British Columbia got its property assessments recently, and Lower Mainland property all increased by 25%!

I have a fair number of property owning friends (I'm the poor friend without property), so this was my recent advice in a recent chat session:

 

You're 25% richer!
Take advantage of your home equity!
If you don't spend, the economy will slow down and the value of your home might decrease.
Only by spending the increase in value will you be able to maintain and possibly increase the value again.
Let me put it this way... we've never been in more debt, but our economy has never been better

debt=better economy=more money for you!

The old way of thinking of debt as a bad thing is very depression-era, in fact, debt is merely borrowing money from others at a lower rate of return than you're getting with that money.
My god man, this is truly the meaning of working smarter!

 

According to the property assesments, my parents are now millionaires. I'm a son of millionaires! The ladies will be swarming over me now!

I imagine a lot of property owners in the Lower Mainland also found themselves paper millionaires. I think the last time I found myself paper rich, I had a fancy lunch at Joe Fortes. A couple of weeks later, my paper wealth had disappeared. I have a feeling that will happen here with all the new real estate millionaires.