Canadian Man Wants To Trade Home For Bitcoins 106
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from CBC News: " It's not often that Canadian real estate listings make international headlines, but a mid-sized Alberta bungalow has people around the world buzzing today after its owner declared that he would like to sell it — for Bitcoins. If successful, 22-year-old entrepreneur Taylor More would be the first person ever to accept the fast-rising virtual currency in exchange for property. 'My home is being traded for Bitcoins!' reads the listing for More's 'quaint' two bedroom home in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta. ... The property is listed for $405,000 CDN, but More writes that 'the price can be reduced" if a buyer has some Bitcoins to spare.'"
He does not want to sell it for Bitcoins... (Score:3)
...he will accept some Bitcoins in part payment. Different!
Re:He does not want to sell it for Bitcoins... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure if you are correct, though. From the FA:
So it sure sound like he will accept at least quite a large part in Bitcoins. The article states that the priced asked for currently equal about 5300 Bitcoin.
Re:He does not want to sell it for Bitcoins... (Score:5, Insightful)
He does not want to sell it for Bitcoins, he wants a viral story to advertise his house for sale.
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Buy low, sell high. It's speculation. Seems reasonable to me if you look at it that way.
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At least he does not accept the full price in Bitcoin. There seems to be some hope for him left.
Well there's some hope left for the sale of the house. I highly doubt you can buy and sell land and using some random exchange technology not being legal tender. How would the govt. calculate the stamp duty for a start?
I guess it depends where you live. Around here, when you sell a house, your legal document says something like "in exchange for one dollar and other considerations." Don't worry, the taxman still somehow figures out the real purchase price. I'm sure the same thing happens if you did it with bitcoin. They'd just translate it to dollars or CDN in this case.
Re:But will his Mortgage holder take bitcoin? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's entirely possible that he doesn't have a mortgage payment, you know. Not everyone is in debt up to their eyeballs and some people have actually paid off their houses.
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Not necessarily. Stop generalizing.
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Not necessarily.
Yes, thank you for pointing out that there are a multitude of other extremely unlikely events that could have led to this 22 year old owning a house with no mortgage. I didn't think I needed to explicitly state each and every one of them for the point I was making.
In a random sampling of 22 year olds, how many do you actually think would be in a position to own a house without a mortgage?
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Re:But will his Mortgage holder take bitcoin? (Score:5, Interesting)
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In other words: god damn immigrants! Go back where you came from!
Oh, Alberta. Canada's Texas.
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LOL
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Serious question: how can mass immigration negatively affect a native population?
If you Canadians had polled the First Peoples on whether or not to allow mass immigration, how might they have voted? Would this have been racist on the part of the First Peoples, seeing that they were denying themselves the benefits of diversity? Why or why not?
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No doubt. Good answer to all those who bitch about immigration now, because they probably aren't ready to move back to their country of origin.
Big difference is that now, the North American immigrants of today aren't committing genocide in their new homes. The comparison doesn't really hold up for that reason.
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Well hopefully you're not telling present immigrants to go back to where they came from, then you don't have a problem. :)
Being a mutt (I am too) and coming here a couple hundred years ago doesn't give you entitlement over first nations and it doesn't give you entitlement to tell other immigrants like you that they should "go back to where they came from" or the right to complain about immigration.
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What I do have a problem with is immigrants (residents not citizens) coming here and undercutting on jobs I bid on just to get the job. The immigrants in my area average 6 kids plus (one familly in my community has 1
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" I live in a town with 420 houses"
That's soo cool, I live in a 420 house. *cough, cough* Duuude!
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Not where I live, but I truly believe you are making this bullshit up as you go along. "Where I live milk is $7 a gallon, bannanas are almost $1/lb". --Clearly you don't live in Alberta then. Milk has been sold in litres here for more than 35 years. Likewise bananas in kg, not pounds. I call you out on your lies! 10-15 people in a house is illegal. And I don't know which part of Alberta you are talking about "420 houses, 50 are for sale", but not any place I can think of has that. Most places have a
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Here is a town of 5700 by edmonton
http://edmonton.kijiji.ca/f-vegreville-real-estate-houses-for-sale-W0QQCatIdZ35QQKeywordZvegrevilleQQisSearchFormZtrue [kijiji.ca]
http://www.calgarysrealestate.ca/vegreville.php [calgarysrealestate.ca]
https://www.google.ca/search?client=ubuntu&channe [google.ca]
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My sister lives in Calgary (Score:2)
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It may not be common for a 22 year old to pay off his own mortgage or just buy a house with cash (and evidently not in this case) but it's not unheard of. He could have been a teen Olympian with a big post-Games endorsement deal, a pop singer, or that British kid who just sold his app to Yahoo for $30 million.
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"Hey, there's this guy who is selling his house for 'bitcoins.' I'm reading up on them, they sound interesting, I'm going to buy some bitcoins!"
I suppose much of the financial industry is based on similar principles, so the only thing I find at fault there is that he actually collected some bitcoins at some point.
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I find no fault there. I've made quite a few purchases with Bitcoin and made a tidy profit mining at one point.
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The asking price is redonculously high for Crowsnest Pass. Fyi it is nowhere near the oilpatch - in size of Texas units for americans, It's about the same as driving from Corpus Christi to Kansas City. Much of it on secondary routes.
My first thought was tax evasion, but currency manipulation seems more likely now that I've looked up the MLS listings in Crowsnest Pass.
Also that area is known for having a lot of tax refuser/corporation sole/"free person"/gold standard etc nutjobs because for a while it was of
tax protester/gold-standard advocate != nutjob (Score:1)
tax refuser/corporation sole/"free person"/gold standard etc nutjobs
Just to be sure, not all tax refusers and gold-standard advocates are nutjobs (what's "corporation sole" or "free person" in this context? Those are new terms for me.).
A tax protester who is willing to go to prison for tax evasion in the same way that George Washington et al were willing to be executed for treason is not a nutjob, he's just a person who has extreme (in the USA at least) minority political views and who is willing to stand by them. Now, a tax protester who expects to win in court, well, ye
Forgot important word in last paragraph (Score:1)
Remember folks, having minority or fringe views is not the hallmark of a nut-job. Having such a distorted view of reality that you don't see the world as it is is. When determining if someone is a nut-job in the political sense, a test is whether they are seeing an illusionary world that will listen to them and change once they "hear the gospel truth" when that is clearly not the case.
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The corporation sole and "free person" nutjobs are the ones that are nutjobs.
The corporation sole nutjobs believe that if you write to any regent (King, Queen, or Pope) and put "Coropration Sole" as your job title and their staff respond then it makes you not subject to the laws of any country (nor international law) since you have been recognised as a regent (never mind that the constitution of pretty much every country makes the head of state subject to the law too).
The "free person" nutjobs believe that
Uh, yeah (Score:1)
Those people definitely seem to be out of touch with reality there, at least politically speaking.
Kind of reminds me of people who try to claim allodial title [wikipedia.org] to their land without the recognition by the international community as a sovereign state to back it up.
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No, the usual astroturfers began posting their FUD right away. Which rises the question: are they employed by governments or banks? In other words, which fears Bitcoin more: governments, for not being able to inflate the currency, or the banks, for no longer being able to nickel-and-dime people? Or am I ignoring the most obvious culprit: VISA, for no longer being able to tax all online transactions?
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No, but anyone who posts on a Bitcoin story explaining how dumb he thinks it is probably has some kind of reason for it. And an organized FUD campaign is certainly a plausible explanation for the amount and vehemency of such posts.
Or he could simply want to use it for making onl
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No, but anyone who posts on a Bitcoin story explaining how dumb he thinks it is probably has some kind of reason for it. And an organized FUD campaign is certainly a plausible explanation for the amount and vehemency of such posts... The difference is that the people who advocate Bitcoin have a plausible non-sinister reason for doing so: they want to use it. It is harder to see what the motivation of someone who calls for mental evaluation of someone for using it might be, besides spreading FUD.
Seriously? This is the INTERNET. Anybody can voice their opinion about anything, anywhere, anytime. As far as the motivations of detractors... if you seriously can't tell why some people might be a bit wary of a non-government backed, largely unregulated currency that's recognized in only limited locations, you need to step back from the Kool-Aid bowl for a minute.
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I understand perfectly well why people might be wary. Being wary is different from trying to convince everyone else to not use the thing. That latter part is suspicious.
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Visa doesn't tax all online transactions (Score:1)
Don't forget Mastercard!
Well... (Score:1)
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Don't sell! (Score:3, Funny)
Dude, you can get weed legally in several US states now! Pack up your poutine machine and come on down!
the tax man will not take them also need to pay (Score:2)
the tax man will not take them also need to pay other fees in cash as well.
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Why not? It's a convertible currency otherwise it would be illegal and a scam. Other "non-money" convertible currencies include airline "bonus miles" and gift cards.
Does getting paid in Bitcoin make a difference? (Score:3)
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yea, first thing show me where you people find goods for sale that accept bitcoins.
Goods for Sale (Score:2)
You could look here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade [bitcoin.it]
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oh thats handy, all I have to do is reference a large set of charts to see which vendors (who seem to all be out of my country) accepts bitcoins so I can search their websites to buy toilet paper
or I can just grab some change out of the car and walk across the street like a normal person without paying 50 bucks international shipping
brilliant
I dont know whats dumber (Score:2, Insightful)
Some clown selling his house for virtual trinkets, or that that dumpy looking placed on claimed land is worth 400,000
Typo (Score:2)
but a mid-sized Alberta bungalow has people around the world buzzing today
s/buz/snoo
$405,000 CDN (Score:2)
I wasn't aware that you could exchange monopoly money for Bitcoins. Apparently I'm going to be super rich really soon.
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Every central bank has a monopoly on issuing its national currency, so it is all monopoly money. Can you point to any nation with a competitive market for currency?
In fact, Bitcoin is the opposite of monopoly money, as it does have competitors, and is open-source itself, so other people can set up competing versions by modifying the source code. This has already been done.
Bitcoin historically high (Score:2)