FTA: The unaffordable cities:
1- Richmond Hill, ON
2- Oakville, ON
3- Markham, ON
4- Vaughan, ON
5- Richmond, BC
6- Vancouver, BC
7- Toronto, ON
8- Milton, ON
9- Whitby, ON
10- Coquitlam, BC
11- Burlington, ON
12- Brampton, ON
13- Mississauga, ON
14- Burnaby, BC
15- Ajax, ON
16- Surrey, BC
17- Langley, BC
18- Oshawa, ON
19- Saanich, BC
20- Kelowna, BC
21- Abbotsford, BC
22- Guelph, ON
23- Hamilton, ON
24- Waterloo, ON
25- Cambridge, ON
26- Barrie, ON
27- Kitchener, ON
28- Ottawa, ON
29- London, ON
30- St. Catharines, ON
31- Montreal, QC
32- Windsor, ON
33- Kingston, ON
34- Halifax, NS
35- Greater Sudbury, ON
36- Longueuil, QC
And the affordable cities:
1- Edmonton, AB
2- St. John’s, NL
3- Regina, SK
4- Saguenay, QC
5- Trois-Rivières, QC
6- Quebec City, QC
7- Lévis, QC
8- Winnipeg, MB
9- Saskatoon, SK
10- Gatineau, QC
11- Calgary, AB
12- Sherbrook, QC
13- Terrebonne, QC
14- Laval, QC
We’re a dual income family making well over the average income for our area and we’re not even fucking close to being able to afford a house. 2 BDRM duplex with no property around the corner from us is going for nearly $700,000, and we’re two hours from Toronto.
At some point the bottom has to fall out.
I’m in quite a high income bracket and by sheer luck bought my house right before the most recent price explosion. My small, poorly built, seventy year old home in a lower middle class neighbourhood is now worth four or five times what I paid. If I was renting, there’s no way I could buy it even though I’m making much more than I did when I got it. I can’t realistically look into upgrading, because the jump in cost to anything nicer is just absurd.
I have no idea how all this is sustainable and even less idea how our politicians think they can keep ignoring it. I know why they’re ignoring it, but they must be aware how this is going to end if they continue to shrug and look the other way.
I don’t think they care. They want to win the next election, and that’s about it. It’s easy to sit back and let the Bank of Canada take the heat.
Oh I’m sure they don’t. I just don’t know how they imagine the next few years looking. Are they all just assuming they’ll be out of the line of sight when things come to a head?
The bottom will not fall out unless some very drastic policy changes are made. Those policy changes won’t be made until ownership rates drop significantly (they’re still very high, around 65%)
What we’ll see is a plateau instead, where rates can’t go higher simply because not enough people can afford them, but we won’t see a drop either.
I agree. As long as the majority of voters live in houses, it’ll stay the same. Homeowners will vote in favour of their own self-interest. Constrained supply means increased demand and higher prices.
Seems irrelevant to a single property owner though, unless you have an escape plan. Especially if you have a mortgage and stand to take a big hit when interest rates go up.
It’s not going to fall out until they eliminate the principle residence tax exemption, and at the exact same time, put some actual restrictions, with teeth, around capital requirements to get a mortgage. Matched with rising rates, this wouldn’t pop the market, it would implode it. It would also hurt a whole bunch of innocent people, but honestly, it’s what it’s going to take. Probably will cause a pretty big recession too, because our GDP is so tied to the housing market now. But that’s what it’s going to take, and it sucks, but that’s the mess we are in…
it doesn’t have to fall out every as long as the govt does low interest rates. which is what everyone is screaming to get back to now that rates have raised.
low interest rates allow the wealthy to borrow money for free and buy up assets and increase the value of assets. they support a economy based on financialization and speculation rather than the growth of trade.
for the bottom to fall out interest rates have to remain high and supply has to vastly increase. we also have to become comfortable with inflation and wage growth, which will erode the value of assets.
our current economic scheme hates wage growth and inflation, and loves low interest rates and inflated asset prices. this doesn’t benefit ordinary people. it benefits the wealthy.
Yeah, that’s ridiculous. Unfortunately house pricing is largely in the hands of local governments – municipal or provincial. NIMBYism gets in the way on the local scale. It’s a weird game theory thing.
My parents have been saying that for at least my entire life (20-something years). I’m at the point where I’ll believe it when I see it. It may be pessimistic, but too many people in power are just all too happy to let people become homeless.
In my opinion, Airbnb shouldn’t be a thing here right now. Multiple personal properties shouldn’t be a thing here right now. Certainly not when hard-working, good people are starving on the streets. Nothing will change unless we actually change things. If we keep just waiting for magic to happen, we will be forever disappointed.
Anyone who is upset with the current housing market, please contact your officials, and please VOTE when the time comes around. We need a solution.
Today, it’s a random guy down the street. Tomorrow, it may be you or your family. Inflation hurts us all eventually, especially when it just keeps going up.
We are a dual income family, also making well over the average income for our area, and we live like kings. Bought a 4bd house, late 90s build, with an oversized double garage, finished basement yadda yadda yadda for just over $400k a few years ago. Markets starting to go bonkers around us though, because we literally have busses going through our neighbourhoods packed with boomer Ontarians that are trying to infect our housing market with their bullshit.
10 years ago I realized Ontario was a bust. I wasn’t making what it would take to buy a house, my wife was making minimum wage, living in our parents basements. Everyone was like oh you can’t go anywhere, family, what about your friends, etc. On a lark I got a job in Calgary, we drove for 3 days, and by the end of the month my wife also had a job, and we didn’t double our household income, we pretty much tripled it. In one month. It’s since grown quite a lot more, I think alone I now make about 4x what my Ontario salary would have grown to in their sad little attempt to keep me there, and my wife has more than doubled her initial earnings. Which is ironic, because we also live like kings out here, zero debt other than our mortgage, because our overhead is low, taxes are low, the cost of living out here is really good. The politics are a bit weird, but you just kind of smile and nod. To be fair they are pretty goofy in Ontario too. Fuck Ontario, seriously. That place is fucking broken. I mean it’s literally this simple, just find something awesome and move. You have every excuse in the book not to, but there’s a whole world out there, trust me.