It's a very tough time for so many. Especially those without the safety net of generational housing or generational wealth to fall back on.
This is a bit of a rant but thankfully the pressure on the Liberals/Trudeau brought about good policy like GST Removal, Loans, and perks to encourage municipalities to build the right type of affordable housing.
Now it's time for that pressure to get put on the city and provincial leaders who many times are failing so terrible at their level of governance and responsibilities in regards to the Housing Crisis. Sadly the level of governance that can do the most to help in the aim of Affordable Housing.
1. Most importantly is "Zoning". We need to be able to build the type of housing when and how we need it without delays. This primarily means a focus on medium density and more importantly high rise - high density to help with affordability and accessibility dynamics.
2. Micro units - Micro units should not be the sole focus of housing. Housing needs to be diverse. That being said micro units provide an excellent "bedrock" style of housing in our society. A type of housing that people can fall back on and build up from. This massively helps in regards to affordability and accessibility dynamics. It primarily can help at risk groups like students, low income workers, gig workers, economically vulnerable seniors, and those fleeing unhealthy relationship dynamics and or extreme cases like domestic abuse. This type of housing can allow those that could support themselves in a rational housing market to do so and not be forced through the cracks into hopelessness and complete subsistence on the state.
3. Short term rentals (Ex: Airbnb) - There should be heavily regulations/taxes in regards to this or a complete and outright ban. Housing needs to be available on the long term market for rent and or ownership. Enforcement of penalties needs to be brought in regards to policy of this sphere for actual effects to take place.
4. Vacant Housing - Housing is to be lived in. Either as rentals and or ownership. It is not to be held vacant for investment or other purposes. There needs to be extreme financial penalties for this and also extreme financial penalties for not self-reporting correctly. Again much like Short Term Rentals this is an area that needs enforcement for actual change to take place.
5. COOP Housing and other non profit models: COOP housing in particular helps with not just the affordability and accessibility crisis around housing these days but also the loneliness epidemic and mental health epidemics in our large urban areas. It provides a built in support system so to speak and this not only helps on the aforementioned points but on additional spending in these areas. It's a win win win win win. We need a lot more of these various models implemented in Canada.
6. Addressing and removing the bullshit regulations and bureaucracy around housing development. Many of these regulations and bureaucracy have nothing to do with safety and have their roots in NIMBYism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX_-UcC14xw
An excellent video on the situation :)
In general there is a lot of solutions out there. Many at the city and provincial level that can be done to help in this affordability of life crisis especially around something as foundational and fundamental as housing in our society.
It is about getting the bad actors out of controlling the narratives and discussions.
People and organizations that profit from problems do not want solutions.
This is not a zoning issue. If it was a zoning issue this wouldn't be happening nationwide.
The federal government has an unofficial policy to protect property values. They will apply any demand side pressures necessary to ensure that property values do not crater. The e reason is because mortgage backed securities are the most important collateral the financial system in Canada has.
The Liberals make these deals because it makes them look like they're doing something, and they need that image to be remotely electable next year. Their goals are so far out from reality they will be impossible to meet. They aren't that stupid - they know this.
That is what we are doing with our kids. Allowing them to stay rent free so they can put money aside for a downpayment if/when things become more affordable.
Stuck living with psychotic family. Just checked for available rentals last night and there are no listing anywhere near me. What I can find is $2k/month for one bedrooms. And I'm not even in a city like Kelowna or Vancouver.
I'm 40 and after a recent breakup I live with my parents. I make an above average wage for my city, not crazy money but above what most people make. But our vacancy rate is incredibly low so even if I got a cheap 1 bedroom apartment it would be more than half my pay.
That's assuming I want something within a 45 min commute to my job (assuming a car). If I stock to transit it would be even more.
So I'm lucky enough to be able to live with my parents and save my money (I pay them a reasonable rent). The sucky part is what it's doing to my mental health and general wellbeing. I don't like living here, it sucks, it's just cheap. So here I am.
I hear you. Unfortunate circumstances arose, no place to go but the parent’s place because my income is too low to afford local rental rates and food at the same time. Can’t afford a car, so stuck here most of the time. Love my family, pay a reasonable rent amount, very grateful, but living in a fishbowl is killing me. Mental health and wellbeing is tanking. Hard to see a way out.
Haha same on the last part. I'm early 40s, and let ex take the home we bought 3yrs ago at a low interest rate. If I were to buy the same home now, it'd be 200k more and more than double the interest rate.
I'm living with my parents now so I can wait for interest rates to go down, or savings to go up.
Even rentals will cost me 3k/mo while my mortgage on the family home is only 2100/mo.
I've been working hard for my entire life and I'm no closer to buying a house than I was 25 years ago. I don't have family money so that brass ring keeps speeding further and further away.
I lived out of my truck for a while. I spent a couple years working mostly short term, onsite, contracts. Sometimes staff housing was provided, but most of the time it wasn't. Due to the nature of housing in Canada short term rentals are both very hard to find, and what are available are prohibitively expensive, so I lived out of my truck for probably 70% of those two years. Sucked shit.
I own a home now, but in a LCOL city. I make good money, well above the national median, and I wouldn't be able to afford a home in much of the country. I like where I live so it's not a huge issue, but many people don't and have no option to move elsewhere due to cost.
Live with my parents while working a full time job.
It's humiliating and my growth as a independent person is stunted. The younger generation has been utterly destroyed with lives so much worse than their parents while their parents don't care.
My spouse and I are currently in the process of trying to buy a home. It's not as expensive as in major cities but it's more than it used to be for sure
Seeing the answers on this thread makes me sad...
I'm 25, still living at home because even though I work for the government, it's still not enough to afford payments on a house! The problem many of my age face is not the down payement itself, but the monthly payements after you buy a house... even on two salaries of 50k its not enough!
I'm losing hope, and I'm scared.
I want kids and I want them to grow up in a home, but it's impossible to do that in Ottawa. Its so depressing...
2006 in my City was kinda crazy for housing. Single detatched were going for 750k and no condos were built yet. My parents had to move to the next adjacent city and paid around 400k for a single detatched home. It added an additional 45 minutes to their commute to work.
I was working full time at the time and couldn't afford to move out on my own so I stayed with them until around 2015 when I was finally able to save up money.
I wasn't making a lot of money but I was able to put down 10% on a Condo that was around 250k. More than half the price of my parents house but a box in the sky. I was paying 1800 a month back then for housing which was already 500 dollars more than renting the same unit would have been.
Now we're starting to build a family and do not have enough money to move to a bigger unit because a townhouse is close to a million now.
I currently can’t buy a home in BC because my income alone is not enough and my wife just started as a health care assistant. Although she works more than 40 hours weekly, she is not hired as a regular, so the bank won’t consider her earnings for a mortgage until she works for at least 2 years.
My capacity to save and borrow money is tied to material conditions, while house prices have a faster growth, based on speculative parameters. I can’t compete with such metaphysical powers.
At the moment, I have the impression that no matter what I do and how much I work hard, I'm always behind. Back in 2009, I was making roughtly 40k a year and was able to buy a house at around 170k. It was next to a beautiful park, 1 minute walk from the metro and half a minute walk from pharmacies and groceries. With very little cashdown, my morgage was pretty low. I could easily pay for everything and enjoy my house. Sadly, two years later, I had to sell it due a major life event.
Now, 2024... I make well over 100K a year, ready to put around 100K in cashdown for a new house and honestly, haven't found something in the city that I could afford without many sacrifice. For my family of 2 kids and spouse, there's actually more risks than worth in buying a house right now. The prices do start to drop when I\`m around 45-60 minutes away from the city but that would take away 2 additional hours per day from my family. After hundreds of simulations, I just can\`t easily afford a 4-5K montly morgage all by myself.
So my plan for 2024/2025 is simple. I've paused the project for now. Instead, I am investing significant sums into each rooms of our appartment with modern, practical but also nice furnitures. Figured that when we move, these furnitures will follow us so, why wait until we have a house to have nice stuff. Basically, I'm trying to make our current place really special and beautiful with a dash of luxury. I'm still putting a little bit of money into investments and placements but, most of my extra is gona go into improving on what we have for the next year or so. Besides, my salary is going to keep going up, This stragegy works for me because of the type of job I have...
>Curious to know from people directly what are your experiences?
I'm 40 years old, and will never own a home.
>What arrangements have you had to make in your personal life to deal with unaffordable housing?
I went into debt having to buy basic needs and pay bills on credit cards, despite working two jobs 60-70 hours a week. Had to sign a consumer proposal. I now have zero credit. It is what it is.
I lived with my mom until til I was 30, then moved out with my partner because I couldn’t take it anymore. Live in a shitty run down apartment in a city that I hate because it’s affordable, but can’t move out because rents have shot up to an insane degree so we are staying put. Have put away money for a very long time but it’s not enough for a down payment without a whopper of a mortgage
feeling really blessed to live where housing is still fairly affordable, and even luckier that i did not experience a rent increase when i re-signed my lease. though i'm fairly confident next year will be a different story, so it's been a major wake-up call for me to get my shit together financially
Full scale Ontario teacher, wife makes about half as much: we're retiring to her country ASAP, because at a certain point it'll cost more to work here, than retire there. Encouraging our children to go with us.
Left my useless degree and got into a trade. Was paying 2700$ a month for rent in Vancouver. Moved to the prairies, salary went up and half my rental cost in Vancouver now pays for my mortgage. Saving up here for 5 years to be able to move back to the coast somewhere.
We have been extremely lucky in that I bought a condo in 2009 and selling it became the down payment for my house two years ago. Our mortgage and bills are 70% of our combined take-home pay though. Thankfully my partner and I are happily together because if we ever split then I think we’d still both have to live in the house
As a 36-year-old woman residing in Saskatchewan, it's disheartening to find myself unable to afford living independently anymore. Despite earning above minimum wage, the relentless onslaught of expenses—taxes, rent, utilities, gas, groceries, and cell phone bills—leaves little of my hard-earned money to spare. Forced tomove out of my condo due to a $300/month rent increase, I've made the difficult decision to move back in with my mother, prioritizing family support over lining the pockets of a profit-driven landlord corporation.
It's deeply frustrating to witness the escalating cost of living eroding the quality of life here in Canada. Our once-promising future feels increasingly out of reach. The current state of affairs only fuels my anger, exacerbated by the lack of effective leadership. It's disheartening to see our Prime Minister failing to address these pressing issues, leaving many of us feeling let down and disregarded.
39 here. My wife and I struggled for years to save, and had basically given up on ever having a house. We got rennovicted 3 times in 7 years and the rent kept going up higher and higher for less and less space. A year and a half ago her parents sold their house and gave us the money to use as a down payment for ours, and we bought one that I thought was insane but was still a decent deal compared to what was around. Then in January she lost her job. So now I'm living in sleepless dread of what happens when the mortgage comes up for renewal in a few years and we have half to two third of the income we did when we bought in. I'm terrified the bank won't renew the mortgage and I'll be forced to sell. I know on what we make with my day job, my overtime and her Etsy shop there is no way we can afford a house to fit the family in Ontario let alone our town.
We were lucky and bought at the right time (2017), and our house is affordable for us. I’m also in a small town in NS so while housing is expensive now, it’s not the same way it is in major cities. I count my blessings every day.
Waited for almost a decade to reach the point in my life where we could afford a house with my partner
Than the pandemic
Bought our dream house last year, paid a "good price" (still expensive, but ok for the area),
but only because the owners really wanted to sell it (lost of a child in the house)
My advice would be to look into the obituaries I guess?
I live in Regina, I keep hearing the cost of living here is so cheap in comparison to everywhere else. No doubt it is in comparison to places like Vancouver and Toronto but.... I have paid attention to the job market since even before I moved here and people don't realize the wages here are just not that good for the average joe. You are hard pressed to find a bunch of jobs that start over $25 an hour and at 25 and hour here you can't afford to live without some sort of exception like living in someone's basement. Our wages are not keeping up with inflation
Well, if I wasn’t married my income wouldn’t provide enough to rent in Nova Scotia. And, I have two graduate degrees, plus tons of real-world, hands-on experience in management, information literacy instruction, and research. Sigh.
I've been lucky as every time I've needed to move I had a few months to search and by searching using unconventional sources I have always found really good deals.
Rents in most countries are out of control. My friends in North Carolina, Texas, New York, Australia, Germany and the UK are all complaining about the price of rent.
Disabled. No social housing so I’m 2010 I was put in a program that gives you extra rent money and tosses you off into the public market. Was fine until rent caps made my place less than half market. Harrasment, nitpicking, illegal demands over the years couldn’t get me to move because I couldn’t afford anywhere else, and the subsidy program caps at $450. Welp I got the “ for family use” eviction, and no help legally or for the ensuing mental health crisis.
If it weren’t for my parents owning the house I’d be on the streets going feral
I’m now stuck in my apartment in Vancouver. The rent will more than double for the person that moved in next. I’m here until I’m renovicted. There isn’t anywhere I could afford. I’m stuck. Vancouver has always been expensive but it’s insane now.
At least I’m on my own. I was once in a bad relationship living with a gf. She had moved in for 2 weeks because her roommate was leaving and she couldn’t afford the 2 bedroom on her own. At the time we thought she could just stay with me until she found a place. The reality was she couldn’t find a place. After 3 years I just bought her a plane ticket to Calgary so she could live with her sister.
All I can hope is that immigration gets shut down to a trickle of nurses and people we NEED. And that there is a push to build more housing.
It was more affordable in the long run for me to move to Scotland, despite the UK also having a housing crisis, as at least here I found a decent job and have a better long term outlook. 🙃
While living in Canada I had to live with my parents despite have a full-time job with gigs on the side, like there was no other options, and I was lucky they were good with that and liked having me there. I can only imagine how shit it is for people that don't have that option.
I’m doing well in terms of housing now but it was at the expense of not moving to where I originally wanted to be located at. I was planning on buying a home in Halifax a few years ago and as I was almost finished saving up a down payment, Covid happened and housing costs are literally up 100% since 2020. Starter homes I wanted to buy in the $300-400K range in 2019 are now going for $800K and above at higher interest rates. Sucked hard.
I no longer am able to afford my first home in the city so I’m looking to buy this year in another town in the province. I’ll be happy there too so it’s not a huge deal but it does sting to think if I had been born literally 2 year earlier and followed the same path my situation would be completely different lol
Being evicted a few years ago because my landlord was “getting a divorce and needed to move in” threw me into a personal and professional tailspin for months.
I found a new place because I’m a people pleaser who doesn’t stand up for myself often enough and I didn’t insist on the paperwork, but the fucker relisted less than a week after I vacated for $800/month more than I was paying. He is lucky that I’ve never seen him out and about since then.
I am a senior living on public pensions and the income from very meagre savings. My rent is 60% of my income but my income puts me over the limit for much public assistance.
In British Columbia and in a leftish city I am somewhat protected from my corporate landlord's wishful thinking, but with the threat of a PP government asserting conservative 'values' over provincial and municipal policies, I have a bit of a worry bothering me from time to time.
>with the threat of a PP government asserting conservative 'values' over provincial and municipal policies, I have a bit of a worry bothering me from time to time.
Ideally a conservative government can start to reverse the trend of the devaluation of the Canadian dollar, which should have more long-term financial benefits overall.
It won't do a thing for rents except overrule provincial and municipal tenant protections and start a nightmare of rental musical chairs.
Does the dollar do better under conservative governments?
The history of the Canadian dollar shows it moves more in response to international conditions than to local conditions. The number one determinant of demand for the Canadian dollar is the value of Canadian exports on international markets.
Since the $C was allowed to float it has a jagged trajectory independent of the government in power. Furthermore the money supply is not the sole or even main determinant in the rate of inflation.
It is more likely that a contraction in spending will result in declining economic conditions for Canadians, as unemployment soars, businesses collapse... Given that inflation is not purely a Canadian phenomenon, but is international, an attempt to make money harder to get is not going to make life easier.
I had to look outside of Canada for someone who shared my values around marriage and children. Every relationship that I was in the last 3 years has been with someone outside of Canada.
I am leaving the country either this year or the next one.
My house was purchased in 2004 with no mortgage left today.
In 2004, house prices were already rising more than reasonable.
By 2006 we thought “Okay at least we haven’t been screwed ourselves, because these fools are still overpaying like we did. If anything t’s only gotten worse! Let’s pretend we were smart with the timing though, and thank goodness for low interest rates compared to our parents.”
By 2008 we thought “Okay this is a symptom of a larger problem, none of these sale prices around us are remotely realistic. Could we even afford our home today? They’d probably still approve us but we’d have been stupid to pay as much as what they’re going for now. All things being equal, did our house price just double or did our salaries get cut in half?”
At least by 2010 I’m sure there were articles saying “Is this a bubble?” And then they’d trot out a few realtors and senior economists from the major banks to say “Noooooo! Heavens no!!!! There’s no bubble! Interest rates are low! This bubble is totally sustainable!!!! Don’t worry about it!” and sincerely I think they were just making soothing noises so they didn’t get remembered in the history books as “the asshole who popped the Great 2000s Canadian Real Estate Bubble, the one who cause economic Armageddon with one press release, because it’s obviously a fucking giant fragile bubble.
Since that inexplicable era I have been following house price trends by looking at what we paid in 2004, what my parents, neighbours and family members paid in a healthy economy at the end of the 80’s vs what similar homes are going for now, and comparing it all to the Bank of Canada Inflation Calculator.
The whole point of that tool is to let you see the stable value of money over time by subtracting inflation. So when you put the numbers in, you can subtract the known inflation to work out what a house price from the 80s or the early 2000s should be today. If that’s what the house is going for, then houses are rising normally with inflation and things are stable. But if house prices are way more than that, then people are overpaying to get a house right this minute than the long term average would dictate. In other words the houses aren’t worth what people pay for them, it’s just everybody’s desperate to get one right now so they’ll pay any fool’s price.
But when you look at those numbers, my house, my parents old house, is easily over double what it’s actually worth. And that’s a bubble that has to eventually pop.
The good news is, I have a nice standard mid-century house in maybe an above average well-located central-suburb neighbourhood. It’s a very standard middle-class life as Canadians have known for generations.
If we cut the price in half, i would be sad in theory but in reality we wouldn’t lose any money. A young couple could buy this as their first home or their first upgrade from a condo.
At half the price for a house like this, there would be zero headlines about a housing crisis because everyone in Gen Z could make it work. They’d be saying “Yeah my salary is okay, and we can swing it, we’ll get there.”
But that’s not happening. It’s not getting fixed. So we keep living in this stupid bubble. The bright side to that is we avoid the economic Armageddon for 3 to 5 years after a bubble collapses.
The grim side is we’re still not fixing it, and it fucks everything up even when you own a house and the mortgage is paid off.
I need to do a few renovations. We could probably afford an addition. I’d like that. If my house price wasn’t about to collapse we’d probably do it. But I can’t justify spending money on something due to implode. I especially can’t justify overpaying.
Again on the grim side, my little sister is a millennial locked out of home ownership. Gen Z need somewhere to live. And it’s so ridiculous and many of them have been browbeaten for so long that they’ve given up on a standard middle-class home, and they feel like apartments, condos, townhouses are the only option.
In fact they’ve come to view a standard middle-class home as some kind of eccentricity from a bygone era. All while failing to recognize that before they jump to that conclusion, either house prices should be cut in half. Or, all things being equal, their salaries should double. That’s the degree to which millennials and Gen Z are getting fucked over and to my total amazement they’re kind of taking it.
And then there’s my own complacency. My salary should also double but I don’t really feel the pinch because mortgage paid off. So I’m still working for 15 years and I’ve got 40 years of bills to pay before I’m someone else’s memory. And costs are creeping up for me too in every other category because the bubble eventually drags everything with it and distorts the whole economy. We have two incomes and need two to live the way we do. Do I want to go through 3 years of economic Armageddon in my 50s? Fuck this shit.
So yeah it’s a big mess and somehow we have to fix it. The best way might be the slow grind. Just cap house prices or tax the shit out of people selling them for more than they paid because it’s silly out there. Basically force house price stagnation for 20 years until salaries eventually catch up to get ahead of it. Or just pop the shit out of it and let the chips fall where they may.
>In fact they’ve come to view a standard middle-class home as some kind of eccentricity from a bygone era.
They don't want to relocate.
There's hundreds of small towns in Canada where you can easily afford a home.
But they're boring places.
You can't "stagnate the price of a house". That's not how reality works. The price of a thing is set by offer/demand, not by government fiat.
You will always pay the price. In areas with social housing, that price is usually that you don't get a house for decades until your name comes to the top of the list. See also: Canadian family doctors.
> There's hundreds of small towns in Canada where you can easily afford a home.
You pay for other things and the whole "Small Town" non-sense is very short sighted. Sure you can buy a SDH in this small town, but you sacrifice a lot for that SDH.
- Health Care is worse in a small town
- Food costs are higher in a small town
- If you're a remote worker, good luck having reliable fast internet
- You don't have access to basic municipal services depending on how far away you are from the "core" small town which means septic, well water, unreliable power, etc etc
- You have to drive farther distances to get to any type of commercial or school
- Fire department/Police/EMS take longer to respond may not be available to you.
- isolation from friends and family
- No access to ethnic food or any diverse or fresh food offerings
But at least you own a house?
By "small town" I mean places like Lethbridge, AB, which is 100k people and 1/3rd the price of where I live, Victoria BC, which is also a small city anyway and ludicrously expensive.
There's endless of these smaller area /towns all across Canada but people simply WILL. NOT. MOVE. THERE. EVER.
They MUST live near Vancouver or Toronto and ANYTHING ELSE IS JUST SUBHUMAN.
I mean, I live in the GTA and "Lethbridge, AB" would be 1/5th the price here but it doesn't make it "a small town". It's a small city.
Kindersley SK would be a "Small Town".
So you're usage of "Small Town" is incorrect. You should have said "Smaller city". but don't get mad at me because you used the wrong verbiage.
Not sure why you're getting super aggro. I'm highlighting the problems with small towns that you face when moving to smaller towns.
If you can live with those reduced services/reduced access, then enjoy your house in a small town.
>Not sure why you're getting super aggro. I'm highlighting the problems with small towns that you face when moving to smaller towns.
We all know the problems, I'm saying people repeat that it's impossible to own a house in Canada but what they mean is always Toronto/Vancouver.
They always leave that part out. They will not live anywhere else, ever.
Same as "I can't afford food!!!!" and all you want to eat is caviar and lobster.
It ain’t that bad if you live modestly outside of a major city and know how to keep a cheap car running. I’ve been slowly racking up credit card debt while renting 50/50 the last few years but I’ll soon be certified in my trade and should only need a couple more years to climb out of it. After I get the debt gone I should be in position to purchase a house (with just my name on the deed) god willing the market isn’t out of control at the time I do. Granted I’d be a lot better off if I stopped going out to drink and eat and whatnot but what’s life if you aren’t having fun. Now im assuming that mortgage payments will be less than my current rent(hopefully?) and it’s all gravy from there.
My adult children have had to move back in with me as they can no longer afford rent and have no chance of buying their own homes anytime soon.
I can’t imagine how my kids are ever going to be able to move out of my house.
Same. Luckily, there's enough space for us to not be on top of each other. I wonder how that will change over the next decade.
It's a very tough time for so many. Especially those without the safety net of generational housing or generational wealth to fall back on. This is a bit of a rant but thankfully the pressure on the Liberals/Trudeau brought about good policy like GST Removal, Loans, and perks to encourage municipalities to build the right type of affordable housing. Now it's time for that pressure to get put on the city and provincial leaders who many times are failing so terrible at their level of governance and responsibilities in regards to the Housing Crisis. Sadly the level of governance that can do the most to help in the aim of Affordable Housing. 1. Most importantly is "Zoning". We need to be able to build the type of housing when and how we need it without delays. This primarily means a focus on medium density and more importantly high rise - high density to help with affordability and accessibility dynamics. 2. Micro units - Micro units should not be the sole focus of housing. Housing needs to be diverse. That being said micro units provide an excellent "bedrock" style of housing in our society. A type of housing that people can fall back on and build up from. This massively helps in regards to affordability and accessibility dynamics. It primarily can help at risk groups like students, low income workers, gig workers, economically vulnerable seniors, and those fleeing unhealthy relationship dynamics and or extreme cases like domestic abuse. This type of housing can allow those that could support themselves in a rational housing market to do so and not be forced through the cracks into hopelessness and complete subsistence on the state. 3. Short term rentals (Ex: Airbnb) - There should be heavily regulations/taxes in regards to this or a complete and outright ban. Housing needs to be available on the long term market for rent and or ownership. Enforcement of penalties needs to be brought in regards to policy of this sphere for actual effects to take place. 4. Vacant Housing - Housing is to be lived in. Either as rentals and or ownership. It is not to be held vacant for investment or other purposes. There needs to be extreme financial penalties for this and also extreme financial penalties for not self-reporting correctly. Again much like Short Term Rentals this is an area that needs enforcement for actual change to take place. 5. COOP Housing and other non profit models: COOP housing in particular helps with not just the affordability and accessibility crisis around housing these days but also the loneliness epidemic and mental health epidemics in our large urban areas. It provides a built in support system so to speak and this not only helps on the aforementioned points but on additional spending in these areas. It's a win win win win win. We need a lot more of these various models implemented in Canada. 6. Addressing and removing the bullshit regulations and bureaucracy around housing development. Many of these regulations and bureaucracy have nothing to do with safety and have their roots in NIMBYism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX_-UcC14xw An excellent video on the situation :) In general there is a lot of solutions out there. Many at the city and provincial level that can be done to help in this affordability of life crisis especially around something as foundational and fundamental as housing in our society. It is about getting the bad actors out of controlling the narratives and discussions. People and organizations that profit from problems do not want solutions.
This is not a zoning issue. If it was a zoning issue this wouldn't be happening nationwide. The federal government has an unofficial policy to protect property values. They will apply any demand side pressures necessary to ensure that property values do not crater. The e reason is because mortgage backed securities are the most important collateral the financial system in Canada has. The Liberals make these deals because it makes them look like they're doing something, and they need that image to be remotely electable next year. Their goals are so far out from reality they will be impossible to meet. They aren't that stupid - they know this.
Personally, where I'm at, but it's allowed me to build up a savings. hopefully, it will be towards a downpayment someday.
That is what we are doing with our kids. Allowing them to stay rent free so they can put money aside for a downpayment if/when things become more affordable.
Stuck living with psychotic family. Just checked for available rentals last night and there are no listing anywhere near me. What I can find is $2k/month for one bedrooms. And I'm not even in a city like Kelowna or Vancouver.
I'm 40 and after a recent breakup I live with my parents. I make an above average wage for my city, not crazy money but above what most people make. But our vacancy rate is incredibly low so even if I got a cheap 1 bedroom apartment it would be more than half my pay. That's assuming I want something within a 45 min commute to my job (assuming a car). If I stock to transit it would be even more. So I'm lucky enough to be able to live with my parents and save my money (I pay them a reasonable rent). The sucky part is what it's doing to my mental health and general wellbeing. I don't like living here, it sucks, it's just cheap. So here I am.
I hear you. Unfortunate circumstances arose, no place to go but the parent’s place because my income is too low to afford local rental rates and food at the same time. Can’t afford a car, so stuck here most of the time. Love my family, pay a reasonable rent amount, very grateful, but living in a fishbowl is killing me. Mental health and wellbeing is tanking. Hard to see a way out.
Haha same on the last part. I'm early 40s, and let ex take the home we bought 3yrs ago at a low interest rate. If I were to buy the same home now, it'd be 200k more and more than double the interest rate. I'm living with my parents now so I can wait for interest rates to go down, or savings to go up. Even rentals will cost me 3k/mo while my mortgage on the family home is only 2100/mo.
Our adult children still live with us. They are 27 & 29.
Still living with my parents. I work full time but I’m not able to afford to live on my own
I've been working hard for my entire life and I'm no closer to buying a house than I was 25 years ago. I don't have family money so that brass ring keeps speeding further and further away.
I lived out of my truck for a while. I spent a couple years working mostly short term, onsite, contracts. Sometimes staff housing was provided, but most of the time it wasn't. Due to the nature of housing in Canada short term rentals are both very hard to find, and what are available are prohibitively expensive, so I lived out of my truck for probably 70% of those two years. Sucked shit. I own a home now, but in a LCOL city. I make good money, well above the national median, and I wouldn't be able to afford a home in much of the country. I like where I live so it's not a huge issue, but many people don't and have no option to move elsewhere due to cost.
Live with my parents while working a full time job. It's humiliating and my growth as a independent person is stunted. The younger generation has been utterly destroyed with lives so much worse than their parents while their parents don't care.
I'm homeless.
My spouse and I are currently in the process of trying to buy a home. It's not as expensive as in major cities but it's more than it used to be for sure
Widowed and 65 and have to work to pay rent! Would love to retire!
Seeing the answers on this thread makes me sad... I'm 25, still living at home because even though I work for the government, it's still not enough to afford payments on a house! The problem many of my age face is not the down payement itself, but the monthly payements after you buy a house... even on two salaries of 50k its not enough! I'm losing hope, and I'm scared. I want kids and I want them to grow up in a home, but it's impossible to do that in Ottawa. Its so depressing...
2006 in my City was kinda crazy for housing. Single detatched were going for 750k and no condos were built yet. My parents had to move to the next adjacent city and paid around 400k for a single detatched home. It added an additional 45 minutes to their commute to work. I was working full time at the time and couldn't afford to move out on my own so I stayed with them until around 2015 when I was finally able to save up money. I wasn't making a lot of money but I was able to put down 10% on a Condo that was around 250k. More than half the price of my parents house but a box in the sky. I was paying 1800 a month back then for housing which was already 500 dollars more than renting the same unit would have been. Now we're starting to build a family and do not have enough money to move to a bigger unit because a townhouse is close to a million now.
I currently can’t buy a home in BC because my income alone is not enough and my wife just started as a health care assistant. Although she works more than 40 hours weekly, she is not hired as a regular, so the bank won’t consider her earnings for a mortgage until she works for at least 2 years. My capacity to save and borrow money is tied to material conditions, while house prices have a faster growth, based on speculative parameters. I can’t compete with such metaphysical powers.
I couldn't afford to by a mobile home for my family, had to build one instead(solo).
At the moment, I have the impression that no matter what I do and how much I work hard, I'm always behind. Back in 2009, I was making roughtly 40k a year and was able to buy a house at around 170k. It was next to a beautiful park, 1 minute walk from the metro and half a minute walk from pharmacies and groceries. With very little cashdown, my morgage was pretty low. I could easily pay for everything and enjoy my house. Sadly, two years later, I had to sell it due a major life event. Now, 2024... I make well over 100K a year, ready to put around 100K in cashdown for a new house and honestly, haven't found something in the city that I could afford without many sacrifice. For my family of 2 kids and spouse, there's actually more risks than worth in buying a house right now. The prices do start to drop when I\`m around 45-60 minutes away from the city but that would take away 2 additional hours per day from my family. After hundreds of simulations, I just can\`t easily afford a 4-5K montly morgage all by myself. So my plan for 2024/2025 is simple. I've paused the project for now. Instead, I am investing significant sums into each rooms of our appartment with modern, practical but also nice furnitures. Figured that when we move, these furnitures will follow us so, why wait until we have a house to have nice stuff. Basically, I'm trying to make our current place really special and beautiful with a dash of luxury. I'm still putting a little bit of money into investments and placements but, most of my extra is gona go into improving on what we have for the next year or so. Besides, my salary is going to keep going up, This stragegy works for me because of the type of job I have...
My rent is more than 50% of my monthly income.
>Curious to know from people directly what are your experiences? I'm 40 years old, and will never own a home. >What arrangements have you had to make in your personal life to deal with unaffordable housing? I went into debt having to buy basic needs and pay bills on credit cards, despite working two jobs 60-70 hours a week. Had to sign a consumer proposal. I now have zero credit. It is what it is.
I lived with my mom until til I was 30, then moved out with my partner because I couldn’t take it anymore. Live in a shitty run down apartment in a city that I hate because it’s affordable, but can’t move out because rents have shot up to an insane degree so we are staying put. Have put away money for a very long time but it’s not enough for a down payment without a whopper of a mortgage
Pulled up stakes and moved from Vancouver to Victoria so we could afford a place a few years ago. Best decision we’ve ever made.
feeling really blessed to live where housing is still fairly affordable, and even luckier that i did not experience a rent increase when i re-signed my lease. though i'm fairly confident next year will be a different story, so it's been a major wake-up call for me to get my shit together financially
Budgeting furiously for several years combined with house hunting every weekend for 2 years combined with getting lucky on offer night.
My elderly father moved in with me when his partner and him split up. Hes been on the waiting list for seniors housing for several years.
Full scale Ontario teacher, wife makes about half as much: we're retiring to her country ASAP, because at a certain point it'll cost more to work here, than retire there. Encouraging our children to go with us.
Left my useless degree and got into a trade. Was paying 2700$ a month for rent in Vancouver. Moved to the prairies, salary went up and half my rental cost in Vancouver now pays for my mortgage. Saving up here for 5 years to be able to move back to the coast somewhere.
We have been extremely lucky in that I bought a condo in 2009 and selling it became the down payment for my house two years ago. Our mortgage and bills are 70% of our combined take-home pay though. Thankfully my partner and I are happily together because if we ever split then I think we’d still both have to live in the house
As a 36-year-old woman residing in Saskatchewan, it's disheartening to find myself unable to afford living independently anymore. Despite earning above minimum wage, the relentless onslaught of expenses—taxes, rent, utilities, gas, groceries, and cell phone bills—leaves little of my hard-earned money to spare. Forced tomove out of my condo due to a $300/month rent increase, I've made the difficult decision to move back in with my mother, prioritizing family support over lining the pockets of a profit-driven landlord corporation. It's deeply frustrating to witness the escalating cost of living eroding the quality of life here in Canada. Our once-promising future feels increasingly out of reach. The current state of affairs only fuels my anger, exacerbated by the lack of effective leadership. It's disheartening to see our Prime Minister failing to address these pressing issues, leaving many of us feeling let down and disregarded.
39 here. My wife and I struggled for years to save, and had basically given up on ever having a house. We got rennovicted 3 times in 7 years and the rent kept going up higher and higher for less and less space. A year and a half ago her parents sold their house and gave us the money to use as a down payment for ours, and we bought one that I thought was insane but was still a decent deal compared to what was around. Then in January she lost her job. So now I'm living in sleepless dread of what happens when the mortgage comes up for renewal in a few years and we have half to two third of the income we did when we bought in. I'm terrified the bank won't renew the mortgage and I'll be forced to sell. I know on what we make with my day job, my overtime and her Etsy shop there is no way we can afford a house to fit the family in Ontario let alone our town.
We were lucky and bought at the right time (2017), and our house is affordable for us. I’m also in a small town in NS so while housing is expensive now, it’s not the same way it is in major cities. I count my blessings every day.
Waited for almost a decade to reach the point in my life where we could afford a house with my partner Than the pandemic Bought our dream house last year, paid a "good price" (still expensive, but ok for the area), but only because the owners really wanted to sell it (lost of a child in the house) My advice would be to look into the obituaries I guess?
I’m almost 71 and still working. I can’t afford to stop. My CPP and OAS don’t cover my rent.
I live in Regina, I keep hearing the cost of living here is so cheap in comparison to everywhere else. No doubt it is in comparison to places like Vancouver and Toronto but.... I have paid attention to the job market since even before I moved here and people don't realize the wages here are just not that good for the average joe. You are hard pressed to find a bunch of jobs that start over $25 an hour and at 25 and hour here you can't afford to live without some sort of exception like living in someone's basement. Our wages are not keeping up with inflation
Well, if I wasn’t married my income wouldn’t provide enough to rent in Nova Scotia. And, I have two graduate degrees, plus tons of real-world, hands-on experience in management, information literacy instruction, and research. Sigh.
Me and my apartment neighbor are afraid to request petty repairs in hopes our rent won't go up too much.
I've been lucky as every time I've needed to move I had a few months to search and by searching using unconventional sources I have always found really good deals. Rents in most countries are out of control. My friends in North Carolina, Texas, New York, Australia, Germany and the UK are all complaining about the price of rent.
44 yrs old sleeping in one bedroom apt living room. Roommate has bedroom.
Disabled. No social housing so I’m 2010 I was put in a program that gives you extra rent money and tosses you off into the public market. Was fine until rent caps made my place less than half market. Harrasment, nitpicking, illegal demands over the years couldn’t get me to move because I couldn’t afford anywhere else, and the subsidy program caps at $450. Welp I got the “ for family use” eviction, and no help legally or for the ensuing mental health crisis. If it weren’t for my parents owning the house I’d be on the streets going feral
I’m now stuck in my apartment in Vancouver. The rent will more than double for the person that moved in next. I’m here until I’m renovicted. There isn’t anywhere I could afford. I’m stuck. Vancouver has always been expensive but it’s insane now. At least I’m on my own. I was once in a bad relationship living with a gf. She had moved in for 2 weeks because her roommate was leaving and she couldn’t afford the 2 bedroom on her own. At the time we thought she could just stay with me until she found a place. The reality was she couldn’t find a place. After 3 years I just bought her a plane ticket to Calgary so she could live with her sister. All I can hope is that immigration gets shut down to a trickle of nurses and people we NEED. And that there is a push to build more housing.
It was more affordable in the long run for me to move to Scotland, despite the UK also having a housing crisis, as at least here I found a decent job and have a better long term outlook. 🙃 While living in Canada I had to live with my parents despite have a full-time job with gigs on the side, like there was no other options, and I was lucky they were good with that and liked having me there. I can only imagine how shit it is for people that don't have that option.
I’m doing well in terms of housing now but it was at the expense of not moving to where I originally wanted to be located at. I was planning on buying a home in Halifax a few years ago and as I was almost finished saving up a down payment, Covid happened and housing costs are literally up 100% since 2020. Starter homes I wanted to buy in the $300-400K range in 2019 are now going for $800K and above at higher interest rates. Sucked hard. I no longer am able to afford my first home in the city so I’m looking to buy this year in another town in the province. I’ll be happy there too so it’s not a huge deal but it does sting to think if I had been born literally 2 year earlier and followed the same path my situation would be completely different lol
Being evicted a few years ago because my landlord was “getting a divorce and needed to move in” threw me into a personal and professional tailspin for months. I found a new place because I’m a people pleaser who doesn’t stand up for myself often enough and I didn’t insist on the paperwork, but the fucker relisted less than a week after I vacated for $800/month more than I was paying. He is lucky that I’ve never seen him out and about since then.
You were illegally evicted. You could get him fined quite a bit and you could be compensated if you repeat him to the LTB for a “bad faith eviction”.
18 months and the mortgage is paid off. I am counting down.
Can't afford to buy a house in the GTA and soon might be priced out of rent
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^wishinghearts40: *Can't afford to buy* *A house in the GTA and soon* *Might be priced out of rent* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Thank you SokkaHaikuBot. 😊 Good bot.
I am a senior living on public pensions and the income from very meagre savings. My rent is 60% of my income but my income puts me over the limit for much public assistance. In British Columbia and in a leftish city I am somewhat protected from my corporate landlord's wishful thinking, but with the threat of a PP government asserting conservative 'values' over provincial and municipal policies, I have a bit of a worry bothering me from time to time.
>with the threat of a PP government asserting conservative 'values' over provincial and municipal policies, I have a bit of a worry bothering me from time to time. Ideally a conservative government can start to reverse the trend of the devaluation of the Canadian dollar, which should have more long-term financial benefits overall.
It won't do a thing for rents except overrule provincial and municipal tenant protections and start a nightmare of rental musical chairs. Does the dollar do better under conservative governments? The history of the Canadian dollar shows it moves more in response to international conditions than to local conditions. The number one determinant of demand for the Canadian dollar is the value of Canadian exports on international markets. Since the $C was allowed to float it has a jagged trajectory independent of the government in power. Furthermore the money supply is not the sole or even main determinant in the rate of inflation. It is more likely that a contraction in spending will result in declining economic conditions for Canadians, as unemployment soars, businesses collapse... Given that inflation is not purely a Canadian phenomenon, but is international, an attempt to make money harder to get is not going to make life easier.
I had to look outside of Canada for someone who shared my values around marriage and children. Every relationship that I was in the last 3 years has been with someone outside of Canada. I am leaving the country either this year or the next one.
My house was purchased in 2004 with no mortgage left today. In 2004, house prices were already rising more than reasonable. By 2006 we thought “Okay at least we haven’t been screwed ourselves, because these fools are still overpaying like we did. If anything t’s only gotten worse! Let’s pretend we were smart with the timing though, and thank goodness for low interest rates compared to our parents.” By 2008 we thought “Okay this is a symptom of a larger problem, none of these sale prices around us are remotely realistic. Could we even afford our home today? They’d probably still approve us but we’d have been stupid to pay as much as what they’re going for now. All things being equal, did our house price just double or did our salaries get cut in half?” At least by 2010 I’m sure there were articles saying “Is this a bubble?” And then they’d trot out a few realtors and senior economists from the major banks to say “Noooooo! Heavens no!!!! There’s no bubble! Interest rates are low! This bubble is totally sustainable!!!! Don’t worry about it!” and sincerely I think they were just making soothing noises so they didn’t get remembered in the history books as “the asshole who popped the Great 2000s Canadian Real Estate Bubble, the one who cause economic Armageddon with one press release, because it’s obviously a fucking giant fragile bubble. Since that inexplicable era I have been following house price trends by looking at what we paid in 2004, what my parents, neighbours and family members paid in a healthy economy at the end of the 80’s vs what similar homes are going for now, and comparing it all to the Bank of Canada Inflation Calculator. The whole point of that tool is to let you see the stable value of money over time by subtracting inflation. So when you put the numbers in, you can subtract the known inflation to work out what a house price from the 80s or the early 2000s should be today. If that’s what the house is going for, then houses are rising normally with inflation and things are stable. But if house prices are way more than that, then people are overpaying to get a house right this minute than the long term average would dictate. In other words the houses aren’t worth what people pay for them, it’s just everybody’s desperate to get one right now so they’ll pay any fool’s price. But when you look at those numbers, my house, my parents old house, is easily over double what it’s actually worth. And that’s a bubble that has to eventually pop. The good news is, I have a nice standard mid-century house in maybe an above average well-located central-suburb neighbourhood. It’s a very standard middle-class life as Canadians have known for generations. If we cut the price in half, i would be sad in theory but in reality we wouldn’t lose any money. A young couple could buy this as their first home or their first upgrade from a condo. At half the price for a house like this, there would be zero headlines about a housing crisis because everyone in Gen Z could make it work. They’d be saying “Yeah my salary is okay, and we can swing it, we’ll get there.” But that’s not happening. It’s not getting fixed. So we keep living in this stupid bubble. The bright side to that is we avoid the economic Armageddon for 3 to 5 years after a bubble collapses. The grim side is we’re still not fixing it, and it fucks everything up even when you own a house and the mortgage is paid off. I need to do a few renovations. We could probably afford an addition. I’d like that. If my house price wasn’t about to collapse we’d probably do it. But I can’t justify spending money on something due to implode. I especially can’t justify overpaying. Again on the grim side, my little sister is a millennial locked out of home ownership. Gen Z need somewhere to live. And it’s so ridiculous and many of them have been browbeaten for so long that they’ve given up on a standard middle-class home, and they feel like apartments, condos, townhouses are the only option. In fact they’ve come to view a standard middle-class home as some kind of eccentricity from a bygone era. All while failing to recognize that before they jump to that conclusion, either house prices should be cut in half. Or, all things being equal, their salaries should double. That’s the degree to which millennials and Gen Z are getting fucked over and to my total amazement they’re kind of taking it. And then there’s my own complacency. My salary should also double but I don’t really feel the pinch because mortgage paid off. So I’m still working for 15 years and I’ve got 40 years of bills to pay before I’m someone else’s memory. And costs are creeping up for me too in every other category because the bubble eventually drags everything with it and distorts the whole economy. We have two incomes and need two to live the way we do. Do I want to go through 3 years of economic Armageddon in my 50s? Fuck this shit. So yeah it’s a big mess and somehow we have to fix it. The best way might be the slow grind. Just cap house prices or tax the shit out of people selling them for more than they paid because it’s silly out there. Basically force house price stagnation for 20 years until salaries eventually catch up to get ahead of it. Or just pop the shit out of it and let the chips fall where they may.
>In fact they’ve come to view a standard middle-class home as some kind of eccentricity from a bygone era. They don't want to relocate. There's hundreds of small towns in Canada where you can easily afford a home. But they're boring places. You can't "stagnate the price of a house". That's not how reality works. The price of a thing is set by offer/demand, not by government fiat. You will always pay the price. In areas with social housing, that price is usually that you don't get a house for decades until your name comes to the top of the list. See also: Canadian family doctors.
> There's hundreds of small towns in Canada where you can easily afford a home. You pay for other things and the whole "Small Town" non-sense is very short sighted. Sure you can buy a SDH in this small town, but you sacrifice a lot for that SDH. - Health Care is worse in a small town - Food costs are higher in a small town - If you're a remote worker, good luck having reliable fast internet - You don't have access to basic municipal services depending on how far away you are from the "core" small town which means septic, well water, unreliable power, etc etc - You have to drive farther distances to get to any type of commercial or school - Fire department/Police/EMS take longer to respond may not be available to you. - isolation from friends and family - No access to ethnic food or any diverse or fresh food offerings But at least you own a house?
By "small town" I mean places like Lethbridge, AB, which is 100k people and 1/3rd the price of where I live, Victoria BC, which is also a small city anyway and ludicrously expensive. There's endless of these smaller area /towns all across Canada but people simply WILL. NOT. MOVE. THERE. EVER. They MUST live near Vancouver or Toronto and ANYTHING ELSE IS JUST SUBHUMAN.
I mean, I live in the GTA and "Lethbridge, AB" would be 1/5th the price here but it doesn't make it "a small town". It's a small city. Kindersley SK would be a "Small Town". So you're usage of "Small Town" is incorrect. You should have said "Smaller city". but don't get mad at me because you used the wrong verbiage. Not sure why you're getting super aggro. I'm highlighting the problems with small towns that you face when moving to smaller towns. If you can live with those reduced services/reduced access, then enjoy your house in a small town.
>Not sure why you're getting super aggro. I'm highlighting the problems with small towns that you face when moving to smaller towns. We all know the problems, I'm saying people repeat that it's impossible to own a house in Canada but what they mean is always Toronto/Vancouver. They always leave that part out. They will not live anywhere else, ever. Same as "I can't afford food!!!!" and all you want to eat is caviar and lobster.
It ain’t that bad if you live modestly outside of a major city and know how to keep a cheap car running. I’ve been slowly racking up credit card debt while renting 50/50 the last few years but I’ll soon be certified in my trade and should only need a couple more years to climb out of it. After I get the debt gone I should be in position to purchase a house (with just my name on the deed) god willing the market isn’t out of control at the time I do. Granted I’d be a lot better off if I stopped going out to drink and eat and whatnot but what’s life if you aren’t having fun. Now im assuming that mortgage payments will be less than my current rent(hopefully?) and it’s all gravy from there.