searching houses

I have been searching for a place to live for purchase purposes(for the purpose of purchasing). At first, I searched for a new place to rent. But my wife and I realized that the monthly rent is too high and It's kind of throwaway money. It's literally a waste of money. That's why I'm consider buying a new house. Instead of spending money on rent, make it pay for mortgage and interests. money could be used for mortgage.

Based on online mortgage calculator, the monthly mortgage payment for $550,000 with 20 years armortization period is around $2500, which is my current monthly rent. It means I can buy a $550K house with my rent. If I increase my down payment, then i can buy a more expensive house too. I think it surely justify our home buying plan. 

our criteria are the following:

1. more than 1000 sqft. my wife likes large spaces.
2. commute time to downtown should be within an hour. 
3. a good secondary school for my son.

I've already visited several houses with/without a realtor. The most satisfying home among them is the one in the Burke mountain in Coquitlam. 3bed room town house is around $800K. It's 3 floors and 1500 sqrt. It has side by side(double) garage on the first floor, which I like a lot. It's like my dream home in Canada. but the commute to downtown could be waste of time. It takes around 1.5 hours, which is unacceptable. 

I'm keep looking at online house listing sites and will contact another realtor soon. I hope I can find the right house for our family.

iPhone

 I bought an iPhone for the first time in my life. I'd always wanted it since the first iPhone launched in 2007. Finally one of my wish lists has been marked as done. It's present to myself for 2020. I wanna say to myself: "You did a good job and thank you for your hard work." 

There were several reasons I couldn't buy it when I was working for Samsung. First, I didn't want to get in trouble from company management. There was a rumor that management would make a list who din't use Samsung phone and report it. Second, Samsung is one of the highest security workplaces in Korea. Every gate is secured by metal detectors and x-ray equipment. Every employee's belongings will be scanned and if a detector find something suspicious. Then security guard will scan your belongings once again. Every phone camera should be sealed by a sticker so that it can't take a picture inside the company. but for Samsung phone, if you install MCM software, it will automatically block your camera when you enter the company and  it will be unlocked when you leave. But iPhone couldn't. Samsung phone gave me more convenience at that time. That's why.

I think i will like iPhone a lot. Even though i haven't use it a lot, I think it's pretty decent phone ever in my life. I look forward to seeing a lot of wow factor. There must be a reason a lot of people keep using iPhone. I wanna find why.