Admiral Beez
Superstar
It’s our own little Evergrande in the making.
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- Thread starter simuls
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slickpete83
Active Member
lenaitch
Senior Member
I bought my first house in 1980 and was thrilled to get a 5-year mortgage at 10%.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
The difference is the purchase price was probably about four to six times your annual salary. That was me in 1998, when aged 27 and 26 we bought our first house at $298, equal to 4.5x our pretax salaries. I believe mortgages then were about 8%. Nowadays, a SFH purchase is equal to a dozen or more years of income.
That‘s why if I was a young person I’d leave the Golden Horseshoe entirely. There are lots of places in Canada where housing is affordable and good paying jobs can be found. For example, here’s seventy plus single family homes in Saskatoon, SK, under $350k with 3+ bedrooms and 2+ baths and here’s over seven hundred job openings paying more than $70k. It‘s a big country, with excitement and opportunities across the land. In 2004 I moved to Fredericton, NB to see what life was about out east. Get out of southern Ontario, Ottawa and southern BC and young adults can still find the Canadian dream of affordable housing and good jobs.
afransen
Senior Member
Let me tell you, millennials are so tired of hearing boomers reminisce about paying 15% mortgage rates briefly in the 1980s when they were able to buy a home for 3x the income a high school graduate could earn and saw large annual wage increases.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Absolutely. I wasn't making a comparison - just a comment.
And I got tired of my dad saying haircuts used to be nickle. What's you point - it's a open forum. As I mentioned, it was a comment, not a comparison.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Fondly recalling the past is the very definition of reminiscing. Assuming you‘re of the millennials you speak of, you’ll have plenty of reminisce about that will annoy whatever two or three generations follow you.
afransen
Senior Member
There's usually a subtext of "we had it bad too, don't complain". I'd gladly take 15% interest with 10% inflation/wage increases if it meant I could buy a house for 3x median income.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Who wouldn’t? And you still can, just not in southern Ontario or southern BC. There are tons of towns and smaller cities in this country where SFHs can be had for under $400k where jobs paying $70-90k are plentiful. Our ancestors came to Canada from elsewhere, breaking ties with their parents, friends and careers to make a fresh start. But somehow we’re all blind to the very same opportunity that Canada outside of southern Ontario and southern BC presents, and prefer to stick it out in the GTA and complain about how unaffordable it is.
afransen
Senior Member
So, is the appropriate response when a boomer complains about 15% mortgage interest in the 80's is to tell them they should have rented instead?
lenaitch
Senior Member
Again with the 'complaint' angle. Maybe it is said as a brag, or a 'suck it up you babies' statement, or just a comment. Everything needs context.
It is sometimes curious how boomers get taken to task for attitudes and statements but people born before 1946 not so much.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Who decides what’s appropriate? Just do you and stop worrying what others think.
It’s easy to say just go somewhere else where housing is cheaper, but there are a lot of considerations. I lived somewhere else for 30 years and am so happy to be back in the Golden Horseshoe. Life in a small(er) town isn’t for everyone. And it isn’t just about housing … food prices, gas prices, etc can often be higher. Not all careers (vs jobs) are available everywhere. My kids always say the kids they grew up with who stayed small town have jobs, but those who left have careers. There are multiple considerations when choosing where to live.
DirectionNorth
Active Member
... and Southern Ontario + Lower Mainland migrants are driving housing prices up everywhere else in the country. Calgary is seeing 15%+ YOY rent increases; Halifax is increasing 10%; Montreal looks like the GTA in 2015; basically no part of Southern Ontario is affordable anymore.
Telling people to move 1000s of kilometres might work for some individuals. It's not a systematic solution, especially when they start bringing a housing crisis with them.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
IDK how you can make this claim. On Realtor.ca there are over twelve hundred SFH in southern Ontario at under $450k. Make the max $600k there are over five thousand SFH in Southern ON. For any couple making a combined $70-$100k a year, $450k to $600k is reasonably affordable.
You don't have to restrict yourself to small towns. Here's London, ON. There are over 140 listings for SFH for under $550k and over 1,100 jobs in London on Indeed paying over $70k and almost 500 jobs paying over $90k. A friend of mine worked at UofT and recently moved to a new role at the University of Windsor. She sold her downtown Toronto condo and bought a nice house for under $400k, of which there are 145 SFH to choose from today. She a professional in university administration and would not agree that when she left Toronto for Windsor that she traded a career for a job.
There are affordable homes and good paying jobs all across this province and country. If I was a young adult seeing this wide expanse of opportunities, there's no way I'd settle for a reality where I will never own a home beyond a small condo, or if I do I'll never pay it off. Of course as a parent, I'd like my young adult children to remain nearby, if only for my self-serving wish to be near to family as I grow old and feeble, and possible grandchildren. But that thinking didn't stop our great-grandparents from moving from overseas to begin new lives in Canada, often to never see their relatives again. Compared to what our ancestors had to give up, asking me to take a train, for example to Windsor to visit the grandkids is hardly an ordeal.
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