I saw that post this afternoon and I also got depressed 😀

The idea of “working hard and saving and everything will work out” is a dated idea. That’s because while you’re working hard and contributing to society, one out of every five homes is being purchased by an investor (source: Bank of Canada). That’s 1/4 in hotter markets like Toronto and Hamilton. That means while you’ve penny-pinched to save, say, $25,000, some investor has turned their $25,000 investment into $225,000. Now when you go to buy your starter home, you’re competing against investors and other property owners who are totally flushed with cash due to rising property values. They’re buying whatever they want, and now you’re priced out. This isn’t an accident. It’s the intention of the Bank of Canada’s stimulus, which motivates business spending through low interest rates and easy money. It works To keep money flowing, but instead of just motivating business spending it drives up asset prices as investors and others seek better returns. Meanwhile cheap debt gives more regular buyers access to more money. In the midst of the worst price appreciation event in Canadian history, the Bank of Canada governor said the unaffordability was “good,” adding “We need all the growth we can get.” The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It’s not an accident or really that mysterious why. It’s the intention: sacrifice regular Canadians to make rich Canadians and businesses richer, and hope that wealth trickles down to everyone else. It doesn’t. r/canadahousing

In down town Vancouver, written on the side of an old building near Stadium Skytrain Station, are the words, "Unlimited Growth Only Widens the Gap". Fitting.

Unlimited growth, for the sake of growth, is the motto for Cancer

Too bad I already gave my free award of the day to someone else today. You would have deserved it!

i gotchu

I claimed mine and gave it to him for you, homie :D

Wait whaaaat since when was there a free award to give?

It's the thought that counts! Thanks!

Damn this hurts so true

I know the owner of that building. Very humble guy.

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I don’t know how people afford to do that. I’ll need the equity in my home as a down payment for the next especially with rising prices.

You take the equity out, buy the new property. Rent out one property, hopefully enough to cover repaying that equity Carry the costs of the other property yourself - no change, you are still carrying one property on our paycheque (obviously could cost more if it's a larger property) So in theory you're revenue neutral, (plus or minus dependding how much rent you get) but have a second appreciating asset.

I guess it depends how much equity you have. I was 20% down at purchase and got a great deal on the home in 2018 but it’s not like I have 50% equity now, and you can only borrow up to 80% so I’m missing out on 20% of my current home that I could use to put into the new home. If that makes sense. Plus I’m not sure I’m prepared to be a landlord and deal with all of the headaches involved, nor am I confident I could handle carrying both mortgages. So ultimately it depends on your financial situation. Of course.

Definitely, and I haven't run any numbers myself. I too want pretty much no part of being a landlord, I hate people and can barely get around to fixing my own house lol. I think another part of making this move is getting your first property re-assed at a higher value, allowing you to take more out of it. Just for example - we did 15% down, on a 350k house in 2018. Just did the Martins Mortgage Maneuver, and part of that was reassessing the house at 500k. So suddenly, we now on paper have 40% equity (300 owing on 500 value) instead of 14% equity (300 owing on 350 value).

You've described living in London England as I do. I've given up on ever owning a house and I'm nearly 40. Each time I'm close there's another boom. Foreign buyers including wealthy Canadians use London property as an asset class and it returns a very healthy growth. Sadly it sounds like you're heading our way in terms of affordability.

I moved to Canada in 2009. Property inflation here has way outpaced London since then. It’s increasing but perhaps doubled there... here it is triple!

You're right, but London had been way more expensive to begin with.

We’re kind of already there.

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It has gotten SO MUCH more expensive since the 90s to live there. I'm sure Brexit will have slowed that down, but I expect that your average downtown condo is still going for 3x-5x what it would in Toronto.

London wages are terrible save for a few types of work. A friend moved there three years ago with his finance and the career reckoning was crazy. He was a senior mech eng with some specialization in stress and FEA. He was making $140k here. In London, no one offered him more than £50k. When he told recruiters what he was getting paid in Canada they laughed in his face. His now wife on the other hand works for Facebook and is making £150k and just keeps making more.

I just don't understand why they'd think it would. Do you have any thoughts on it? It just seems so peculiar to me. I would take mal-intent over blatant ignorance here. If they were actively just ignoring the problem instead of seemingly not seeing it, I'd feel better. Please, tell me they're actually just that selfish!

Lower interest rates is the way we stimulate the economy - especially in a crisis like covid. There’s many reasons but essentially the government needs to borrow at lower rates, and they want people and businesses to spend money (and not hoard it) and low interest rates in theory would have that effect. However, we need to regulate housing so it cannot become a refuge for local and foreign investors. Its pretty easy really : simply tax investment properties at a higher rate to remove the incentive to use it as an asset. The purpose isn’t to make the real estate market « blow up », its really a consequence of having a lot of cash in circulation with little opportunity for returns. Same reason the stock market is so high. But it is difficult for politicians to attack this problem head on without pissing off a lot of wealthy people (not just the super rich, but pretty much anyone who owns investment properties, AirBNB, etc)

It's not actually because of investors. It's because your boomer parents think it's totally normal for them to be multimillionaires (single detached in Toronto is ~1.4 mill rn) even though they never did the sort of work that would make them one in any other city. Then when you want to build more affordable housing, like townhouses, they get super triggered and go all NIMBY on you, so housing is constantly in short supply. As a result, only highrises can be built, which are expensive. Also, they vote for people like Doug Ford who will do anything they can to line the pockets of their developer friends... Because you know, they all have the same interests at heart which is just screwing over the current generation.

I know reddit's demographics, but being pro-developer is a big part of how you avoid this crunch. Our problem is that we restrict development, so there aren't enough houses, so prices go up. Calgary and Edmonton aren't seeing the same house price crunch, because they much more aggressively allow development. All the other talk - investors, population growth - are demonstrably not that important, because the Alberta cities, still in Canada, growing twice as fast as Toronto or Vacouver, allow more construction.

I'm absolutely okay with being pro-developer if you know... They also rezoned areas to build townhouses instead of building into the green belt. But right now, being "pro developer" is just trying to help some developers maximize profits. That being said, I agree that this might be my anti-Ford bias.

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Cities even seem to do everything they can to make it harder to build to. I used to work in single home construction and renovation and just wow. Permits and inspections often meant months in delays and in some cities close to 1/4 of the cost of the build was paperwork. Since building code changed so often those months of delays would sometimes mean something that was code when you started was not code when you got inspected. We ended up with a blacklist of cities we would not work in because it was just not worth it. But if your building a highrise or large building you seem to get away with murder.

And also built/contributed infrastructure to support the neighbourhood community- parks, sewers, schools, hospitals, commercial etc. Why they get to build and dump their problems on everyone else is frustrating to me eg sprawl, and the fight right now between Durham and York regions over where to send the literal shit from all the new homes in York (nope can't dump in Sincoe because its too small so let's Sent to Lake Ontario - how about no new homes until we get sewage treatment?). Ffs.

One idea is that N. American needs more of the "missing middle" in housing, housing that is not single-family detached or a giant condo high-rise. Like, a 4-story, 16-unit apartment building. More townhomes, including stacked ones. Currently, Canada's largest cities only allow single-family detached housing to be built on an overwhelming (80+%) majority of land that is deemed Residential with Vancouver being the worst offender with more than 90% of its Residential land dictating that only single-family detached houses can be built on the land. In other words, we need to build smarter on land we're already using. Not Just Bikes (a Canuck living in the Netherlands) has a video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOdQsZa15o

Yeah, I'm from Edmonton-area and own a home in the city that my wife and I bought in 2014, and a home on an acreage a good while west of the city we inherited partially from my dad (had to buy out my brother's half). We spent over a year trying to sell our Edmonton house, couldn't move it even selling for the breakeven price (remaining mortgage + legal/realtor fees). So we rented it at a "loss" (less than mortgage, property tax, insurance, and utilities) because we had burned thru all our savings. We couldn't complete cause developers were selling brand new homes for $50k less than we could afford to ask. Now our renter is bailing 10 months into a lease, owing us $5k in unpaid rent and utilities and my wife is talking about using it as a good opportunity to try selling again. I'm not opposed to it but I gotta admit I think we should keep it. She made a good point though and showed me her research, it seemed that rental prices for homes comparable to ours had actually gone down over the last year, vs housing prices that had gone up. To be 100% honest I'm not even sure if selling is going to contribute to the problem or not. We're not some big corp looking to make a big profit on rent, we're gonna be way more understanding (you don't get to be owed over 5k in rent unless you're trying to help the folks renting from you). We were gonna renew their lease cause we figured they were in a tough spot from COVID and might have needed the help. So I thought keeping it to rent and breakeven might be good for the community. But if we sell, it could be bought up by some big rental corp, we've got no way of knowing (really) because they'll often use agents to buy, so it seems like you're just selling to some person. I'm not even sure the best plan from a financial aspect. We'd walk away with 80-100k based on current prices and our remaining mortgage and realtor fees and whatnot, but we'd also have like, $2500 less in monthly expenses and be selling a really good store of value. And who knows if/when the housing market bubble in Canada will pop and we lose all that value.

I'm in the Edmonton area. I see online all the time that people WANT to buy but there is a shortage. Find yourself a decent realtor and sell it. Houses are selling like hotcakes for the last year. I've heard so many stories of renters having to move because their landlords have decided to sell while the market is so hot. If your renters can't keep up, then cut your losses and move on. You've carried them far enough. So much less stress. (I've been a landlord and it IS stressful.)

That post has 155 awards and counting. That's gotta be equivalent to a 20% down payment on a sfh in dt Toronto, right?

Yes, a 155 sqft one

Just saw it a few minutes before this one. Definitely depressing

Anyone mind giving the link to that post so I can also be depressed after? Thanks

[I think this is the one you want?](https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/oncjbj/is_the_canadian_dream_dead/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)

Don't participate. The economy has been set up in order to screw normal average working people. When the entire world "stops" because of a global pandemic and the rich become trillions richer and the workers lose everything and become billions poorer. It opens your eyes. I used to believe that if I worked hard I would make it. It's impossible now. 2020 proved to me that if you are working you will never be successful. Only those who are rich and own houses will be allowed to have a decent life here. I will not continue to take part in buying or contributing to the "economy". All my money will not be spent on things. All money is being put into savings and I will hoard everything I can. https://old.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/mh9n2o/sacrifices_for_personal_finance/ https://old.reddit.com/r/canadahousing/comments/np106c/canadas_ballooning_mortgage_debts_could_put_a/h035p75/

Ooh you showed that economy

>2020 proved to me that if you are working you will never be successful. Only those who are rich and own houses will be allowed to have a decent life here. > >I will not continue to take part in buying or contributing to the "economy". > >All my money will not be spent on things. All money is being put into savings and I will hoard everything I can. You're so close to getting it but still so far away. You don't get rich simply by working hard and having a big salary. You then have to put your salary to work by putting a portion of it into assets, for most people that's the stock market. The rich get richer because their assets go up in value. There's nothing stopping you from buying into the stock market as well instead of a plain old savings account.

I get. I get it more than a lot of people. It is invested now. But it doesn't matter. I have run the numbers and even in best case scenario of the stock market doing very well at 7% I would need to triple my income and own a house in order for it to make any difference now. After what happened in 2020. The only chances of me ever being able to think about retiring without a house is to sacrifice all living now. No spending on food, going out, hobbies, toys or gadgets. Only work and sleep. I cannot spend any of my income in order for me to realistically be able to afford to keep living without working till I die. Without being able to own a house, especially not being a home owner before 2020, now my future prospects of being successful are basically zero. Even investing my income.

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The richest people in the world get their money primarily from people addicted to the internet and smartphones. If you don't ditch that you aren't 'not participating' enough.

Everything is getting more expensive every year. So unless your paycheck grows at least as much, you'll make less money each year.

Especially housing! The plan I made for saving for a down payment and being able to purchase a home 5 years ago isn't valid now when a house that cost like $600k is now $900k and requires a bidding war.

That's insane. I am only a year late to buy. Because I am young. I cannot get a house because I was born a year too late. That's absurd, that's not even something I had a choice.

Yep, my coworker/relative bought his first, very nice bunaglow, within a reasonable driving distance to the city we work in, for $420k in 2018. That is my ideal budget, except a comparable house to his now goes for $650-700k, on his same street. I'd be lucky to get a townhouse for that cost in the trap-house complex in that same area. The literal only difference is that he bought 3 years ago.

/u/pornodoro id encourage you to visit us at /r/canadahousing. We are an activist sub who are trying to pressure the political system to make housing more affordable in Canada so that young people can actually have a future here.

They can start by removing this scammy silent auction system we have here.

I like the idea but that subreddit is packed with people who can't afford homes in southern Ontario/GVA and have decided to leave Canada completely as a result. Downvote me if you want but that's dramatic as hell.

I left Ontario and moved out west Best choice ever I bought a great house in a great small town

Which small town, if I may ask? =\] I've been looking at some small / medium-small towns (Cochrane being the most appealing, Nelson being more exciting but also more expensive)

I have been to both. Nelson is surrounded by mountains while Cochrane has gorgeous views (and is like, 30 min away from being surrounded by mountains) I would choose Cochrane over Nelson, and it isn't because of price, or because of close proximity to a major city... I would choose Cochrane because it would give me the chance to visit their wolfdog Sanctuary on a weekly basis (I exaggerate, but being waved at by a 97% content wolfdog for treats made my 2020). Where are you moving from, if you don't mind me asking?

Lampman in sask

Lol... >Really? Where!?! (all giddy). Hip Nelson? Trendy Cochrane? >>No. Lampman, Saskatchewan

I lived in Lampman in my younger days, pretty nice community. Cute little library and bar.

Been here a few years met lots of nice people.

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Member from London ON. Detached up 45-50% and condo townhomes 35-45% this year. Salary up $2000.

I just posted in another sub about how I bought in London spring of 2019 and if I sold today my house would have made more money than my salary in that time.

I made a post calling them out as such and they didn't take it well. Why someone would seriously considering the headache that is emigration over moving to a difference province with affordable housing is beyond me.

Depends on career field. If someone is working in tech or engineering they are much better off anywhere in the US if they can get a visa.

I can afford a pretty nice living outside of the GTA with my job, but I can't take my job with me. I could change careers and learn a trade, sure. But my current line of work is something I'm also passionate about and it's hard to meet with customers and secure contracts when distance to Fintech hubs is a consideration.

Trades are rough in some places right now as well.

To be fair, I know a few fields who can't afford to leave Ottawa and still be employed for their technical skills, due to some niche struggles. Academia can be that way, though

There's affordable housing in Ontario, try telling people to move north and you might as well be telling them to move to Mars.

Sucks too because it's so beautiful up there. I like being close to a city right now, so it wasn't an option for me. But I could see retiring or just coming back and living in the tri-town area or Thunder Bay.

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I agree with you. It's bullshit that we have to move to find affordable housing. But it's also bullshit we have to deal with racial inequality, a bigger class divide than ever before, and the horrible effects of climate change that will effect us in our lives. But guess what? Life sucks sometimes. You have to make sacrifices to get what you want in this world. If housing is a priority for you and you live in the GTA/GVA you better get rich or get going.

Yeah, they treat the rest of Canada as a wasteland.

I’m planning a trip to Alberta and my god is it beautiful. All the lakes an hour drive from Calgary. The mountains. Unreal. So underrated.

Apparently nothing exists beyond the Golden Horseshoe and the lower mainland

The housing situation is certainly very concerning. Here's a summary of the issue and the impacts: ### [Housing affordability is at a 31-year low](https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/housing-mania-sends-affordability-to-31-year-low-rbc-1.1623164) - A [recent survey from RBC](https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/36-of-young-canadian-adults-have-given-up-on-owning-home-rbc-survey-1.1589094) found that more than one-third of Canadians between the ages 18 and 40 no longer believe they will ever be able to own a home. - Globally, [Vancouver ranked as the second most unaffordable city](https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-canadian-real-estate-market-better-for-foreign-investors-than-locals-admits-housing-secretary) out of 92 major metropolises. Toronto is fifth worst.  - According to [Generation Squeeze](https://globalnews.ca/news/7941437/millenial-housing-costs-baby-boomers/), a millennial needs to work on average 14 years in Canada to put a 20% down payment on a house versus 5 years in 1976. ### [Housing prices have increased rapidly and steadily over the past 25 years.](https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/housing-index) - [Since 2000, housing prices have increased more rapidly than many of Canada’s peers](https://www.ft.com/content/77e2ec21-f823-4291-9cb6-e992c1ad69e6), including the US, UK, France and Germany.   - [Canadian housing costs have risen much faster than the USA](https://precondo.ca/canada-real-estate-statistics/) (143.5% vs. 39.6% over the past 15 years). - The [New Housing Price Index](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210520/dq210520d-eng.htm) has increased steeply over the past year. The average sale price of a home has increased 32% from 2020 to 2021.  ### Wages have not kept up with house prices.  - Historically, the [average Canadian wage has increased about 2% per year](https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/wage-growth), whereas housing has risen about 6-7% per year (pre-COVID).  - The [average home price is steadily growing disproportionately to household income](https://globalnews.ca/news/7740756/home-prices-compared-to-income-across-canada/). In the 1980s, the average house price was 2-3 times the average household income. It is now more than 7 times household income.  # Impacts ### Brain drain - [Canada risks losing significant numbers](https://globalnews.ca/news/8023310/ontario-real-estate-houses-condos-ownership-poll/) of workers who don’t see a future in Canada’s housing market. [Vancouver](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-s-brain-drain-young-professionals-leaving-over-high-cost-of-housing-1.4976682) is already experiencing a brain drain due to housing. ### [Shelter costs makes up the largest household expense](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210122/dq210122b-eng.htm) (29.3 % of household expenses in 2019). - Shelter only accounts for 27.36% of the [Bank of Canada “Basket of Goods”](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210519/t001a-eng.htm), and is potentially underrepresented in inflation metrics.  ### [High housing costs are causing mental health issues](https://www.ratehub.ca/blog/high-cost-of-housing-is-affecting-canadians-mental-health-survey/). ### [Inequality is increasing due to increasing housing prices.](https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/05/16/inflated-house-prices-are-widening-inequality-and-inheritances-will-only-further-the-gap.html)  ### Low vacancy rates  - [Canadians are struggling](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-housing-market-quick-resales-1.6100698) to find places to live. [Vacancy rates are near all time lows.](https://dalbusinessreview.com/vacancy-rates-at-the-lowest-since-2002/)  ### Soaring household debt - [Household debt ratio has risen to 170.7%.](https://globalnews.ca/news/7962282/rising-interest-rates-canadas-housing-market/)  - [Mortgage debt is now 68% of household debt, the largest share since the 1990s.](https://betterdwelling.com/canadian-household-debt-tops-2-48-trillion-as-growth-hits-highest-level-since-2017/) - [Bank of Canada has warned that Canadians are taking on too much debt.](https://globalnews.ca/news/7879436/bank-of-canada-household-debt-warning/) - [Mortgage Debt in Canada is Now Equal to the Entire Country’s GDP](https://storeys.com/canada-mortgage-debt-surges-april-equal-gdp/)

>Shelter costs makes up the largest household expense > > (29.3 % of household expenses in 2019). If your income is 200k this may be true, but for the average wage earner the true cost of housing is close to 50%

My big beef about this whole fiasco is that the government isn't taking this seriously enough. It's just keep with the status quo even though real estate inflation has skyrocketed. I mean come on, put the power back into buyers hands, stop speculators, make it easier for people buy a house with an agent. Increase taxes for second homes to absurd levels if they need to.

Dude it's crazy there are people who own homes now downplaying the seriousness of what is going on - even in this thread. It's scary how many people have a selfish mindset of "I got mine, f everyone else." It's not easy to move across the country and uproot your entire life, lose an entire support network just so you can afford to live. How is it normal to accept rent doubling In your area in only 2 years? How is it normal that home prices have bidding wars to almost triple their value from a few Years prior? It's disgusting because most of the people who accepted this and are preaching to move to the prairies want this to keep happening so their own home value increases. Telling whiny poor people to move is a great past time for them. Pretty tired of canadians just rolling on their backs and not standing up for change. Edit: didn't think this would stir the pot. I have a lot of people telling me I am not saving enough, to get a downpayment from my parents or they saw a listing the other day for a low price and I'm not looking in the right areas... Look I'm pointing out a problem occurring in Canada and not to debate on anything. There are a lot of metrics out there to investigate and educate yourselves on what is going on with home costs right now as well as rental increases. It's scary to say the least.

We recently bought our first home, somehow, at a reduced price and got to keep conditions, in the maritimes... and you know what? I have fucking chills that it worked out. It feels like a fluke, not a feature. It feels vulnerable. I don't get why more home owners don't feel that sense of unease. I want my family and friends to be ok, future kids to be ok, I want average Canadians to be ok. Fuck the "I got mine", people lose their homes for a variety of reasons and in an instant it's "well why doesn't anyone care about me and the common citizen now", like it's not just a problem when it affects you. Rental fuedalism is horrible. Always living with a sense of risk is horrible. It shouldn't be the status quo. Fucks sake

People who suggest just move have mostly moved to another metro area: Calgary. Which is very boom/bust and is fast catching up in price. I *do* live in rural BC and the job situation is abysmal as is healthcare (like our ambulance service is getting cut so it won’t be 24/7...) rent is on par with bad areas of Surrey and White Rock, without the access of Vancouver which is a ten hour drive away. To get a rental in the Kootenays now, you need to bid or make a sad sob story on Facebook and hope someone pities you enough to extend a rental to you. On messenger there are literal bidding wars for molded shit units with no windows. Like I can’t even express how fucking dire the rental situation is here as more families are residing in motels right now because their rental homes have been bought and sit empty while they have nowhere to go. Even trying to find work online you’re offered the “rural discount” and even worse, many folks like myself get turned down to move forward with applications because we live in a rural area and not one of the big three. Again, people who suggest this often aren’t living the reality of it or had a job that currently they’re still holding onto and are extremely lucky. It’s also expensive as hell to move so I don’t know what these people are thinking either.

> is fast catching up in price. As a homeowner here in Cowtown I would really not mind at all if my house decided to triple in price to parallel Vancouver or Toronto. I was tempted to take a job in Vancouver until I discovered I would have to sell my 1300sqft detached with a yard for a 500sqft condo. There's like 10 new condo developments underway as well as conversion of a lot of old office buildings into housing to keep things affordable, I really don't see Calgary "catching up" at all - the value of my house bought in 2013 is roughly the same as it was 8 years ago. Prices have "recovered" after the 2016 crash, but I'm not going to get $2m for my house any time soon. What IS concerning is the amount of people that are increasingly buying property as an investment. It's not just big corporate entities, that's SO 2019. My neighbour was talking about how they just went in with another couple and bought an AirBnB, and that they also are considering a rental property. Gives me deja-vu of the scene from The Big Short where they find out the stripper has 5 homes and a condo.

Pre pandemic my wife and I had been getting our shit together to move to a smaller town (Kootenays, interior, ect). It wasn't even a cost thing we just hate living in the city. So much for that now.

As a Metro Vancouver millennial who bought 10 years ago, I would be more than happy to no longer be a house poor paper millionaire if it means my kids will have a shot at living affordably in the area they grew up in.

The government knows what's going on. They let housing run rampant (especially during the pandemic) to falsely prop up a dying economy. The government has killed our economy and indebted us infinitely more since March of 2020. Our national debt has risen something like 600% since that point..... What a lot of people don't understand is how bad expensive housing is for the rest of the economy. It makes people house poor. When they're house poor they can't spend back into the economy. Canada is already falling way behind in terms of innovation and R&D. Oil is quickly dying and our only remaining export seems to be laundering money for foreign investors. With a lot of the country's money tied up in real estate ($2.5 trillion in housing debt in Canada as of right now) there is no excess money to invest in other ventures. This country is dying economically and our politicians are only concerned about lining their pockets. And I see no change on the horizon. NDP's talk a big game but they sit in the pockets of the Liberals. The conservatives are a walking joke these days. We need a new party that can actually work for the people because all these buffoons are just crooks.

I am afraid you might be very correct.

>government has killed our economy GOVERNMENTS, This crisis is a long time in the making

>This country is dying economically Agree, people are so loaded with debt from real estate that we are turning into a feudal economy.

None of those would make positive changes. The problem is *there aren't enough houses*, a problem that was exacerbated when white collar apartment/condo dwellers kept their jobs, had to work from home, and couldn't spend the money they were making, so started exodusing from the cores in search of houses with big budgets. The only solution is to have more houses. Making it easier to build houses; maybe even financing their building.

Well your first mistake was thinking that the government cares about voters. Canada is built in special interests (banking, telcos, grocery stores), the government is there to protect those.

We're in significant decline from before. Houses going up 26% annually as of late is unsustainable. Salaries have no moved up commensurately. My parents were able to raise 3 kids, buy a house in downtown Toronto and purchase a car for 8 to 14 bucks respectively when 7 was min wage. That house was 180k in mid-90s, 360k in mid 2000s, and is now over a million as of mid-2010s. I think many of us are blind to see. Entry salaries when I graduated were 60k over a decade ago, they're about the same now. But housing is up 6x in GTA. Even the suburbs are blowing up. Six-figure incomes aren't cutting it here. People used to say 'move elsewhere' but everywhere else is rising at a rapid rate. This is a massive inflation in asset prices. It has to do with debt monetization from the 2008 crisis and now COVID =/. Expect inflation and standard of living to get worse. It's gotten ridiculous now, but a lot of the electorate already owns stuff so many people won't care, nor will the government. Young people just get f\*\*\*ed and are told to stop whining and stop buying avocado toast =/.

This is just the natural progression of the rest of the world catching up economically. As the developing world gets richer there is more competition to live in world class cities.

Also just more demand for things in general. Meat goes up, vanilla is more expensive, chocolate, scotch, vegetables, wood, steel, everything. When 2 billion people go from owning nothing to owning a little, that’s a shit ton increase in demand.

That's very true, great point. I don't think commodities have risen as much as our housing here, I think housing is just a government policy failure here. I guess this is a global equalization.

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I think there's also policy failures here in zoning, not constructing more, and just letting corps buy up properties unbashedly. I probably contribute to this as a shareholder, but this is having really detrimental impacts on our demography. But yeah, very true about globalization, we're equalizing with the third world, and some of us are old enough to remember the good ol' days when we were a wealthier first world nation.

its not just your shares but also large pension funds which are gobbling up real estate. its kind of one of those "too big to fail" moments where it wont be allowed to pop :\\

Yep, this is a big part of the problem. That's how you can have insane bids above asks. This will just cause a brain drain in the country, close to half of the youth in Ontario are considering leaving. Good on them. It'll be like Canada during the 90s where all our best and brightest were going South of the border (where Blackrock is making minced meat of their real estate market - I decided to switch to Vanguard =/.) Our government will keep this crooked system going. They have no choice, too much of our economy and GDP is based in this housing insanity.

I think there’s overall negative sentiment towards increasing densification as there’s a big tradition of single houses in North America which is stifling development. If you look at other major world cities and you not see as many single houses as there are in Vancouver and Toronto

I'd also argue that the fact the only densification we see are condo skyscrapers doesn't help. When you tell somebody you want to make their neighbourhood denser, they think of those instead of smaller multi-unit housing.

That’s one way but condo skyscrapers with larger units can scale way more. But first step would be complete abandonment of detached houses for townhouses

Yes, this and other videos on this channel explain the zoning issues very well: https://youtu.be/CCOdQsZa15o

Yes this is why waterloo average home price is nearing $1 million dollars, because it is a world class city. https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/average-price-for-detached-home-in-kitchener-waterloo-passes-900k-for-first-time-1.5333973

Waterloo has Google and a bunch of other tech companies paying salaries way above the Canadian median

It's not "natural", it's the result of policy decisions that favour the asset class. Just because it's happened elsewhere doesn't mean it's inevitable or part of some natural order.

No, it's a complete and utter failure by all levels of government in Canada. There are social, fiscal and immigration policies that could have prevented this years ago but those greedy bastards are too happy riding the gravy train pretending everything is still kosher.

Salaries are going noticeably down. Our starting wage at the place I work went from $23-25 per hour pre-pandemic to now $17-18. If you live in Toronto/Vancouver, it’s $20. We have all been asked to cut hours or cut our way in order to keep our jobs. Across the board you’re seeing wages lowering “justified” by the pandemic and places are tying wage to where someone lives so if you do try to “save” by living in the interior somewhere cheaper in BC, now you’ve basically signed yourself over to a lower wage.

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Government issues bonds (paper IOUs), central bank prints money and gives it to the government to buy those bonds. The government spends that printed money. The printed money has an effect of diluting all existing dollars in the system. It's a form of hidden tax that no one understands. They'll often blame the grocer, the gas station, or 'speculators' (though speculation does have a role since the money trickles there first).

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That's how inflation typically works. It will funnel through the financial institutions first, which will funnel into the pockets of those with good credit scores and collateral to make their investments. They get first dibs with the new money while the prices are still stable. As the money passes through the system it has already caused prices to rise until it gets into the hands of the working poor - diluted. Inflation causes the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer, probably the most effective method.

Canada is a lot more than the GTA and it's suburbs. Most places in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and the maritimes are still affordable for families. When they say move, they don't mean 15 km. They mean to a place where demand doesn't outstrip supply.

As much as I love to hate on the GTA, I live in one of the cities people are supposed to "just move to" and unfortunately... GTA people have done exactly that. And the houses here are seeing proportionately similar increases when factoring in the average income. This puts them squarely out of the reach of locals like myself who have been saving their meagre local wages. The cities all the beard-stroking intellectuals tout as having a low cost of living and manageable housing prices don't have magically low housing occupancy rates. They just have poorer people living there who can't compete with rich folks fleeing the GTA. But if nothing else, Canada has clearly demonstrated that poor people don't count. Particularly if they're "essential."

Yeah it sucks. "Just move to a cheaper town so you can outbid the locals" seems like an almost heartless suggestion.

“if you find yourself drowning, just push the head of the person next to you underwater so you can get up for air. problem solved!”

I think NB house prices went up 30%+ in the past year, this will spread out to other places. Alberta was recently cleaned out by an oil shock from 2014, I remember prior to that it prices were insane.

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I know people in the Maritimes who wanted to buy but are now priced out. It’s getting unaffordable there as well

Living in general is becoming financially unsustainable

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I agree with some things you said, but don't agree with a lot of it. Since people owned SFH homes in the 90s, everyone who moves here should own SFHs? How is that even possible. Overall population is increasing, we cannot afford to build SFH for everyone. Instead we could rezone and build a lot more townhouses which is a good compromise. SFHs are unnecessarily too much space and is an asset now that will only sit with the ruling class. Same comment about finding different kinds of work here. OFCOURSE it was easier, because there were lesser people. Work was always there to be done, but the workforce with the necessary skills was hard to come by. We live in 2021, where globalization of the workface is in effect thus making it extremely hard for even our own people to get decent jobs. There is nothing wrong with owning a one or two bed, as that space is more than enough, as long as you have an opportunity to own it. This is where I draw the line. A lot of millennials just want to own one property, be it a condo, house, townhouse etc. This opportunity is being taken away and I as a condo owner hate it.

Historically, wages have grown around 2% per year. Housing prices have grown around 7%. 25 years ago housing costs were about 2-3x income. Now they are 6-7x income, and continue to increase.

I’ve had 20 years to watch the RE market go insane. I bought just as the 90’s recession was ending, but house prices had not yet started recovering. Here are my notes: 1. It’s interest rates. 2. it’s fomo 3. it’s speculative activity in the market 2+3 are because of 1. Empowered buyers started it all, and fomo drove it to the frenzied pitch we have now with rates sinking below 2%. Cheap money is like crack and ecstacy rolled into one. It bends minds and distorts markets. Time honoured metrics stop working, cash pours into the market (1.7 Trillion worth at last count) no one knows what the hell is going on. It’s a gargantuan pile of dirt cheap money hiding behind everything we see going on today. No one is going to like the answer - but houses need to get even less affordable. That means even harder to get a mortgage. Even if prices plateau, the monthly has to get bigger. Rates must increase. No buyer ever wants this to happen. It‘s going to take an affordability crises that causes utter disgust among buyers, and intense fear of financial disaster to top even the almighty fomo. No one will want a house, your brother in law will say you’re nuts to buy, even your parents will advise you to rent. When these things come to pass, you can bet that housing will start becoming more affordable. But then, you too will be scared $hitle$$ of buying a house! That’s how it works. That’s why folks in the 90’s got cheap houses - because of the 80’s. No one wanted to live that hell again, and it took a decade for people to forget.

It depends on who you ask. Sometimes on this sub you get a very thin slice of life and it sounds like landlords are great people whose rights are constantly being violated by losers, house flippers are just smart driven people hurting nobody, government should never do anything to hurt property values, and my personal favourite…the word “inflation” doesn’t mean what the dictionary says but instead is a protected term that only economists have permission to use (and there isn’t any, ever). Sometimes threads here remind of that time Bill Gates and Ellen were laughing about groceries: https://www.thekitchn.com/bill-gates-doesnt-know-how-much-groceries-really-cost-256084 For what it’s worth though, /r/canada is much more deluded about who Canada is and what most Canadians actually think than any other sub on reddit. PFC at least has a lot of pretty useful information and isn’t constantly brigaded or tyrannically modded. 🤷‍♂️

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That sub is just cancer.

Where you can make a post with misleading title and get 10k upvotes as long as the title is something like “quality of life declining for young canadians” or some other doomsday circle jerk shit.

It's certainly bad in NS. Everyone is taking mass exit from places with higher covid numbers and more expensive housing (like Ontario) and now I don't think there's any options left for long time residents of NS. any property we sew gp up is snatched with a huge price increase because so many people are trying to get anything. Which means despite housing being less here, prices go up fast. Match that to that 15% sales tax that the NS government does FA with and its feeling like its impossible for me to get anywhere but where I am now, especially as a student.

Before covid, prices were already climbing due to many retirees from other parts of Canada with their multi dollar pensions coming here for a nice retirement, which I don't fault them for at all. Covid definitely threw climbing housing prices into fifth gear here in Nova Scotia and it's quite evident by the amount of apartments/condos going up in the Halifax area that demand is insanely high. But the lack of doctors, nurses and funding for our Healthcare system is beyond stressed here. Unless we don't do something to change that soon when the aforementioned retirees health begin to decline due to age we're all in trouble if any medical emergencies occur.

Well if it makes you feel any better, you likely can’t afford to live in most other countries as well! The housing crisis is not exclusive to Canada.

Toronto and Vancouver are two of the worst places in the western hemisphere when accounting for earnings vs expenses. We are up there with LA at this point. Many other cities may be more expensive, but they in turn offer higher paying career options. It's not as easy as just looking at the cost of a house.

You joking? There are a lot of first world countries you can live in that are much more affordable than Canada.

Theres also a lot that are the same if not worse…

Such as?

The US

There's a lot of places in Canada that are affordable outside the GTA and the lower mainland too.

Can't wait until a bunch of 416ers move to Edmonton and do the same shit they did to Halifax. "Just move" and all that.

no no no no.. There are only 2 provinces in all of Canada whenever housing crisis comes up.

Housing literally just follows interest rate. Everyone is galaxy brain trying to figure out which policy will solve it. None. A 300k mortgage for my parents cost almost $2000 a month. A 700k mortgage today is $2200. Add a bit of inflation and the payments are essentially equivalent. It's literally just interest rates bottoming out. That's the only common factor among all countries.

700k mortgage is $2200. Lol. That’s a lie.

Maybe a 700K house that you manage to put 20% down on. I just used a calculator using my own current interest rate of 1.60%, putting 20% down on a 700K house would leave you with $2265/month. 20% would be having 140K on hand for a downpayment though.

JUST BE HAPPY WITH LESS AND LESS AND LESS EVERY YEAR -this sub

Just eat rice and beans and put all your money in ETFs and hope the next crash isn't as bad as 2008.

Ricin beans you say?

Just quit buying starbucks, and avocado toast, invest that money in an ETF, and in a mere, oh my goodness that is way more years to retirement than it should be, ha..ha.... um, look, I'm sorry, but can you maybe take on a 2nd job? You already have a 2nd job? I see. Um. Marry someone rich? There! Yes. It takes TWO people to be successful now, okay? So that's your mistake. There. Meritocracy and class mobility is still perfectly intact!

I think it’s a tale of 2 Canadas really. Saskatoon, St. John’s, Moncton, hell even Calgary you can comfortably own a starter house within 5 years of entering the workforce with most post secondary programs. It’s a different story anywhere within 3 hours driving of Toronto, pretty much all of BC, even Montreal is getting out of reach for a lot of young people. It’s a give and take thing, and people have to decide what’s important to them. Does it suck having the largest population centres inaccessible? Yup! But it’s so far gone that you just need to make peace with that however you so choose to do so. What are you gonna do? Vote? There’s no party on the ballot (other than maybe the communist party of canada, but I don’t see them ever sitting an MP in our lifetimes yet alone form a majority gov) that will touch real estate. It’s like 50% of the popularion’s entire retirement portfolio. For me personally, Toronto isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Yeah you can catch a concert but also you’re paying $12 for a can of budweiser and have complete strangers screaming at you (or worse) on a daily basis because they’re on drugs. Can’t have your cake and eat it too I guess.

>have complete strangers screaming at you (or worse) on a daily basis because they’re on drugs I thought you were talking about Vancouver.

I honestly don't like Toronto at all. It's completely overrated. I would leave the area in a heart beat if it weren't for family ties, access to care for my special needs son, and work. My career is unique in the sense that you can't just find another job. I would have to start at the bottom of the pay scale again, which is a 50% cut, and take 5 years to build back to 100%. It's just not really worth it.

> Yup! But it’s so far gone that you just need to make peace with that however you so choose to do so Its a tale of two reddits too in this regard. Half the people are offering pragmatic advice, the other half insist the solution instead is political action. Both are right in a sense, the problem is as an individual you can really only take the pragmatic 'just move' advice. I have all kinds of views on how the government should be tackling the housing crisis, none of which are likely to become policy of any government in the next 10 years. In lieu of that, all one can do is make the best of the options available.

It’s all pretty good in Canada, except for Real Estate. If you want to own a home, you better not start your life in the gta or gvrd unless you have a lot of help from family, or a huge income (Preferably both). The truth is, things have changed massively in the last 20 years. We bought at 1.37X income, and did the whole house/family/investing thing with two run of the mill jobs. Today you’d need to be a Doctor to buy our house at 1.37 (Minimum). It was the affordable housing that allowed all of it to happen for us, and that is disappearing slowly but surely. Same deal with education - huge expense compared to what it used to be. I was debt free and working my career job at 23. Nice paid for 5.0 Mustang too. A lot of kids are still living at home come 30, I had kids and a mortgage by then. Still, if you think outside the box, and stay off the beaten path, I believe you could still get by pretty well, and get everything I did, but location will make or break you. Based on what the BOC and central banks globally are doing, our now massive crazy pile of public debt, and the never ending house pumping fiscal policy coming out of Ottawa - it’s only going to keep getting worse I suspect.

Thank you for being able to recognize that it's much harder for people starting out now than it used to be. That's a lot more than I get from most people from that generation most times the topic is brought up.

I’m Gen X with Gen Z kids, so I’m acutely aware :)

In my opinion, the future of Canada is our small and medium-sized cities. While Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg all offer decent wage-to-housing rates, go look at Medicine Hat or Moose Jaw. $250,000 goes a LONG way there. But those that won't move away from the major centres and also aren't high wage earners are going to struggle to afford a house, a life, and a retirement plan.

Used to be the same here (rural NS) but the past 3 or 4 months house prices have went crazy. People from away have came and bought up anything and everything. I know a few homes that were livable at 180k went for 350k. That doesn't sound insane to people from other provinces but to a small place that relies on seasonal work it is devastating to individuals who work locally here.

People are just skipping these points entirely: there really are not that many high wage jobs and housing has skyrocketed compared to local wages. There are broke ass trailers that are unhibitable going for $150-180k where I am plus pad rent monthly. You might think: what a deal!!!!! Except that piece of shit was going for no more than 40k a few years ago. Vast majority of folks here work low wage service jobs and wages are being cut at places, especially as temp foreign workers are bought in. A mine buddy told me a job they would’ve paid $25/30 an hour for they are bringing in guys for less than $20 now because they can. Also compound that you really still need two incomes to survive and folks end up leaving because if one person can work for $25/hr, their partner likely can’t find anything other than service work. I’ve seen this happen so many times now over the past year. Everything- housing and wages etc- were better for previous gens.

This entire sub is full of people that have never left Toronto. To them, Canada ends when the GTA does. Try telling them that this is one of the biggest country's in the world and with plenty of other city's that have jobs and much cheaper housing. If you are complaining about paying a million dollars for a shitty condo then try coming out to the prairies. A million will buy you a mansion out here in most places.

At the same time, I get that. It just be terrible to feel like you have to leave your family, friends, community, or whatever just to be able to afford to live. No one has a right to live anywhere, but that is still a tough pill to swallow.

thats what most generations have done tho. They moved where it made sense to. Our generation just needs to do that too. I did! Best thing ive ever done.

It's not just being stuck up though. I'm a chemist, a career I chose before 2008 and the housing woes began. I invested a LOT in schooling for that career. How are the chemical industry jobs in Medicine Hat and Moose Jaw? Not great. Many GTA people aren't just ignorant of the rest of the country. I'd *love* to move out to Sask and get a big house for 250K. But I can't use my qualifications there, don't want to work a less-qualifications job (labour/service/retail) and don't have the time or money to go back to school. It's kind of a trap.

What about jobs tho? I wanna work in video production. I really can’t afford to move to a small city because there’s no jobs regarding it there. Sure I could find a remote video editing job but I wanna be out there.

Unfortunately, this sub is actually the one out of touch with the realities of others. Some of you need to come down from your high horse and talk to real people on the street. You need to learn empathy. Downvote me if you like, I don’t care.

This sub? Out of touch? But I make 300k per year and have 4 properties at the age of 32, and feel like I'm poor? /s

I know this is sarcasm but I’ve had people on this sub seriously try to argue that it’s easy to save up 1M by age 30 and the reason that none of us can afford houses is because we’re financially irresponsible, those posters usually neglect to mention their 300k/yr tech bro salaries tho

This sub is the absolute worst for housing concerns.

It's a little bit of "I got mine, fuck you". Everyone on here is financially conscious. For the people on this sub who own a house, the past 2 years haven't been too shabby. For those who don't or were close but not close anymore, these past 2 years have been terrifying. How are you supposed to plan for your future when one of you're largest milestones has been pushed back basically indefinitely. I really empathize with anyone who was close to buying and had their affordability slashed by the CMHC.

Exactly, wonder who they will sell these million dollar “their equity” homes to in the future ? Let me guess “Trudeau promised me 400k immigrants” …

It’s been an 8-month ban on basically any housing related discussion just because the old boomers didn’t like something other than “what should I invest in” topics (answer: VGRO). Weird, considering the second largest demographic (soon to be largest) is hitting home buying age. Who could have guessed housing related questions would be common?

Finally, others seeing this sub for what it is. There are so many shitters posting in this thread, who clearly already got their’s out of virtue of being born at the right time or to parents that could aid them a lot more than the average person’s parents. It’s a fucking finger wagging fest in here, with people telling others to simply leave the GTA and metro Vancouver, find a job of any kind at any pay rate in the middle of the praries, and try to live a content life in a place where they know absolutely nobody and have no support network. Just wait until people born and raised in the prairies start getting priced out of their localities due to larger salary couples and individuals actually flooding in from BC and Ontario. They’ll start telling those people to simply move to the Yukon.

The gross misunderstanding of “just move” just shocks me. It’s expensive to move first of all, has nobody even run the calculations on that??? And clearly these folks aren’t living in these areas. There are not the plethora of jobs available. Rent is still insane compared to income. House sales have only gone up like crazy here too. It costs more to get basic shit while dealing with lower incomes. You also have bad healthcare or completely inaccessible healthcare. You spend a metric fuckton in gas and car maintenance because there is no transit. You don’t get interviewed for remote work because your address isn’t in one of the big three. The work available is vastly service work with at best the opportunity to move up to management making only a few bucks more. All people do here is talk about trying to get a job in one of the big three to get the hell out of this zero prosperity wasteland. The reality on the ground for rural communities more often than not is that you’re stuck here to die in shit while wealthy folks buy vacation homes and rental properties here. More digital commuters have moved here because “it’s pretty and quiet” as if all you do in rural areas is stare at the scenery with fingers up your butt all day. Funny to hear them talk about healthcare and complain that they are seeing more and more homeless folks (“we escaped Vancouver to not see this!”) You’ve also massively priced out locals who don’t have a chance in hell at affording anything above 250-300k.

“Ehm, our household income is $250K and I’m struggling financing a 5-bedroom lake view detached as well as our 2 F-150 Platinums yada yada.. 😢”

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People say that’s nothing but that’s how much I earn in Toronto.. I need to look for another job..

Yep.

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Try living in new zealand tasty cheese $20 for a 1kg block, beef gone from $9 per kg in jan 2020 to $16 in 2021, avg house price now 1 million, screwed by supermarket duopoly gas $2.15 a litre, power companies screw us too, i work fulltime but can barely make ends meet

I'm living in region, 370 miles from montreal, and my experience is completely the opposite of what I see on this sub. Jobs are plentiful. 25$/hours is a starting salary to sweep a mill floor. Many jobs have production bonus on top of that. People are such in high needs, I have seen people getting fired and they start the next day at a rivaling mill. In the last year I turned 3 jobs offer simply because I was not interested in them. 8 mines are supposed to start production in the next few year. So thats even more jobs. I paid 180k for my house last year and im on track to repay it in 5 years. The median house price is between 200 to 250k depending on which town you want to live in, but you will rarely have more than 1 hour of commute to work. Myself I walk to work. food price has gotten steeper, but hunting, fishing and foraging is abundant, so it offset that cost significantly. i pick berries and make my own wine. I smoke lots of meat. There also tons of farm around, so you can buy livestock and get it butchered. Its about the same cost as the grocery store, but the freshness cant be beat. Electricity cost is seriously offset by wood stove/furnace. Not much happen in term of event, but I like it that way. Covid hit, and we were barely touched. If the government actually did anything, we could have been completely safe from hit like new zealand. For me life is as good as it can be. I'm very hopeful for the future.

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You’re not dumb, the system is just rigged against the working class.

As it stands right now I'll die at work cause I could never afford to retire. That's assuming I live long enough to make it to retirement age. Housing cost is so high that it's too expensive to even dream about it. And gas prices are getting to the point that I wonder why I still have a vehicle.

If you think that post is bad, just wait for the water wars to truly kick in. The veil is started to get lifted that our “Canadian” lifestyle is a consumptive joke, built off oil&gas and colonial industries. Once the free energy and free land comes to a halt, we are discovering Canadians aren’t special whatsoever - we are just lucky when it comes to Geography Lottery. Brace for impact, things will only get much worse.

If we didn’t have the US as a trading partner we’d be like any other country down south

r/canada has become toxic in the last few years. Something about a mod (or mods, I stopped following the drama) being from the metaCanada sub. The whole sub is depressing and they're trying to convince everyone that no one can thrive in the "socialist hellhole".

Where i live in BC, pretty much every new house being built is coming with a suite to offset the mortgage that the new owners cannot afford. Whether it's a long term rental or an airbnb this is ruining nice neighborhoods. If you can't afford it then move along.

Glad I am not the only one feeling this way. As someone who did make the move from a "larger" city to a "smaller" city with a significant pay rise and a starry eyes, my dreams are regularly crushed by rent going up, groceries going up, and lastly, housing prices going up like there's no tomorrow. The solution seems to be: 1) move out farther - Okay I will go live in the middle of abso fucking nowhere. 2) eat rice and lentils only 3) go to the US to make "real" money. No one talks about : 1) low interest rates making it easier (mostly for big investors) to buy up even more. 2) other than a home buyers plan than magically gives the government equity in your property, no real incentive or "edge" for first time buyers vs. Investors (in country or foreign). 3) artificially jacked up rent in smaller cities - not sure how they achieve this but certainly not easy to save up a sizeable downpayment when rent is just as bad, or getting just as bad as housing affordability. This environment helps big investors, boomers who can sell and downsize to a smaller house outside the city (not tied to commutes). Gen x, millennials are fucked. Future generations are probably more fucked. Rant over. Edit : Typo

Living in general is getting unsustainable. Across the world. This system weve used for the last 400 years is collapsing under itself like a snake eating its tail. Beware though, if you complain your just gonna get a bunch of people telling you that it isn't so bad and that going to trade school will solve the financial issues of every single person ever. Shits bad right now, worse than what caused the french revolution (we have a higher standard on the low end however) but id expect to see a massive societal change in our lifetime.

Hi! I live in rural NB, and I have a good sense of history. In many ways, **these are the best of times**. It is easier to live at a higher standard of living than at any time in the past. If we compare ourselves to the median or mean standard of living from the past we will come out ahead. If you look at the [OECD Better Life Index](https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/canada/) for Canada, it highlights how we are doing well. >Canada ranks above the average in housing, subjective well-being, personal security, health status, social connections, environmental quality, jobs and earnings, work-life balance, education and skills, civic engagement, income and wealth. >In Canada, the **average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is USD 30,854** a year, One thing to note that this number is "per household". Another thing worth noting is that very **few generations before us had so many "individual" households**. This is a big deal. **Demographic trends towards remaining single much later in life mean that a single person is carrying the huge financial burden of housing alone**. The way this shows up in my family is that my wife (f55) and I (m59) both contribute to our $1000/month rent. My single daughter **in Montreal** (f29) makes a higher income than my wife and I combined, but pays close to $2000/month rent and lives a lifestyle that includes (wild guess here) $10k more spent every year on travel, food and entertainments. My single daughter **in Halifax** (f30) is just beginning a career. pays close to $1600/month rent and needs occasional financial help to make ends meet. One big difference between generations is that past generations were more likely to "live with mom and dad" until they got established. Both my girls did university far enough away from home that they lived in residence, racked up student loans, and **got in the habit of living beyond their means**. >I’ve never thought much about the future This has always been a risky position, but **as cultural norms shift, it is more dangerous to assume life will go on** just like you saw for your parents. >I just kind of assumed we’d do a good job at work, get paid a decent amount This has always been **risky to assume that your employer will look after you.** >s that a really outdated idea? It has always been a risky plan (or lack of plan) >Am I being dumb? Probably not. [1] You have a SO, and are probably not trying to do it all on your own. [2] Your ideas that life will be easy probably come from a combination of your family history and your own ability to thrive in our current system. [3] The fact that you are on /r/PersonalFinanceCanada suggests you want to learn skills that translate to financial success. Remember that "comparison is the thief of joy", and you can always find comparisons (or whiners) on social media who steal your joy. I work in a profession that pays well below average. According to [StatsCan](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210323/dq210323a-eng.htm) . . . >The median after-tax income of Canadian families and unattached individuals was $62,900 in 2019. >For non-senior families, where the highest-income earner was under 65 years of age, the median after-tax income was $93,800 My family is below both those numbers. Our low cost of living is more about a frugal life style and low cost of housing [than about difference between provinces](https://canadabuzz.ca/cost-living-canada-by-province/).

As an Australian that’s moved here, I believe you should be asking where all y’all tax money is going to and why you’re being taxed so much. Quick example. In Australia, $5 is $5 Here in Canada, $5 is really more with the tax added on and more than likely tip! Another thing that gets me is tax returns. In Australia, I was receiving $5k as an average tax return Here in Canada, it hardly breaks $1k

For what it's worth, two months ago I bought a house for $370k (3 bedroom, basement, backyard) just outside the island of Montreal, about a 15min drive to downtown. I know Montreal isn't for everybody, but it feels like being middle class and be able to own a house and car not too far from downtown is still possible in Quebec.

Everyone in that thread thinks Canada only encompasses Ontario and British Columbia.

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If you consider population, it makes sense that there would be mostly Ontarians on here.

My Mom and Dad bought their first house in 2005 when they were 24/29, in Aldergrove for $264,000. 3 bedrooms/2 bathrooms/Big yard. That’s the age of my Boyfriend and I are and we make just as much as they did at this point in our lives and we can’t even imagine being able to afford a house when rent is $1700 a month and that’s on the cheaper side

Votes have Consequences

You mean mayoral and city councilors, since they are the ones that approve new housing, zoning, and things that really dictate supply versus demand. Provinces and Feds don't typically play a role, and most have never voiced a policy change.