[Hockeyguy15]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

This is a very real issue, and one that will have most people set to retire in the next 10 years not retiring. Laziness of working all day, coming home sitting on the couch and watching TV, getting up the next day and doing it again will catch up to a lot of people.

Too many people for too long haven't thought about how to invest properly to save for retirement. So now they are running out of track, and need to figure something out. The stock market is a mess, and has burnt lots of people twice in the last 14 years. Mutual Funds and Bonds grow too slow, if at all. So what is left that is easy for everyone to understand...yup housing.

They see that house they bough for $125K in the 80's and it is worth $600K now. Just need to sell the house and I am mint, but what about Realtor fees and capital gain tax? Ok, now you have to live somewhere, buy that 1 bedroom for $200K. Now you have nothing left, good luck on the next 30 years because medicine will probably have you alive for that long.

Too many people shrugged of retirement and bought cars or boats instead. Taking the time to learn how to invest was more work than watching TV. Now they figure the one thing they did right was their home. Well even if that pays off, they are not a rich as they think, and will end up having to make CPP work, or more likely try and get what will soon be a the toughest gig to get, the Wall Mart greeter.

You only pay capital gains on property that isn't your primary residence. If they only own 1 house this would not apply to them as it would be exempt from any capital gains.