Unaffordable housing is pushing more young people to give up. Why that’s dangerous

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/article-unaffordable-housing-young-people-saving-personal-finance-home-prices/

27 Comments

  1. modsaretoddlers on

    Because d’uh is why it’s dangerous.

    I don’t get these reporters. People have been screaming about this for over a decade. Everybody and their dog has been saying the same thing…ah, but wait, no, *no*, it’s not *everybody*. It’s only the people who have no hope. The people who have a home because they were born at the right time absolutely don’t want anybody to do anything about the situation. Because that’s how you run a healthy society.

  2. HappyTurtleOwl on

    I hate that it even needs to be spelt out why it’s dangerous.

    It’s been over in Canada. Reap what you sow.

  3. Why is property ownership even a cornerstone of ANYONES existence? It’s weird…..right?

  4. Minimum_Jackfruit821 on

    This is not a uniquely Canadian problem, and I wish there were more articles discussing solutions rather than problems. Like…..*we know.*

  5. Bagholders are crying with unheard of inventory piling up. And it has no end in sight as it will keep piling up.

    At insane prices.

    Y’all eat your cake and have it too?

    Wait, is that why the concern for young ones.? Take a sh!T in that bag and get outta here with that “dangerous” fear mongering.

    /S

  6. TheBannaMeister on

    Some people really can’t wrap their brains around how much housing has out paced wages, like it doesn’t even matter if prices are starting to go down, the price of the average home in canada is *absurd*

    I would never be able to afford my home now, it should not be this way

  7. Of course I know that person, that’s me. At this point I just hope the government keep importing more and more refugees and they will eventually see themselves destroying the country

  8. Canada has so much land and low population. Housing prices shouldn’t be this high. The government needs to heavily invest in infrastructure and develop new suburbs and cities with incentives for people to move there. Rents are high become please have to stay where the jobs are and most jobs are in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, and Ottawa.

  9. Being under 30 is so hard right now. I’m not even that much older and I had a much easier time.

  10. Wind_Best_1440 on

    High housing costs, high food costs are literally the sickness and cancer killing birthrates and replacement rates.

    WE need a massive country wide government led housing national build. Using private developers, public funds and even military engineers as well.

    This should be on the same level as a country declaring war against Canada. We’re talking about several generations of Canadians sacrificed for the increased assets of the ultra wealthy older generations.

  11. It’s by design. Every aspect of life now is on a trajectory to “lease for life”. They don’t want us to own anything because leases and debt ensure we work forever and are tied to our jobs.

  12. Came to the conclusion about 10 years ago I’ll probably never own a home and at this rate I’ll be lucky if I get to retire. Have a family? HA! Ain’t nobody affording that anymore.

  13. Yeah the same thing is happening in many places.

    I hope more and more people just checkout of society.

    Passive non compliance, easy.

  14. As difficult as it is now, fixing the much-needed infrastructure buildout to be less dependent on the USA and fixing the military backlog from decades of underinvestment will make this generation look easy.

    That’s why, before Carney, no PM even tried to fix it, even though the issues were well documented. It costs enormous amounts of money to build things, and that means taxes will go up or services will get cut.

  15. Where I am often, they have crews that can turn a modest city lot into a tall and thin dwelling of easy 5 floors, and do it well in either cement or steel. They could ease the urban housing problem in good time.

  16. Only when it starts effecting THEIR bottom line will they do anything remotely about it. People like me have been saying what’s wrong for over 25 years. Since it only affected The Poors, they didn’t give a shit. We heard you loud and clear: “If you can’t afford kids, don’t have them.” It turned out the people not having kids were more financially savvy than they appeared. Now you would have to pay us very handsomly to have them.

    Remember, for every 3 million dollars you see wasted somewhere is a whole Canadian adult lifetime UBI of $50,000/year down the drain. The seething resentment is very polite and very Canadian though. You’re probably not going to see them torching $3 million dollars worth of empty homes. Empty homes are prone to rot and various other factors like weather. We just have to put our hands in our own pockets and watch them rot from under overpasses and the street.

    If you’re Canadian too, what part of Canada is really yours? I’m just someone who happens to have lived here my whole life, and I know my place. No part of Canada is ever going to be truly mine. Not without it being allocated to me. Even then, it would probably be a shackle tantamount to indentured servitude.

    These news articles are funny to see though. “Our school of fish is getting smaller. Why aren’t our fish having babies?” Have you tried looking up at the rich whales eating them? The praetorian sharks patrolling the edges, driving them towards the whales?

    They’ll only care when it’s really to late to do anything effective, and throw up their hands saying they can’t do anything at all. -sigh- 

  17. General-Football-953 on

    If we imagine a young family with both people working an average job ($80k for Vancouver), why would housing be unaffordable for them?

    Let’s assume:

    – 500 sq ft
    – $450k purchase price
    – location: Surrey, 45 mins by train from downtown Vancouver

    With the absolute minimum downpayment, you’ll get:

    – $25k required to close => actually only $20k savings needed due to FHSA deduction
    – $2300 monthly payment

    I don’t understand the “unaffordable” argument. It seems to come mostly from people who want to be single, or get a giant single-family home, or want to replicate their parents’ quality of life, or have other similar demands.

  18. starving_carnivore on

    Can’t read it because the paywall

    If someone can provide additional context, have at it.

    “Why that’s dangerous”?

    Look, if I can even rent a shoebox apartment, get a beer with a friend and have a few bucks left over to save up, just for having. Just for “having money”. Not walking around money. “Rainy day fund” is what they used to call it. Having a few dollars in your bank account if you get laid off.

    I’m not dangerous. I’m not going to boost shit to sell from the liquor store or Best Buy. I’m placated. If I have a roof over my head and a job, I’m a lamb. I have things to lose.

    Increasingly younger people don’t have any prospects of starting a family or owning a home. Then what?

    It’s not even worth speculating on what happens next. Read a book or something. It’s coming quick and it’s coming fast and dirty.

    That’s not a threat, that’s a 4th grade reading level and basic literacy.

    What happens when somebody is systemically disinvited from participation in society? Really terrible stuff happens.

    Shucks.

  19. Can someone explain to me why new houses are so expensive? Even if the land is in the middle of nowhere and cheap a new house is still 500k. If lumber and concrete have gone up that much I’m curious why and how to fix it. It seems if construction has become very expensive then obviously housing prices will rise… It’s not good though.

  20. KoreanSamgyupsal on

    Just get rid of OAS and start giving that to young people or using it to put towards home building.

    This is nearly 100 Billion in spending going towards boomers that already own homes. Clawback starting at 90k+ on INDIVIDUAL basis. We need it out or seriously overhauled.

  21. ” The housing markets inflated value comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. ”

    So its young peoples fault… again…