if you don't plan it ahead-- I would put-- Just never going to have secure-- That's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. Like Botswana. I assume it's not really a place. Seriously? Is Botswana a place? Google it. [LAUGHTER] How many places can you think of? Anyways, all right. Nice chatting with you. You too. OK, bye-bye. Bye. Thanks for watching this week's episode. It turns out many of the viewers are not subscribed. So help us out. Hit that subscribe button. Show some love, and we'll see you next week.