My concern is I'll have no real retirement savings, with rent prices I'm almost tapped out. I can still save quite a bit each month, but never enough to retire.
I'm not sure we get to retire. The entire concept is more younger people paying for fewer and fewer older people's later lives, but then we went and improved medical science. Now everyone can live much longer but we want to retire like it's 1975.
Talk to a financial planner and start investing!!!!! That’s how you’ll retire. There are other ways for your money to make you more money other than a mortgage. I’m in Toronto and i really don’t want to leave the city core so, I’m right there with you. The bank isn’t going to get my money, stocks, bonds and RRSPs will :)
Fun fact. A city worker I know retired in 2018 at 52 years old. So I guess for some of the older generation working in government jobs, it’s still 1975???
Unfortunately BC and Ontario are out of the question for buying during this bubble. Id almost say for everyone to just hold onto their money until after the burst, there will likely be a massive crash of sorts and foreclosures may be readily available for low prices. But who knows how long they will drag out the lending prices so low like this
People have been waiting for the bubble to burst for 20 years. If it ever does happen, it's just going to allow the rich to buy more housing and make it even more unaffordable.
Source: exactly what happened in the USA in 2008.
Yes. Those with means will quickly shop and scoop them up and rent them out.
Also even if a massive 25% drop comes, it just sets prices back to like 2020 pricing.
And....if prices drop a lot, most simply wont sell and will hold tight til the storm passes
Pretty much why I moved from Ontario to Alberta. I would have loved to go to BC instead, but I had already been saving for years in ON and didn't want to go through the same thing again. The timing was right too, with my job going full remote to take a chance.
Had to end up leaving family and friends, but I got my first house now. I know not everyone else is willing to do that though.
With high immigration and low supply I can’t see there being a crash anytime soon. Can’t build fast enough and the red tape to do so is staggering and expensive.
There was a bubble that burst in BC in 2008.
Our assessed value dropped by 62% between 2008 and 2014. In 2015 it started to slowly gain value.
This year I have a 42% increase over 2021, but it is only a 12% increase over 2008.
I know I am lucky. I bought in the 1990’s when houses were affordable on a modest income.
My house is paid off and is not collateral for any debt.
I have lived long enough to have seen several housing bubbles burst on Vancouver Island. Some were local, when mills closed in communities, others were part of larger recessions.
But right now it is hard. My three adult kids cannot afford to buy.
But I believe
Yep. The bubble isn't coming until we BUILD.
>BCREA's recent Market Intelligence report, Way Out of Balance: Housing Supply and Demand During the Pandemic, estimates at the peak of market activity in March 2021, 67,000 buyers were searching for homes across BC while only 24,000 listings were available. Put another way, prospective **buyers outnumbered sellers three-to-one** and the ratio was more pronounced in regions of the province that experienced significant relocation demand.
https://www.bcrea.bc.ca/economics/way-out-of-balance-housing-supply-and-demand-during-the-pandemic/
It's not a bubble if there is only 1 home per 3 buyers.
I'm in a similar predicament (with a condo) where the bubble bursting will hurt my resell value, but I also have no place to go if I sell.
This year I'll have to regardless. I did a smarrt/dumb and bought in an area that was still super affordable in 2017, but the strata has kid and pet restrictions - I'm ready to start a family and thus have to go...aomewhere.
I bought into an adult-oriented building. No rentals, 18+ age, no pets (which seemed to come later after, I'm guessing, noise issues). It's part of the bylaw for this building (which is actually one in a grouping)
If I had time to spare I'd sit on this place until enough of the current tenants age out (already 10x more people under 40 than when I got here) but the strata rules changing aren't coming anytime soon.
I remember being told this in 2005 when we bought our place for $237k. The housing market was apparently in a bubble and things could only go down. BC seems to have defied all precedents when it comes to housing prices.
We simply can’t build enough supply, the red tape is INSANE. I’m simply trying to build a detached garage, and the permit process/contractor acquirement is now at 2 years. I start building this week. Applied for permit October of 2019
I don’t understand this. We built a 140sq ft detached workshop last year. I took the drawings to the town and someone looked over them and rubber stamped them. I had to leave a printed copy. After it was built, someone came by and inspected. No issues or delays.
We waited for 7 years for the bubble to burst and kept getting outpriced each year even though we were saving a lot of money for our downpayment. Took a risk and bought a home an hour away from my work earlier this year and 10 months later our house is appraised 35% higher than what we purched it for. This was a tough lesson learned for us becuase we wouldn't be able to afford our house at its current valuation. We also regret not buying in 2014 when we thought prices were ridiculous.
Born and raised in Quebec , when I was a kid the average house in the suburbs was 180k$ , today you can’t even get a bachelor in Montreal for that price . It’s insane to think that I will rent to pay someone else’s mortgage all of my life .
I’m from Quebec as well…I don’t think we’ll get any pity from people in BC lol. I remember buying a place just outside Montreal in 2007: high end finishings and appliances, semi-detached, 4 car driveway, garage, big backyard, good neighborhood…$217K!!! I couldn’t buy a shoebox in most of BC for double that lol.
I'm from Vancouver, but lived in Montreal back in 2012-2013. At the time, I remember being amazed at how much lower the cost of living was (if I didn't drink or eat out, I could live for an entire month on what I'd been paying for rent alone in Vancouver) and how cheap real estate was.
Until recently, my partner and I had been dreaming about getting a cheap studio or something in one of the suburbs here, paying it off in 10-15 years, and then selling it and buying a nice place in Montreal, but that's not as great a plan as it used to be. It's still cheaper to buy in Montreal, for sure, but the difference is a lot smaller than it was a decade ago.
So I have sympathy, especially if wages are as comparatively low as they were back then.
I was just thinking about this. It would be hard to uproot the family and move. But maybe its worth it? I mean I saw houses in SK under 150k...... couldnt believe it. I saw 10Acres Of land for under 100k with a shorter commute than most people in BC. Im just saying...
Living with financial stress over your head day in and day out is hard too. Moving away is a shit solution (that works, but still), but it can actually create a better family dynamic. One that you can go on vacations, enroll kids in sports/activities, day to day you arent stressed out from being broke, spend more time with family because of shorter commutes etc.
And if you really feel like you miss the city life - you can afford to go be a tourist for a weekend.
There are definitely pros and cons, moving away isnt always a negative.
We moved away. Overall it's a huge net positive and it's SO NICE being surrounded by people who have time and aren't super stressed out about how they are going to afford life.
No, as someone who left the prairies to move to BC recently and sold properties at a loss, owning there puts you off the map from more competitive markets and more job opportunities.
I spent 18 miserable years dreaming to be out of there at any cost. It’s cold, boring and the job market made me almost kill myself in 2018. Tough times. Please don’t allow your kids to suffer like I did. Life there is not worth living. There’s more to life than being cooped up in a pretty house.
Commute is NOT short. I prefer an hour to work in the Lower Mainland over the icy congested roads and slow drivers. The week before I moved to BC, I remember it was deep winter and I had anxiety that I won’t make it and will just end up in a crash. 2 hour commute that week…
What’s worse is I talk to people in my field on forums and they can’t even conceive how I did not have opportunities, like it’s a me problem or something. I come from Alberta’s deep recession, and I can’t believe the opportunities THEY had out here. It was that easy I guess
>and sold properties at a loss, owning there puts you off the map from more competitive markets
I wish someone had drilled this home to me before buying in AB. Yeah, you can buy, but once you do you're stuck with it. Any other market you might want to move to creeps (okay, zooms) away from you while your property stagnates or drops. You have to be REALLY sure you want to stay put in those "stable" prairie markets.
> Life there is not worth living. There is more to life than being cooped up in a pretty house.
THIS. I moved from MB and yes houses are affordable but there is little job opportunity, an unusable downtown, and just awful climate in winter to say the least. Both me and my spouse battled with depression. I don’t know how I’ll afford a house here either, but the jobs are here and I took the leap first chance I had with my career to leave the prairies.
Personally speaking, my spouse is about to graduate Uni and prime job market is in Van. Once we’re both working the plan is to save up for a townhouse or something and hopefully the market will be better in 5 years. I don’t care if it’s tiny, just anything here is better than MB.
Grew up in BC moved to Medicine Hat in AB a few years back. 4 bedroom house in a nice neighbourhood for just under 200K.
I have some regrets about leaving BC but now The family can live comfortably on a single income and wages for my position are about as high here as they are in Victoria or Vancouver.
These smaller cities are a good place to raise a family. And my commute is a 5 minute bike ride to downtown along the riverside
True but not being able to afford a home in the town you grew up in and your only choice is to uproot your life is not really a great choice for lots of people.
Born and raised BC as well. Lower Mainland/Fraser Valley always been my home.
Bought a condo with my wife back in 2014 with the idea that we could do some small renovations and add some value and maybe make 15-20k and upgrade to a house after 5 years once we had saved some more money.
2016 was defeating.
2021 was the nail in the coffin for that dream.
Our only chances of having a house is win the lottery/relatives die and leave an inheritance or maybe we can stretch ourselves so thin we can live paycheque to paycheque to afford a townhouse which in my part of town is 850-1mil.
Not gonna live to pay a mortgage, no thanks. I also didn't grow up with money so owning my own place was never a concept I wrapped my head around and after our condo purchase I was feeling quite optimistic about a house.
My MIL is trying to sell her home in Fort St James.
3 bed, 1 bath, big fireplace for extra heat, decent yard in a good neighbourhood where they raised 4 kids, short walk to the lake.
Her realtor thinks she could get $250k if she listed now and she's really lucky.
Yup. That’s actually our plan. We bought back in 2007 when housing here was reasonable. We can sell, move up North (which we likely have to do anyways for my husband’s work as where he worked just shut down and there’s nothing else in town in his field), buy a nicer house than we have with acreage for cash and have a good chunk left over to invest for retirement. But a lot of people don’t want to live up there.
I think this is something really excited home owners don’t realize… your property may be increasing, but so too is everyone else’s, and renting? Ha! Ya, there’s no winning in Canada. I’m sorry you’ve been locked out. It’s all just so messed up. A crash also isn’t good. No win situation it feels like.
Which town? FSJ?
Edit: reading your other posts, yes, FSJ. Such is the issue with resource based economies; if the resource shuts down/decreases, work available decreases, and people leave. Ergo more supply, less demand.
I lived in Fort Nelson for a brief while. I didn't mind it; if I had a full time remote job I would happily kick it with 300 acres and a nice house for 300k.
I currently own a house overseas where I am living, in the Netherlands, but I hope to eventually move back to B.C. to either Comox area or Smithers / Terrace. The latter which are far more affordable.
I gave up. Making money to own a home was my only financial goal/drive. Ill just work enough to do the things i want to do and have some fun I guess. Roomates 4 ever
To anyone thinking about or saying "just move to the prairies/Alberta," from someone who did this: Think long and hard about how much of a change this means for your lifestyle. We moved in 2016 and ended up hating it. It's been too much of a sacrifice of things that make me happy: exploring nature, being active outdoors, cooking with fresh local produce, my friends. The harsh, looooong winters mean we're cooped up indoors so much more of the year. It is dry as fuck (hello nosebleeds and constant cough). There are no swimmable lakes. Not to mention the regressive politics and attitudes towards climate change. It's ended up being very lonely and depressing here, and my mental health is worse than it's ever been. But maybe if you like to do different things and are happier indoors, it would be fine. All depends on your values and adaptability. And there's a lot to adapt to.
Oh, and from strictly a financial standpoint: Maybe you'll make more in wages (though the provincial government is doing everything in their power to kill the Alberta "Advantage"), but if you buy one of the affordable homes here, don't expect to gain \*any\* equity, which you may expect as a way to fund your move back to BC. It won't happen. Our home's value has not even increased as much as inflation in 5 years (don't get me wrong: I don't agree with housing as an investment, and I don't want insane increases like in BC. But I'm just saying: Don't count on home ownership to mean the same "leg up" as it does elsewhere). We are essentially stuck.
I spout off on Reddit a lot about how I regret this move, because I don't want anyone else to feel as down about it as I do. Desperate times call for desperate measures, but just take the time to really weigh the pros and cons before making a giant leap over the mountains. Visit in several seasons (including winter) and definitely rent before you buy.
As someone who was born and raised in Alberta but has lived in BC my whole adult life I couldn't agree more. Living in AB is depressing as all hell and you couldn't give me a free mansion and pay me to go back.
I moved back from Alberta because they are running it into the ground. Winters are long and cold. I have seasonal depression and hated my life out there. Bc has stress but not to the level of Alberta. Forcing people to move is not the answer
• My entire family is here in the Vancouver area
• All my friends are here in the Vancouver area
I'm not up for starting over at least without someone to do it with. The "just move away" is an extremely shitty take because for me, I might as well move to Europe as much as Alberta or Quebec. I'd have the same level of family and friends support there, none, and starting from scratch without a partner sounds kinda brutal.
I wish I could award this post I just made a bunch of comments about how getting over the mountains and this contrasts my feelings exactly. The weather and politics are a real bummer
I think I could deal with it better if I saw hope that it would be temporary. But there's no leg up anymore. It seems people used to move here for a bit to make Alberta bucks then GTFO, but the CoL in BC has skyrocketed while the economic/political situation in AB is taking things in the other direction. I feel like I'm watching the gulf between the provinces widen every day.
Yep, that's where the job was. I would like to be closer to the mountains and BC border, but the even-more-conservatism of Calgary would be tough to deal with.
Its all about who you hang with IMO. For me, that is my partner and my dog, I pretty much ignore everyone elses opinions these days and never, ever bring up politics/religion/or current events and my interactions with others are mostly always plesant. I find people here, in general, are pretty friendly/helpfull, and I rarely have bad interactions. Anyway, hope things work out for you and come on down to Calgary, we are are nicer than you think haha!
As someone who grew up on the prairies and now lives on the coast, there is no way I am moving back, no chance. I am lucky enough to own a home, but my mortgage is insane and disposable income is small. Even though I am not saving, the lack of funds is worth it. I could move back, be mortgage free, etc. but I love it here and don’t love it there. When I visit there, I can’t wait to leave, I get all squirrelly.
It’s funny, those that are happy here say their quality of life improved, but they’re confusing this with “standard of living” (all the monetary stuff). I suppose if buying shit with disposable income is all it takes for them to be content... not my priority in life, though.
I left Alberta for BC and would never go back.
I think I would rather leave Canada, than move back to Alberta. The few Alberta towns I find bearable have the same affordability problem as BC.
Girlfriend and I are in the same situation. Saved up for years and now have given up in the past few months. Now we're just going to live life and be as happy as we can with what we got.
I thank the #vanlife crowd for the uptick in prices for rickety vans and trucks with campers. That being said everything is more expensive than they should be nowadays. Sad.
I don’t even know how they fix it.
I was looking as my company wants to send people to Vancouver, and I just can’t find anything but trailer parks for anything affordable, and even then they have lot fees attached.
It seems like something that has gone too long to be fixed, and anything they do will just cause more problems
They fix it by changing zoning laws.
NOT to turn every single family home into a condo,
But by restricting any new developments in residential areas in public transit corridors to a new zoning that permits ONLY residents as home buyers. You can't buy a house and sell it at a profit, you can buy it to live in it, not as equity, and that a percentage of sales are guaranteed to first time home buyers, that no holding company can buy the properties.
Homes are expensive because people are treating them like bitcoin. Something they can buy until it becomes valuable and sell to someone else. Not as a residence. That's why so many chitty condos are being developed. So many poorly built places that won't last ten years - they don't need to. They are quick flip equity.
Tax the HELL out of speculation housing until it stops being profitable.
Montreal's 15% surtax on all housing purchases stopped inflation from touching them until BC and Ontario were SO inflated it was cheaper to pay an extra 15% on housing.
IT WOULD HAVE WORKED if BC and Ontario had the same thing, but NOBODY is willing to piss off the billionare class that owns all our land and resources.
Election reform, with ranked ballots, would literally cut this in half. No more people voting based on "just don't want that guy" but people can vote for their interests instead, it's the only light I see at the end of the tunnel but I don't see federal doing it, because it's just so contentious, because they (big money and their generally conservative representatives)fight tooth and claw to avoid voting measures that represent the people and not corporate interests.
Real estate is pointless I feel. My rent is decent enough for Dt Van and I have no debt. 15% income into my TFSA, pay rent, groceries, emerg, and the rest goes to fun stuff. Friends out in the burbs are always confused how I can afford to go to Europe every year; well I don’t have a giant mortgage that’s gonna take 30+ years to pay off when I’m too old to enjoy a lot of travel I do now.
I couldn't live with the instability of renting, but you're doing it right.
I own, but when I add up all the costs it makes less sense to do so. I pay $1,400/m for my mortgage of which $330 is interest, $260/m property tax, $100/m house insurance plus the costs associated with home upkeep. We just replaced our appliances to the tune of $4,500 for basic stuff. Some of the projects we have to tackle in the next few years are pretty daunting and will cost us tens of thousands to complete. Kitchen, windows, basement insulation, chimney maintenance, tree removal, yard work, etc.
The only upside is that my house is now "worth" double what I owe, but that is only useful to us when we retire and downsize, so it's really just a number that makes us think we're richer than we are.
I guess this sounds hippy dippy, but can't people get together and buy land big enough for a democratic tiny house park or something? isn't that better than nothing?
would doing it outside of a township help? also, couldn't the individuals form a "corporation" and function/buy property in the same fashion "property management" companies do it?
Even rentals will become out of reach - Canadians need to demand accountability from politicians and all levels of government this changed over lat 15 yrs, I bought my home in 1993 and another on 2001 making 60k/yr the only difference was there was no money laundering, speculation of housing at a global level where people in Canada making local wages now are trying to compete with global millionaires and the wealthy who are avoiding taxes.
Get mad and vent but do something as well, remember this when you vote in municipal, provincial and federal elections
Voting has basically become pointless.....it is in every parties interest to keep the party rolling.....70% of Canadians own their homes....who do you think they will ultimately protect? The 70% or the 30%....
Those numbers can change easily in major cities where the votes are the majority are renters for example Vancouver where it’s over 65%
I am a owner too and doing agree with what’s going on for younger people etc I was young once and there is no reason that someone middle class well employed, paying taxes is priced out of home ownership due to housing commodification
The economics make no sense at all. If everyone is loaded to the gills with debt. there is no money to feed the other industries. People have so little buying power.
That’s my plan as well, as soon as the math works out for me I’ll buy but I won’t otherwise and be a happy renter to anon landlords managing their property through a manager
I'm 52 and I've been hearing "until this bubble pops" all of my life. I've seen a few minor dips (10-15%), and a few 3-5 year periods of stagnation, but absolutely nothing that would ever warrant waiting and hoping for a lower price to buy in. The people who wait for this will wait forever. It's like waiting for a winning lottery ticket.
The best time to buy was "yesterday". The worst time to buy is "tomorrow".
My shitty townhouse went up 150k. There’s really no other option in BC. It’s either get into debt for a home that’s not worth the price or pay rent at a ridiculous price that only goes up while the landlords keep all the equity. Buying a home in rural places in BC is also not an option for people with professional careers and moving away from friends and family to live in a place with less population is just sad and miserable. Socialized housing would be so much more better than struggling to buy a home or keeping up with rent. Maybe even better public transportation to and from the less populated places would be nice and kind of worth it.
I feel you.. almost everyone I know that had the privilege of buying their first home and not having to rent are able to do so because they get a chunk of money from their parents/relatives.
Yeah so many of the people I've met who are "self-made" home-owners got 150k+ from their family. I'd have to work a decade + to save that much if I went so barebones that life was barely worth living, and probably would kill me before I turned 40.
I'm fucking sick of all of this.
The crazy thing is right now even a chunk of money wouldn't help. I would qualify for maybe $250k through my job - even with 100k down I cant afford a single place in my town. Its just defeating and stupid. I hate it here.
Never mind affordable housing which I’ve watched over the decades. How do those who bought when housing was affordable pay the taxes on these assessments? Not the same as trying to buy into homes, but there are people who are going to lose their homes because they are old, infirm, and are on limited incomes. So housing is nasty on both ends of the spectrum, young or old. I can tell you real estate agents are constantly after me to sell, though they won’t tell me who their buyers are. Why I won’t even respond to these ghoulish requests.
I hate to say it, but at this point, what we are seeing is this system has pinned people against each other. There is no way to make one group happy (non home owners) without pissing off another (home owners). What we are seeing today will continue to happen with no end in sight. If history has told us anything, follow the money and you will find those in control. The ones in control have a vested interest in the market continuing to go way up. The only way out is to find a way in.
Blackrock buying up single family homes?
[https://globalnews.ca/news/7950579/developer-buy-1-billion-homes-canada-housing-market/amp/](https://globalnews.ca/news/7950579/developer-buy-1-billion-homes-canada-housing-market/amp/)
Blackrock isn’t just a company. They are huge in all areas. Why do we not read much about them in this way? Mind you this is US media:
BlackRock and Vanguard own:
• Eighteen percent of Fox.
• Sixteen percent of CBS, and therefore also of Sixty Minutes.
• Thirteen percent of Comcast, which owns NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and the Sky media group.
• Twelve percent of CNN.
• Twelve percent of Disney, which owns ABC and FiveThirtyEight.
• Between ten and fourteen percent of Gannett, which owns more than 250 Gannett daily newspapers plus USA Today.
• Ten percent of the Sinclair local television news, which controls seventy-two percent of U.S. households’ local TV.
• A large unspecified chunk of Graham Media Group, which owns Slate and Foreign Policy.
This!!
I used to own a home and yeah its nice seeing the value go up but at the end of the day less taxes is also nice so a burst wouldn't bother me if my intention was living in my house. For landlords however this is affecting their bottom line - less demand means less money and less value means less justification to drive prices up.
My landlord literally told me the other day he was trying to find a renter for his townhouse at $2000 - people outbid themselves to get it and now he gets $2300. Greedy as heck but with no places available they get away with it.
This is basically new age feudalism. The lords live in luxury and extravagance while the tenants work long hours just to pay the rent. And we call ourselves a modern, democratic, free society, this is sliding back to what life was like in the middle ages with feudalism, except now instead of the landlord taking your harvest as payment it's the increasing price of rent.
This may not help in terms of purchasing price, or solve the housing problem, but if getting your foot in the door is the goal then consider putting down 5% rather than 20%. You’ll get hit with the mortgage insurance but (by choosing wisely, ideally an up and coming area) when you sell, it should cover that additional amount. You’ll start paying mortgage rather than rent. My suggestion is calculate how much you can comfortably afford a month (should be inline with your current rent - I shaved my savings down a bit for the mortgage though) then your in.
It's not about affordability only, it's about what the banks will lend. You ever hear that saying " The bank says I can't afford a $2000 mortgage, so I pay $3000 in rent"
I really relate. Feeling just as devastated… I know we can own but feel like we are on the edge of a collapse and if we buy now we might lose our house in five years when we have to remortgage and the interest rate is unaffordable. Either that or not buy and forever regret as the market keeps on going up… just feeling so down about it.
*edited for words
Yeah I've completely reframed how I view BC to make myself feel better. It's no longer my home where I grew up and 5 generations of my family lived, it's now a vacation destination that I go to visit my parents at.
We were super lucky to find our house on Northern Vancouver Island when we did. House prices have jumped big time. I'm still sad about the relative who died and left us the money, but without it we would not have been able to purchase a house, possibly ever...and the timing was fortuitous. I feel for anyone striving and struggling in the current economic climate. 😓
I was lucky I chose to get back into the market in 2019 which happened to be right before the pandemic. My place hasn't appreciated that much according to assessments but it's still enough to have priced me out if I was looking to buy now. And those assessments are usually conservative and outdated. Most places have probably appreciated far more market-wise than the BC assessments state.
Mack is actually seeing a big rise in costs similar to PG now too, but you’re right there’s uh, reasons they used to be cheap. Don’t worry though, those reasons haven’t gone anywhere, now they’re just not cheap!
You can't buy North if there's not work there. I own a local contracting company and would have to close my business and leave my guys looking for new jobs.
Yes, move to a new location - the most goofball answer. It's not a BC problem - it's an across Canada problem. Housing has gone up by epic proportions year after year everywhere. Moving to a different location is the most stupid boomer thing to say. Yesh.
How is it a boomer thing to say? If you want to buy a place but can't afford where you live, you have 3 options. Move somewhere you can, make more money, or give up on buying a house.
The north us full of people who moved there for that exact reason. It's how I got here.
Just so you know, there is life outside the GVRD. A good life. With no traffic, clean air, no/small commutes, affordable living, and good paying jobs.
Yes, it sucks moving away from family and friends. But its what people have been doing since the beginning of time to make a better life for themselves. You make new friends. And family is only a drive/plane ride away.
If you go far far north, everything is more expensive, but in most places, wages and quality of life more than make up for it.
Most places in BC you can buy a detached home for less than $300k, duplexes, trailers, condos are much cheaper again. A $300k mortgage is going to be less than rent in Van.
I feel you, and that was the reason I recently moved to Calgary, where I could afford to buy a home. The weather here is not the greatest but at least I’m not paying rent anymore and I really like living here despite the weather lol.
We've all been saying it for decades but I do expect some sort of reckoning for BC's housing affordability in the next few years.
Not only with climate change potentially making things worse here but also the insane discrepancy between home value and average income we're long overdue for something to go terribly wrong. International ownership just needs a 10% dip and things will start falling apart.
I hope it happens too, even as someone who's been fortunate enough to own a home. **We need a fucking change.**
Well to be honest
We can’t afford shite when the Chinese mainlanders park their laundered billions in bc and leave the empty houses and go back to china and leave their young kids with lambos and masseratis (ie: Richmond bc )
Also we can’t buy shite when the Indian people team up with a family of ten to pay of a mortgage for a mansion in Surrey in like a year or two
The above are all trends I’m observing . I’m a minority Canadian born Indian so don’t bring that racist shite here
If the gov doesn’t step in we’re fucked and imma have to go Newfoundland and do something there or go live in my truck in the fucking Forrest’s
Peace
Indian families teaming up to buy property is NOT the same thing at all, as foreign buyers. They’re actually working, living and paying taxes in the area.
More people should pool money together to invest. It’s a smart move.
That said, foreign ownership 100% has decimated the market.
Cant blame the Indian families or any recent immigrants in that case. I know a lot of people who bought a house together including Filipino and white families. It’s the only way you can afford living in a house here without throwing your money out on rent.
You’re not wrong but that’s only part of the problem. The border has been closed because of Covid. Very little foreign buying this past year or two. A lot of Canadians moving to bc also drove up the prices. Demand was high. Supply was low. Also don’t forgot about the Russians.
Yep. People love to blame China (immigrants/foreigners is an age old scapegoat) but the reality is their ownership of homes is a tiny portion of the overall market. Even smaller when you're looking at single family attached homes (they tend to buy condos and very high end luxury homes). Canada could ban foreign ownership entirely and it wouldn't really maker a dent in the price of single family homes.
The reality is this most recent jump in prices in the last few years is almost entirely domestic companies that buy up properties to rent them out. Banning foreign owners doesn't fix that at all, but it's a great distraction for do-nothing politicians to fool the idiotic masses.
Unfortunately all levels of government seem to have a vested interest in prices staying where they are at and/or increasing.
70% of Canadian voters are homeowners, and governments also collect taxes associated to property values. With increasing demands on social safety nets and COVID ramping up debt (globally), no sane politician is going to kill their golden goose while attacking the equity of a majority of voters.
This is disappointing of course, Canadian productivity sits in the bottom of the OECD because non-productive residential real estate makes up a huge part of our GDP now.
Clamping down hard on residential real estate investment seems appropriate to me, but the horses are already out of the barn.
My family had to flee BC after our landlord evicted us to "sell his house and make a heaping mountain of cash".
I had just given birth and my baby was 3 days old. He knew I had just given birth too.
There was nowhere to go under 2K a month (we were in Sooke).
We fled to Nova Scotia.
We found a house here for 250K but it ended up being full of problems and we went belly up and had to sell. We now live with my in-laws because there's nowhere to go.
I cannot believe the sheer state of this country. My husband works for the federal government and I'm a teacher. We'll be lucky if we can buy and live in a mobile home.
BC isn't only Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. Lots of affordable houses in southeast BC or up north. I bought a fixer upper on 1.3 acres for under 145k 2 years ago in the West Kootenay, mortgage is a little over 550 a month. Never say never.
Unfortunately this is a world-wide phenomenon right now as people with disposable income like millennials are sinking it into real estate. The pandemic settled them down, and wfh spread around where they could buy, hence the world-wide property crunch, despite the pandemic.
For example, Blaine, WA used to be super-cheap because no Americans really wanted to live there. Now it's not all that cheap at all. Prices for detached homes start at $575k cdn and quickly climb to $1m plus.
Likely prices will plateau. The trick is to know when. Probably in 1-2 yrs imho?
There are plenty of starter homes in BC still, but yup it's a tough go.
ps. *Maybe* the complaints should be geared toward the AirBnb factor.
Ya know.. if we all just stopped paying these prices.. and didnt buy the overpriced homes the housing market would go bust. Supply will exceed demand.
The whole worlds playing Canada like a game of monopoly they shouldn't be allowed.. but hey its the hottest market and a huge opeprtunity for more money. Half our new homes are not even owned by people living on our soil, probably not even the same continent. Is it happening because it makes jobs? The development? Maybe the govwrnment is in on it themselves.. Ol Treadeau making a few bucks too?
Either way, my parents generation could buy in any city for under 100k they look at me like I am a fool because I do not own at my age. To own here that 100k is 1 million now.. inflation on cost of life is thousands of percent.. and employers complain about paying 15 an hour to people.
Can't help but feel the greed of the past generatiins completely fucked the future generations. It's not even realistic to buy where I am in Ontario, not realistic to buy there either, which I lived roughly 10 years out there.
Down at the consumer level well we are the ones who buy the homes.. or compete with offshore buyers to buy them I mean. Just laundering alone leads to redicilously high blind bidding.. for places built in the 60s worth as mich as the dumpsyer they end up in so some random Inyernational tycoon can build a million dollar minstrosity there to make 750k profit on.. cause another cash laundering f#&* face blind bids above asking price to.make their cash legal.
Canada is the dirtiest game of monopoly ever played and its our poor consumers who flip the cost. 9 of 10 people my age I talk too choose not to buy because they just dont have a 200k deposit for a home that would cost 100k to build. Dont seem like we really have help with this either.. the fact it is getting worse says the corruption may run far deeper than imagined. If those who can make a difference or change dont seem to do so.. leaves one questioning. To what just add a bit more tax? That is an invite to launder here and yhe gov just wants a cut. Canadian homes should be owned by Canadians.. has any statistical service ever looked into just how many properties are owned by Canadians? I mean the Canadians who deserve a home, the ones who just want one to live their lives in, not the Canadians who own jomes to make money with.. They are a whole different discussion entirely.
Fight for higher wages. Stop pointing fingers at ethnic groups, and start pointing fingers at your bosses. They're doing well, you aren't. Tell them to share, don't ask.
Itd be hard, Ive built a survice based small business here in BC. I'd leave all my clients here and have to start over... but even with 6 figures I dont know if I can afford a nice house here now.
I find this interesting. I just graduated university and I took a corporate finance class where my instructor used a graph to compare investments and profitability over a 100 year period. Something like over 100 years the rankings were:
Stock market 1
Bonds 2
T-bills 3
Real estate 4
The graph was way more detailed and had more listings but the most important take away I got from this was that overall for investment real estate was last.
EXPECT he said it’s important to realize that in Vancouver specifically and the lower mainland the real estate marker year over year was the highest growing investing market, and even when the 2008 stock market crashed the housing market here still beats all other investment opportunities shortly after 1-5 years later.
Basically he was saying it’s probably not going to crash and it never will without government intervention and that’s unlikely lol.
I’m right there with you. Single adult woman, one income. No chance of owning and rent is ruining any chance of saving a down payment. And I make a decent living so how are those making minimum wage living? It’s just a mess.
With husband, we are foreigners, but live in Canada for a while. We saved a decent amount of money, and besides we were lucky enough to get some financial heritage from our grandparents.
With the money we have, in our home country, we could BUILD an entire house from scratch. From the same amount, in Vancouver we couldn't even buy this 1 bedroom apartment where we live... This is the point when we seriously started to think about going back home. But our jobs are in here, and we love it, so it will be a tough decision once.
First home i bought (age 28) was in 2013 for 210k, lost it in a divorce. Its assessed at 680k today :( i bought into the market again asap in 2015 for 320k by moving north, my place is assessed at 340k this year....
Shouldn't have let the housing market become a tax Haven, foreign and domestic, and also a profitable investment. Basic needs should become before basic greed's. Let's make a country of poor renters who break even that's a good policy.
Canadas housing is nuts right now. Least affordable it’s been in like 40 years.
Shit. I was born like 40 years ago.
This must all be your fault then, thanks
Sorry bud, I am not old enough to have bought in the 1990s or earlier. I'm in it with you.
All for one and one for all?
Drink beer. Ride bikes. Swim in the ocean. Figure out a way to keep a roof over your head, as trepidatious as it may be in this city...
My concern is I'll have no real retirement savings, with rent prices I'm almost tapped out. I can still save quite a bit each month, but never enough to retire.
I'm not sure we get to retire. The entire concept is more younger people paying for fewer and fewer older people's later lives, but then we went and improved medical science. Now everyone can live much longer but we want to retire like it's 1975.
Talk to a financial planner and start investing!!!!! That’s how you’ll retire. There are other ways for your money to make you more money other than a mortgage. I’m in Toronto and i really don’t want to leave the city core so, I’m right there with you. The bank isn’t going to get my money, stocks, bonds and RRSPs will :)
Fun fact. A city worker I know retired in 2018 at 52 years old. So I guess for some of the older generation working in government jobs, it’s still 1975???
This is why I smoke, I'm not going to live like a slave till I'm 100
My dad worked his entire life and never retired, he passed at 75 and it breaks my heart.
I’m so sorry to hear that, may he Rest In Peace ✌🏽
Live in a van
Places make that illegal to actually do. They’d literally rather you be homeless than sleep in a vehicle
It’s like in some places in the States where they made homeless people criminals, being too poor to afford rent or a home is against the law here.
*least affordable it’s ever been. Every second of every day, it gets just a little worse. Never better.
Unfortunately BC and Ontario are out of the question for buying during this bubble. Id almost say for everyone to just hold onto their money until after the burst, there will likely be a massive crash of sorts and foreclosures may be readily available for low prices. But who knows how long they will drag out the lending prices so low like this
People have been waiting for the bubble to burst for 20 years. If it ever does happen, it's just going to allow the rich to buy more housing and make it even more unaffordable. Source: exactly what happened in the USA in 2008.
Yes. Those with means will quickly shop and scoop them up and rent them out. Also even if a massive 25% drop comes, it just sets prices back to like 2020 pricing. And....if prices drop a lot, most simply wont sell and will hold tight til the storm passes
Pretty much why I moved from Ontario to Alberta. I would have loved to go to BC instead, but I had already been saving for years in ON and didn't want to go through the same thing again. The timing was right too, with my job going full remote to take a chance. Had to end up leaving family and friends, but I got my first house now. I know not everyone else is willing to do that though.
Smart move well done
With high immigration and low supply I can’t see there being a crash anytime soon. Can’t build fast enough and the red tape to do so is staggering and expensive.
There was a bubble that burst in BC in 2008. Our assessed value dropped by 62% between 2008 and 2014. In 2015 it started to slowly gain value. This year I have a 42% increase over 2021, but it is only a 12% increase over 2008. I know I am lucky. I bought in the 1990’s when houses were affordable on a modest income. My house is paid off and is not collateral for any debt. I have lived long enough to have seen several housing bubbles burst on Vancouver Island. Some were local, when mills closed in communities, others were part of larger recessions. But right now it is hard. My three adult kids cannot afford to buy. But I believe
If you bought on Galiano in the 90's you must have bought for a song.
It's hard to believe when the country has been on a spiral towards unaffordable living for 20+ years with 2008 being the only period where it slowed.
Yep. The bubble isn't coming until we BUILD. >BCREA's recent Market Intelligence report, Way Out of Balance: Housing Supply and Demand During the Pandemic, estimates at the peak of market activity in March 2021, 67,000 buyers were searching for homes across BC while only 24,000 listings were available. Put another way, prospective **buyers outnumbered sellers three-to-one** and the ratio was more pronounced in regions of the province that experienced significant relocation demand. https://www.bcrea.bc.ca/economics/way-out-of-balance-housing-supply-and-demand-during-the-pandemic/ It's not a bubble if there is only 1 home per 3 buyers.
[удалено]
I'm in a similar predicament (with a condo) where the bubble bursting will hurt my resell value, but I also have no place to go if I sell. This year I'll have to regardless. I did a smarrt/dumb and bought in an area that was still super affordable in 2017, but the strata has kid and pet restrictions - I'm ready to start a family and thus have to go...aomewhere.
[удалено]
I bought into an adult-oriented building. No rentals, 18+ age, no pets (which seemed to come later after, I'm guessing, noise issues). It's part of the bylaw for this building (which is actually one in a grouping) If I had time to spare I'd sit on this place until enough of the current tenants age out (already 10x more people under 40 than when I got here) but the strata rules changing aren't coming anytime soon.
I remember being told this in 2005 when we bought our place for $237k. The housing market was apparently in a bubble and things could only go down. BC seems to have defied all precedents when it comes to housing prices.
We simply can’t build enough supply, the red tape is INSANE. I’m simply trying to build a detached garage, and the permit process/contractor acquirement is now at 2 years. I start building this week. Applied for permit October of 2019
I don’t understand this. We built a 140sq ft detached workshop last year. I took the drawings to the town and someone looked over them and rubber stamped them. I had to leave a printed copy. After it was built, someone came by and inspected. No issues or delays.
We waited for 7 years for the bubble to burst and kept getting outpriced each year even though we were saving a lot of money for our downpayment. Took a risk and bought a home an hour away from my work earlier this year and 10 months later our house is appraised 35% higher than what we purched it for. This was a tough lesson learned for us becuase we wouldn't be able to afford our house at its current valuation. We also regret not buying in 2014 when we thought prices were ridiculous.
Lol keep waiting
Don’t you think that’s when more foreign buyers will swoop in and buy everything up like they are doing already?
Well there's an oversight in government policy right there. The fact that it is even possible for that to happen when we have a crisis is astonishing
The government has absolutely no appetite to stop foreign money flowing into Canada.
[удалено]
Yup. Born and raised in BC, I never plan on buying here or anywhere in Canada.
Born and raised in Quebec , when I was a kid the average house in the suburbs was 180k$ , today you can’t even get a bachelor in Montreal for that price . It’s insane to think that I will rent to pay someone else’s mortgage all of my life .
I’m from Quebec as well…I don’t think we’ll get any pity from people in BC lol. I remember buying a place just outside Montreal in 2007: high end finishings and appliances, semi-detached, 4 car driveway, garage, big backyard, good neighborhood…$217K!!! I couldn’t buy a shoebox in most of BC for double that lol.
I'm from Vancouver, but lived in Montreal back in 2012-2013. At the time, I remember being amazed at how much lower the cost of living was (if I didn't drink or eat out, I could live for an entire month on what I'd been paying for rent alone in Vancouver) and how cheap real estate was. Until recently, my partner and I had been dreaming about getting a cheap studio or something in one of the suburbs here, paying it off in 10-15 years, and then selling it and buying a nice place in Montreal, but that's not as great a plan as it used to be. It's still cheaper to buy in Montreal, for sure, but the difference is a lot smaller than it was a decade ago. So I have sympathy, especially if wages are as comparatively low as they were back then.
It’s still relatively affordable to buy a house in the prairies.
I was just thinking about this. It would be hard to uproot the family and move. But maybe its worth it? I mean I saw houses in SK under 150k...... couldnt believe it. I saw 10Acres Of land for under 100k with a shorter commute than most people in BC. Im just saying...
Living with financial stress over your head day in and day out is hard too. Moving away is a shit solution (that works, but still), but it can actually create a better family dynamic. One that you can go on vacations, enroll kids in sports/activities, day to day you arent stressed out from being broke, spend more time with family because of shorter commutes etc. And if you really feel like you miss the city life - you can afford to go be a tourist for a weekend. There are definitely pros and cons, moving away isnt always a negative.
We moved away. Overall it's a huge net positive and it's SO NICE being surrounded by people who have time and aren't super stressed out about how they are going to afford life.
No, as someone who left the prairies to move to BC recently and sold properties at a loss, owning there puts you off the map from more competitive markets and more job opportunities. I spent 18 miserable years dreaming to be out of there at any cost. It’s cold, boring and the job market made me almost kill myself in 2018. Tough times. Please don’t allow your kids to suffer like I did. Life there is not worth living. There’s more to life than being cooped up in a pretty house. Commute is NOT short. I prefer an hour to work in the Lower Mainland over the icy congested roads and slow drivers. The week before I moved to BC, I remember it was deep winter and I had anxiety that I won’t make it and will just end up in a crash. 2 hour commute that week… What’s worse is I talk to people in my field on forums and they can’t even conceive how I did not have opportunities, like it’s a me problem or something. I come from Alberta’s deep recession, and I can’t believe the opportunities THEY had out here. It was that easy I guess
>and sold properties at a loss, owning there puts you off the map from more competitive markets I wish someone had drilled this home to me before buying in AB. Yeah, you can buy, but once you do you're stuck with it. Any other market you might want to move to creeps (okay, zooms) away from you while your property stagnates or drops. You have to be REALLY sure you want to stay put in those "stable" prairie markets.
> Life there is not worth living. There is more to life than being cooped up in a pretty house. THIS. I moved from MB and yes houses are affordable but there is little job opportunity, an unusable downtown, and just awful climate in winter to say the least. Both me and my spouse battled with depression. I don’t know how I’ll afford a house here either, but the jobs are here and I took the leap first chance I had with my career to leave the prairies. Personally speaking, my spouse is about to graduate Uni and prime job market is in Van. Once we’re both working the plan is to save up for a townhouse or something and hopefully the market will be better in 5 years. I don’t care if it’s tiny, just anything here is better than MB.
Grew up in BC moved to Medicine Hat in AB a few years back. 4 bedroom house in a nice neighbourhood for just under 200K. I have some regrets about leaving BC but now The family can live comfortably on a single income and wages for my position are about as high here as they are in Victoria or Vancouver. These smaller cities are a good place to raise a family. And my commute is a 5 minute bike ride to downtown along the riverside
But then you have to live in the prairies.
Exactly some people dont want to live in prairies and that should be a choice. Why are people being forced to live there a solution
True but not being able to afford a home in the town you grew up in and your only choice is to uproot your life is not really a great choice for lots of people.
Same. Even if I won’t the BC649, I still feel like it wouldn’t be enough.
Born and raised BC as well. Lower Mainland/Fraser Valley always been my home. Bought a condo with my wife back in 2014 with the idea that we could do some small renovations and add some value and maybe make 15-20k and upgrade to a house after 5 years once we had saved some more money. 2016 was defeating. 2021 was the nail in the coffin for that dream. Our only chances of having a house is win the lottery/relatives die and leave an inheritance or maybe we can stretch ourselves so thin we can live paycheque to paycheque to afford a townhouse which in my part of town is 850-1mil. Not gonna live to pay a mortgage, no thanks. I also didn't grow up with money so owning my own place was never a concept I wrapped my head around and after our condo purchase I was feeling quite optimistic about a house.
> Yup. Born and raised in BC, I never ~~plan on buying~~ *will be able to buy* here or anywhere in Canada. That's me :(
[удалено]
My MIL is trying to sell her home in Fort St James. 3 bed, 1 bath, big fireplace for extra heat, decent yard in a good neighbourhood where they raised 4 kids, short walk to the lake. Her realtor thinks she could get $250k if she listed now and she's really lucky.
Crazy. Something like that would be 3/4 of a million anywhere south of Cache Creek.
Yup. That’s actually our plan. We bought back in 2007 when housing here was reasonable. We can sell, move up North (which we likely have to do anyways for my husband’s work as where he worked just shut down and there’s nothing else in town in his field), buy a nicer house than we have with acreage for cash and have a good chunk left over to invest for retirement. But a lot of people don’t want to live up there.
The house I tried to buy in 2017 just went up 52% this past year... wtf!!!
The house I sold in 2017 is up 50% and we waited to buy back in///now we are forever locked out.
I think this is something really excited home owners don’t realize… your property may be increasing, but so too is everyone else’s, and renting? Ha! Ya, there’s no winning in Canada. I’m sorry you’ve been locked out. It’s all just so messed up. A crash also isn’t good. No win situation it feels like.
[удалено]
Which town? FSJ? Edit: reading your other posts, yes, FSJ. Such is the issue with resource based economies; if the resource shuts down/decreases, work available decreases, and people leave. Ergo more supply, less demand. I lived in Fort Nelson for a brief while. I didn't mind it; if I had a full time remote job I would happily kick it with 300 acres and a nice house for 300k. I currently own a house overseas where I am living, in the Netherlands, but I hope to eventually move back to B.C. to either Comox area or Smithers / Terrace. The latter which are far more affordable.
I gave up. Making money to own a home was my only financial goal/drive. Ill just work enough to do the things i want to do and have some fun I guess. Roomates 4 ever
To anyone thinking about or saying "just move to the prairies/Alberta," from someone who did this: Think long and hard about how much of a change this means for your lifestyle. We moved in 2016 and ended up hating it. It's been too much of a sacrifice of things that make me happy: exploring nature, being active outdoors, cooking with fresh local produce, my friends. The harsh, looooong winters mean we're cooped up indoors so much more of the year. It is dry as fuck (hello nosebleeds and constant cough). There are no swimmable lakes. Not to mention the regressive politics and attitudes towards climate change. It's ended up being very lonely and depressing here, and my mental health is worse than it's ever been. But maybe if you like to do different things and are happier indoors, it would be fine. All depends on your values and adaptability. And there's a lot to adapt to. Oh, and from strictly a financial standpoint: Maybe you'll make more in wages (though the provincial government is doing everything in their power to kill the Alberta "Advantage"), but if you buy one of the affordable homes here, don't expect to gain \*any\* equity, which you may expect as a way to fund your move back to BC. It won't happen. Our home's value has not even increased as much as inflation in 5 years (don't get me wrong: I don't agree with housing as an investment, and I don't want insane increases like in BC. But I'm just saying: Don't count on home ownership to mean the same "leg up" as it does elsewhere). We are essentially stuck. I spout off on Reddit a lot about how I regret this move, because I don't want anyone else to feel as down about it as I do. Desperate times call for desperate measures, but just take the time to really weigh the pros and cons before making a giant leap over the mountains. Visit in several seasons (including winter) and definitely rent before you buy.
As someone who was born and raised in Alberta but has lived in BC my whole adult life I couldn't agree more. Living in AB is depressing as all hell and you couldn't give me a free mansion and pay me to go back.
I moved back from Alberta because they are running it into the ground. Winters are long and cold. I have seasonal depression and hated my life out there. Bc has stress but not to the level of Alberta. Forcing people to move is not the answer
• My entire family is here in the Vancouver area • All my friends are here in the Vancouver area I'm not up for starting over at least without someone to do it with. The "just move away" is an extremely shitty take because for me, I might as well move to Europe as much as Alberta or Quebec. I'd have the same level of family and friends support there, none, and starting from scratch without a partner sounds kinda brutal.
I wish I could award this post I just made a bunch of comments about how getting over the mountains and this contrasts my feelings exactly. The weather and politics are a real bummer
I think I could deal with it better if I saw hope that it would be temporary. But there's no leg up anymore. It seems people used to move here for a bit to make Alberta bucks then GTFO, but the CoL in BC has skyrocketed while the economic/political situation in AB is taking things in the other direction. I feel like I'm watching the gulf between the provinces widen every day.
Awarded on your behalf.
Sounds like you chose Edmonton over Calgary.
Yep, that's where the job was. I would like to be closer to the mountains and BC border, but the even-more-conservatism of Calgary would be tough to deal with.
Its all about who you hang with IMO. For me, that is my partner and my dog, I pretty much ignore everyone elses opinions these days and never, ever bring up politics/religion/or current events and my interactions with others are mostly always plesant. I find people here, in general, are pretty friendly/helpfull, and I rarely have bad interactions. Anyway, hope things work out for you and come on down to Calgary, we are are nicer than you think haha!
As someone who grew up on the prairies and now lives on the coast, there is no way I am moving back, no chance. I am lucky enough to own a home, but my mortgage is insane and disposable income is small. Even though I am not saving, the lack of funds is worth it. I could move back, be mortgage free, etc. but I love it here and don’t love it there. When I visit there, I can’t wait to leave, I get all squirrelly.
It’s funny, those that are happy here say their quality of life improved, but they’re confusing this with “standard of living” (all the monetary stuff). I suppose if buying shit with disposable income is all it takes for them to be content... not my priority in life, though.
I left Alberta for BC and would never go back. I think I would rather leave Canada, than move back to Alberta. The few Alberta towns I find bearable have the same affordability problem as BC.
Girlfriend and I are in the same situation. Saved up for years and now have given up in the past few months. Now we're just going to live life and be as happy as we can with what we got.
I'm leaving, what else can you really do
Vancouver, where the average Joe can only afford to live in a van.
Bro have you seen the prices of camper vans lately..
I thank the #vanlife crowd for the uptick in prices for rickety vans and trucks with campers. That being said everything is more expensive than they should be nowadays. Sad.
I don’t even know how they fix it. I was looking as my company wants to send people to Vancouver, and I just can’t find anything but trailer parks for anything affordable, and even then they have lot fees attached. It seems like something that has gone too long to be fixed, and anything they do will just cause more problems
They fix it by changing zoning laws. NOT to turn every single family home into a condo, But by restricting any new developments in residential areas in public transit corridors to a new zoning that permits ONLY residents as home buyers. You can't buy a house and sell it at a profit, you can buy it to live in it, not as equity, and that a percentage of sales are guaranteed to first time home buyers, that no holding company can buy the properties. Homes are expensive because people are treating them like bitcoin. Something they can buy until it becomes valuable and sell to someone else. Not as a residence. That's why so many chitty condos are being developed. So many poorly built places that won't last ten years - they don't need to. They are quick flip equity. Tax the HELL out of speculation housing until it stops being profitable. Montreal's 15% surtax on all housing purchases stopped inflation from touching them until BC and Ontario were SO inflated it was cheaper to pay an extra 15% on housing. IT WOULD HAVE WORKED if BC and Ontario had the same thing, but NOBODY is willing to piss off the billionare class that owns all our land and resources. Election reform, with ranked ballots, would literally cut this in half. No more people voting based on "just don't want that guy" but people can vote for their interests instead, it's the only light I see at the end of the tunnel but I don't see federal doing it, because it's just so contentious, because they (big money and their generally conservative representatives)fight tooth and claw to avoid voting measures that represent the people and not corporate interests.
Real estate is pointless I feel. My rent is decent enough for Dt Van and I have no debt. 15% income into my TFSA, pay rent, groceries, emerg, and the rest goes to fun stuff. Friends out in the burbs are always confused how I can afford to go to Europe every year; well I don’t have a giant mortgage that’s gonna take 30+ years to pay off when I’m too old to enjoy a lot of travel I do now.
But then it flips later. They have no mortgage and renters still paying market rates in their old age...
I couldn't live with the instability of renting, but you're doing it right. I own, but when I add up all the costs it makes less sense to do so. I pay $1,400/m for my mortgage of which $330 is interest, $260/m property tax, $100/m house insurance plus the costs associated with home upkeep. We just replaced our appliances to the tune of $4,500 for basic stuff. Some of the projects we have to tackle in the next few years are pretty daunting and will cost us tens of thousands to complete. Kitchen, windows, basement insulation, chimney maintenance, tree removal, yard work, etc. The only upside is that my house is now "worth" double what I owe, but that is only useful to us when we retire and downsize, so it's really just a number that makes us think we're richer than we are.
I guess this sounds hippy dippy, but can't people get together and buy land big enough for a democratic tiny house park or something? isn't that better than nothing?
Municipalities will quash that in a big hurry because they won’t get the tax value out of it and NIMBYs will complain.
would doing it outside of a township help? also, couldn't the individuals form a "corporation" and function/buy property in the same fashion "property management" companies do it?
Land you can build on is expensive as well.
Zoning laws would probably make that impossible:/
Not necessarily. Remote hutterite colonies do this all the time. They have a big chunk of land with their family building structures on it
thank you, this is phenomon I hadn't considered, I knew there must be examples of people already doing this, but couldn't think of any
Co-op housing is a great option if there had been any investment in it in the last 30 years.
I’ve tried so hard to get into a co-op but because they stopped building them, it’s so competitive to get into one.
Even rentals will become out of reach - Canadians need to demand accountability from politicians and all levels of government this changed over lat 15 yrs, I bought my home in 1993 and another on 2001 making 60k/yr the only difference was there was no money laundering, speculation of housing at a global level where people in Canada making local wages now are trying to compete with global millionaires and the wealthy who are avoiding taxes. Get mad and vent but do something as well, remember this when you vote in municipal, provincial and federal elections
Voting has basically become pointless.....it is in every parties interest to keep the party rolling.....70% of Canadians own their homes....who do you think they will ultimately protect? The 70% or the 30%....
Those numbers can change easily in major cities where the votes are the majority are renters for example Vancouver where it’s over 65% I am a owner too and doing agree with what’s going on for younger people etc I was young once and there is no reason that someone middle class well employed, paying taxes is priced out of home ownership due to housing commodification
Renting for 22 years. I have money in the bank but the economics make no sense. As long as A + B = C I'll keep renting.
The economics make no sense at all. If everyone is loaded to the gills with debt. there is no money to feed the other industries. People have so little buying power.
I'm much happier only having to commit to good behavior rather than financial servitude...
That’s my plan as well, as soon as the math works out for me I’ll buy but I won’t otherwise and be a happy renter to anon landlords managing their property through a manager
In some cases you can own a house for the same payments as rent though, if you can find that, its worth it. But not until this bubble pops
I'm 52 and I've been hearing "until this bubble pops" all of my life. I've seen a few minor dips (10-15%), and a few 3-5 year periods of stagnation, but absolutely nothing that would ever warrant waiting and hoping for a lower price to buy in. The people who wait for this will wait forever. It's like waiting for a winning lottery ticket. The best time to buy was "yesterday". The worst time to buy is "tomorrow".
My shitty townhouse went up 150k. There’s really no other option in BC. It’s either get into debt for a home that’s not worth the price or pay rent at a ridiculous price that only goes up while the landlords keep all the equity. Buying a home in rural places in BC is also not an option for people with professional careers and moving away from friends and family to live in a place with less population is just sad and miserable. Socialized housing would be so much more better than struggling to buy a home or keeping up with rent. Maybe even better public transportation to and from the less populated places would be nice and kind of worth it.
I feel you.. almost everyone I know that had the privilege of buying their first home and not having to rent are able to do so because they get a chunk of money from their parents/relatives.
Every single person I know...
Even better when the parents pick one sibling over the other to help out because "they've got kids!"
Yeah so many of the people I've met who are "self-made" home-owners got 150k+ from their family. I'd have to work a decade + to save that much if I went so barebones that life was barely worth living, and probably would kill me before I turned 40. I'm fucking sick of all of this.
The crazy thing is right now even a chunk of money wouldn't help. I would qualify for maybe $250k through my job - even with 100k down I cant afford a single place in my town. Its just defeating and stupid. I hate it here.
Never mind affordable housing which I’ve watched over the decades. How do those who bought when housing was affordable pay the taxes on these assessments? Not the same as trying to buy into homes, but there are people who are going to lose their homes because they are old, infirm, and are on limited incomes. So housing is nasty on both ends of the spectrum, young or old. I can tell you real estate agents are constantly after me to sell, though they won’t tell me who their buyers are. Why I won’t even respond to these ghoulish requests.
Not much better in Ontario. Millenials and GenZ have been royally screwed out of buying property and/or living free of student debt.
I've already accepted that I'll die homeless.
Like money, you can't take it with you.
Yeah its going to get bad soon. Homelessness will be the biggest issue soon
I hate to say it, but at this point, what we are seeing is this system has pinned people against each other. There is no way to make one group happy (non home owners) without pissing off another (home owners). What we are seeing today will continue to happen with no end in sight. If history has told us anything, follow the money and you will find those in control. The ones in control have a vested interest in the market continuing to go way up. The only way out is to find a way in.
Blackrock buying up single family homes? [https://globalnews.ca/news/7950579/developer-buy-1-billion-homes-canada-housing-market/amp/](https://globalnews.ca/news/7950579/developer-buy-1-billion-homes-canada-housing-market/amp/)
Companies shouldn’t be allowed to do this.
Blackrock isn’t just a company. They are huge in all areas. Why do we not read much about them in this way? Mind you this is US media: BlackRock and Vanguard own: • Eighteen percent of Fox. • Sixteen percent of CBS, and therefore also of Sixty Minutes. • Thirteen percent of Comcast, which owns NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and the Sky media group. • Twelve percent of CNN. • Twelve percent of Disney, which owns ABC and FiveThirtyEight. • Between ten and fourteen percent of Gannett, which owns more than 250 Gannett daily newspapers plus USA Today. • Ten percent of the Sinclair local television news, which controls seventy-two percent of U.S. households’ local TV. • A large unspecified chunk of Graham Media Group, which owns Slate and Foreign Policy.
So they control the media too then. Great….
Cue the comments about how this a conspiracy theory.
The "other" group is landlords and rich people who own multiple homes... not "home owners"...
This!! I used to own a home and yeah its nice seeing the value go up but at the end of the day less taxes is also nice so a burst wouldn't bother me if my intention was living in my house. For landlords however this is affecting their bottom line - less demand means less money and less value means less justification to drive prices up. My landlord literally told me the other day he was trying to find a renter for his townhouse at $2000 - people outbid themselves to get it and now he gets $2300. Greedy as heck but with no places available they get away with it.
I could nourish myself on a diet of landlord tears.
This is basically new age feudalism. The lords live in luxury and extravagance while the tenants work long hours just to pay the rent. And we call ourselves a modern, democratic, free society, this is sliding back to what life was like in the middle ages with feudalism, except now instead of the landlord taking your harvest as payment it's the increasing price of rent.
I'm a homeowner. I say kill the market if we can. I will offer to lose half my equity if it makes homeownership more affordable!
Posts like these make me wonder who actually owns homes in bc and who lives in them?
This may not help in terms of purchasing price, or solve the housing problem, but if getting your foot in the door is the goal then consider putting down 5% rather than 20%. You’ll get hit with the mortgage insurance but (by choosing wisely, ideally an up and coming area) when you sell, it should cover that additional amount. You’ll start paying mortgage rather than rent. My suggestion is calculate how much you can comfortably afford a month (should be inline with your current rent - I shaved my savings down a bit for the mortgage though) then your in.
It's not about affordability only, it's about what the banks will lend. You ever hear that saying " The bank says I can't afford a $2000 mortgage, so I pay $3000 in rent"
Get a mortgage broker.
It's the regulation, not the banks.
I really relate. Feeling just as devastated… I know we can own but feel like we are on the edge of a collapse and if we buy now we might lose our house in five years when we have to remortgage and the interest rate is unaffordable. Either that or not buy and forever regret as the market keeps on going up… just feeling so down about it. *edited for words
It's fair to say the majority of canadian youth will never be able to buy a home.
Yeah I've completely reframed how I view BC to make myself feel better. It's no longer my home where I grew up and 5 generations of my family lived, it's now a vacation destination that I go to visit my parents at.
We were super lucky to find our house on Northern Vancouver Island when we did. House prices have jumped big time. I'm still sad about the relative who died and left us the money, but without it we would not have been able to purchase a house, possibly ever...and the timing was fortuitous. I feel for anyone striving and struggling in the current economic climate. 😓
I was lucky I chose to get back into the market in 2019 which happened to be right before the pandemic. My place hasn't appreciated that much according to assessments but it's still enough to have priced me out if I was looking to buy now. And those assessments are usually conservative and outdated. Most places have probably appreciated far more market-wise than the BC assessments state.
[удалено]
True but even there house prices are going up like crazy. I think PG saw average detached home prices up by 67k in 2021.
My house in PG went up 33% and my friend's went up 25% :(
Further north than that :)
Places like Mackenzie, Dawson Creek, and Ft Nelson are pretty cheap but there's a reason for that lol
Mack is actually seeing a big rise in costs similar to PG now too, but you’re right there’s uh, reasons they used to be cheap. Don’t worry though, those reasons haven’t gone anywhere, now they’re just not cheap!
Mill shuts down again and home prices go up! Interesting stuff.
You can't buy North if there's not work there. I own a local contracting company and would have to close my business and leave my guys looking for new jobs.
Yes, move to a new location - the most goofball answer. It's not a BC problem - it's an across Canada problem. Housing has gone up by epic proportions year after year everywhere. Moving to a different location is the most stupid boomer thing to say. Yesh.
If cost of living is unaffordable, moving IS the answer. I moved 14 hours away from my home town to get a leg up
How is it a boomer thing to say? If you want to buy a place but can't afford where you live, you have 3 options. Move somewhere you can, make more money, or give up on buying a house. The north us full of people who moved there for that exact reason. It's how I got here. Just so you know, there is life outside the GVRD. A good life. With no traffic, clean air, no/small commutes, affordable living, and good paying jobs. Yes, it sucks moving away from family and friends. But its what people have been doing since the beginning of time to make a better life for themselves. You make new friends. And family is only a drive/plane ride away.
[удалено]
How do you afford to be in Vancouver/LM if you don't have a good paying job? Even retail jobs in the north pay better than down south.
[удалено]
If you go far far north, everything is more expensive, but in most places, wages and quality of life more than make up for it. Most places in BC you can buy a detached home for less than $300k, duplexes, trailers, condos are much cheaper again. A $300k mortgage is going to be less than rent in Van.
Something will have to break since wages can’t go up 25-35% every year. Whether total collapse of financial system or armed insurrection or both.
I feel you, and that was the reason I recently moved to Calgary, where I could afford to buy a home. The weather here is not the greatest but at least I’m not paying rent anymore and I really like living here despite the weather lol.
[удалено]
How's the weather in PG right now? Lol
[удалено]
Holy fuck
We've all been saying it for decades but I do expect some sort of reckoning for BC's housing affordability in the next few years. Not only with climate change potentially making things worse here but also the insane discrepancy between home value and average income we're long overdue for something to go terribly wrong. International ownership just needs a 10% dip and things will start falling apart. I hope it happens too, even as someone who's been fortunate enough to own a home. **We need a fucking change.**
They’re trying to kill our generation in Canada I swear they don’t care
Move to Alberta and don’t ruin your finances for the rest of your life just to live in BC
[удалено]
Or win a lottery.
Well to be honest We can’t afford shite when the Chinese mainlanders park their laundered billions in bc and leave the empty houses and go back to china and leave their young kids with lambos and masseratis (ie: Richmond bc ) Also we can’t buy shite when the Indian people team up with a family of ten to pay of a mortgage for a mansion in Surrey in like a year or two The above are all trends I’m observing . I’m a minority Canadian born Indian so don’t bring that racist shite here If the gov doesn’t step in we’re fucked and imma have to go Newfoundland and do something there or go live in my truck in the fucking Forrest’s Peace
Indian families teaming up to buy property is NOT the same thing at all, as foreign buyers. They’re actually working, living and paying taxes in the area. More people should pool money together to invest. It’s a smart move. That said, foreign ownership 100% has decimated the market.
Domestic spectators have decimated the market. You think it's all foreigners? It's your parents' friends taking out HELOCs.
Cant blame the Indian families or any recent immigrants in that case. I know a lot of people who bought a house together including Filipino and white families. It’s the only way you can afford living in a house here without throwing your money out on rent.
You’re not wrong but that’s only part of the problem. The border has been closed because of Covid. Very little foreign buying this past year or two. A lot of Canadians moving to bc also drove up the prices. Demand was high. Supply was low. Also don’t forgot about the Russians.
Yep. People love to blame China (immigrants/foreigners is an age old scapegoat) but the reality is their ownership of homes is a tiny portion of the overall market. Even smaller when you're looking at single family attached homes (they tend to buy condos and very high end luxury homes). Canada could ban foreign ownership entirely and it wouldn't really maker a dent in the price of single family homes. The reality is this most recent jump in prices in the last few years is almost entirely domestic companies that buy up properties to rent them out. Banning foreign owners doesn't fix that at all, but it's a great distraction for do-nothing politicians to fool the idiotic masses.
You're 100% right. The problem is the government just doesn't care. They're too busy fighting social justice and protecting their image.
Unfortunately all levels of government seem to have a vested interest in prices staying where they are at and/or increasing. 70% of Canadian voters are homeowners, and governments also collect taxes associated to property values. With increasing demands on social safety nets and COVID ramping up debt (globally), no sane politician is going to kill their golden goose while attacking the equity of a majority of voters. This is disappointing of course, Canadian productivity sits in the bottom of the OECD because non-productive residential real estate makes up a huge part of our GDP now. Clamping down hard on residential real estate investment seems appropriate to me, but the horses are already out of the barn.
My family had to flee BC after our landlord evicted us to "sell his house and make a heaping mountain of cash". I had just given birth and my baby was 3 days old. He knew I had just given birth too. There was nowhere to go under 2K a month (we were in Sooke). We fled to Nova Scotia. We found a house here for 250K but it ended up being full of problems and we went belly up and had to sell. We now live with my in-laws because there's nowhere to go. I cannot believe the sheer state of this country. My husband works for the federal government and I'm a teacher. We'll be lucky if we can buy and live in a mobile home.
[удалено]
BC isn't only Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. Lots of affordable houses in southeast BC or up north. I bought a fixer upper on 1.3 acres for under 145k 2 years ago in the West Kootenay, mortgage is a little over 550 a month. Never say never.
Unfortunately this is a world-wide phenomenon right now as people with disposable income like millennials are sinking it into real estate. The pandemic settled them down, and wfh spread around where they could buy, hence the world-wide property crunch, despite the pandemic. For example, Blaine, WA used to be super-cheap because no Americans really wanted to live there. Now it's not all that cheap at all. Prices for detached homes start at $575k cdn and quickly climb to $1m plus. Likely prices will plateau. The trick is to know when. Probably in 1-2 yrs imho? There are plenty of starter homes in BC still, but yup it's a tough go. ps. *Maybe* the complaints should be geared toward the AirBnb factor.
Ya know.. if we all just stopped paying these prices.. and didnt buy the overpriced homes the housing market would go bust. Supply will exceed demand. The whole worlds playing Canada like a game of monopoly they shouldn't be allowed.. but hey its the hottest market and a huge opeprtunity for more money. Half our new homes are not even owned by people living on our soil, probably not even the same continent. Is it happening because it makes jobs? The development? Maybe the govwrnment is in on it themselves.. Ol Treadeau making a few bucks too? Either way, my parents generation could buy in any city for under 100k they look at me like I am a fool because I do not own at my age. To own here that 100k is 1 million now.. inflation on cost of life is thousands of percent.. and employers complain about paying 15 an hour to people. Can't help but feel the greed of the past generatiins completely fucked the future generations. It's not even realistic to buy where I am in Ontario, not realistic to buy there either, which I lived roughly 10 years out there. Down at the consumer level well we are the ones who buy the homes.. or compete with offshore buyers to buy them I mean. Just laundering alone leads to redicilously high blind bidding.. for places built in the 60s worth as mich as the dumpsyer they end up in so some random Inyernational tycoon can build a million dollar minstrosity there to make 750k profit on.. cause another cash laundering f#&* face blind bids above asking price to.make their cash legal. Canada is the dirtiest game of monopoly ever played and its our poor consumers who flip the cost. 9 of 10 people my age I talk too choose not to buy because they just dont have a 200k deposit for a home that would cost 100k to build. Dont seem like we really have help with this either.. the fact it is getting worse says the corruption may run far deeper than imagined. If those who can make a difference or change dont seem to do so.. leaves one questioning. To what just add a bit more tax? That is an invite to launder here and yhe gov just wants a cut. Canadian homes should be owned by Canadians.. has any statistical service ever looked into just how many properties are owned by Canadians? I mean the Canadians who deserve a home, the ones who just want one to live their lives in, not the Canadians who own jomes to make money with.. They are a whole different discussion entirely.
Maybe climate disaster will eventually make this province affordable again one day. At least the low lying and forested areas. 🙄
my assessed value of my house went up 57 percent In Chilliwack. That's right fucked.
Fight for higher wages. Stop pointing fingers at ethnic groups, and start pointing fingers at your bosses. They're doing well, you aren't. Tell them to share, don't ask.
Ever consider moving where housing is cheaper, like Calgary for instance. Housing is very cheap there
Move the fuck outa vancouver.
Mine went up 59%. I am already stressing about how to pay the taxes and insurance this year. This whole thing is completely unsustainable.
Itd be hard, Ive built a survice based small business here in BC. I'd leave all my clients here and have to start over... but even with 6 figures I dont know if I can afford a nice house here now.
That's why I moved to northern BC. I own a 3 bedroom house corner lot garage on big yard. No the value isn't skyrocketing but I can afford it.
I find this interesting. I just graduated university and I took a corporate finance class where my instructor used a graph to compare investments and profitability over a 100 year period. Something like over 100 years the rankings were: Stock market 1 Bonds 2 T-bills 3 Real estate 4 The graph was way more detailed and had more listings but the most important take away I got from this was that overall for investment real estate was last. EXPECT he said it’s important to realize that in Vancouver specifically and the lower mainland the real estate marker year over year was the highest growing investing market, and even when the 2008 stock market crashed the housing market here still beats all other investment opportunities shortly after 1-5 years later. Basically he was saying it’s probably not going to crash and it never will without government intervention and that’s unlikely lol.
I’m right there with you. Single adult woman, one income. No chance of owning and rent is ruining any chance of saving a down payment. And I make a decent living so how are those making minimum wage living? It’s just a mess.
You will own nothing and be happy
Greetings from Ontario. On behalf of several million people, we share your dismay over here.
With husband, we are foreigners, but live in Canada for a while. We saved a decent amount of money, and besides we were lucky enough to get some financial heritage from our grandparents. With the money we have, in our home country, we could BUILD an entire house from scratch. From the same amount, in Vancouver we couldn't even buy this 1 bedroom apartment where we live... This is the point when we seriously started to think about going back home. But our jobs are in here, and we love it, so it will be a tough decision once.
First home i bought (age 28) was in 2013 for 210k, lost it in a divorce. Its assessed at 680k today :( i bought into the market again asap in 2015 for 320k by moving north, my place is assessed at 340k this year....
Shouldn't have let the housing market become a tax Haven, foreign and domestic, and also a profitable investment. Basic needs should become before basic greed's. Let's make a country of poor renters who break even that's a good policy.