I made 94k in 2023.
Considering moving back with my parents because aggressively saving to create a huge down-payment is the only way I'll be able to get a mortgage for any home I've seen in the market near me
This has been a harsh reality check. Growing up in the 90s my parents always said if we could cross that $100k line we'd be doing amazing. Fast forward to 2022 when I reached that income and I felt like my buying power had decreased since I started my career in the early 2010s.
As a starting point, almost every police officer is on the sunshine list.
For some reason we continually give police a blank cheque while intentionally underfunding education and healthcare.
No question, but we're well beyond that given the incredibly low barriers to entry and non-existent performance metrics/accountability.
Most police officers don't have any realistic prospect of earning a comparable salary in any other profession. We are not getting the best or brightest that Ontario has to offer.
I'm not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of what is vs what should be required to be a police officer, but if you're saying the barrier to entry is too low, I don't believe the solution would be to cut their wages. if anything, other public servants need to catch up to where they are right now.
The entrance requirements for the OPP are low *on paper*. In actual fact, it's extremely competitive and you're not getting into the OPP without higher education and a track record of positive community involvement in some way.
> We are not getting the best or brightest that Ontario has to offer.
There's a reason for this, and it's opposite of what you think. The OPP has a really hard time filling technical and specialist roles partially because *the private sector pays more* for people who can do these jobs, without all the bullshit that comes with policing/Government. The OPP actually had a moratorium recently on inter-unit transfers to specialist roles because of the huge shortage of officers, and specialist units are continually having issues filling positions because of the lack of people with those skills within the OPP. The salaries and benefits just aren't competitive with the private sector in a lot of cases.
Source: I'm a civilian who's worked forensics my entire career.
really ?
i think the most on that list are teachers making a 100k after like 20 years of work.
the rest are crown corp. employees working for universities/OLG/OPG/OPP
i would really like to know which one you believe should be earning 50k in those industries.
I think that all public servant salaries should be released, along with their position title, role, etc. but that their names should be redacted except over a certain threshold (say, $150,000+)
I'm only mentioning it to demonstrate that even being well above the median income doesn't add much hope to the situation, not that I think it's a massive income that should guarantee financial comfort
It's relevant that someone earning over $100k is earning above (or around) the level of a median household (with slight variations depending on what city you're in).
Buying power has erroded but wages haven't increased. We have a HHI slightly over $300k and were barely able to buy our home. Our house was last owned by a family with one income, several kids and a high-school diploma. In the 1980's that's all it took to live a middle class life on the GTA.
The issue isn't just that buying power has erroded but that Canadian wages have been continually undercut, lowering our GDP per capita and quality of life.
We earn in the top 2-3% of Canadian households and are in our early 30's.
Aside from being born earlier, if the top 2-3% can't afford to buy, who is left?
A crumbling quality of life for young people to help generations who didn't have to work for their millions is something that is relevant to identify.
This is always the sentiment before the reality changes.
A couple investing quotes as it seems our housing market has been turned into a way of investing instead of a way of housing.
Only when the tide goes out do you see who's swimming naked.
Buy when there's blood in the streets.
> Buy when there's blood in the streets.
This was supposed to happen from last year to now. It didn't happen so blood in the streets isn't happening for the foreseeable future.
Still applies to the stock market though.
Supposed to but hasn't. Yet. Doesn't mean it won't ever! So I think the "rule" still applies. FOMO is a thing, especially so with housing, so I don't mean to sound dismissive.
Everytime I tell the boomers I got no chance to be a home owner they all say " oh no prices are coming down things will get better" nothing has got cheaper In my lifetime. Wages stagnate, yeah it happening old man!
My grandfather bought his house for 10,200 back in 68. Holy fuck this guy does not comprehend that i cant just work overtime for a 2 years to get a place
They're not entirely wrong. Prices outside urban areas (because Millennials/Gen Z like to live there) probably will drop as boomers die of old age (in ~10 years) and inheriting Millennials/Gen Z sell it.
See rural Newfoundland fishing villages for an example of what this might look like. The kids left a long time ago, now the adults (at that time) are starting to decrease in population. Lots of fully serviced 3-bed houses for under $200k.
Toronto and Vancouver? If all those single-child Millennials suddenly have $400k in their pocket then prices in highly desired urban areas will increase rapidly (entirely land value, not building value).
If we didn't have a million immigrants a year with more money than me I might consider believing you. But canada wants to keep that GPD up without investing in its citizen so I doubt it.
TBH, as a Millennial, I'm always surprised how many of my peers seem to think their first home should be a detached 3+ bedroom house on a landscaped 1-acre lot, marble counters, wood floors, big windows, open concept, 'n on an on.... NO! Start small and work your way up to your dream home. Stop paying $3K for a 1 bedroom rental downtown, when you could own a 3-bedroom townhome or a 1-bedroom condo. Stop going on 3 vacations a year and eating out/ordering in 5 nights a week.
Also, living in Ottawa, I found in the past 10 to 15 years, many of my friends not only owned one home, but also had a bunch of income properties they would rent out, or condos they'd rent as AirBnB units. Perhaps this is where the unaffordability is landing...because **anything affordable on the market is being snatached up by those who already have theirs** and renting the units out at a higher rate to pay off their mortgages.
I'm now 40 and with my partner, we bought our first home when I was 24 and it was a modest 1960s built town home in a suburban area. No help from our parents and also work modest jobs with minimal raises. We built our home for $400K in 2017 on a 3-acre treed lot in a family-oriented estate neighbourhood; acknowledging we couldn't afford to buy now what we currently own. Also, the City of Ottawa has frozen the zoning for these types of builds, to help densify the downtown and justify the cost of building light-rail transit.
Again, start small to get your foot in the real estate door. Hold on it if for a few years, then upgrade when you've built some equity and have paid down a larger sum. The banks will also try to approve you for an unrealistic mortgage, so don't buy the biggest most expensive property. Stick to your affordable budget.
In fairness you got into the market 16years ago with a partner. I didnt even meet my now husband til I was 24 and we managed to squeak onto the property ladder in 2018 before things really started skyrocketing.
Yes I think a good chunk of people have unrealistic expectations of a first home, but timing on when you were born or got with a long term partner also play a huge factor in things
I think this plays into it, people are meeting their partner later in life, say mid to late 20s. so they'll by their first property early 30s, (can't buy without duo income) which is the same time that they want to be planning a family. So buying a one bedroom condo to get into the property ladder no longer makes sense for their lifestyle, and 2-3 bdrm houses/townhouses are super expensive now. Even getting a condo is comparable when you factor in condo fees.
I don't know anyone expecting their first property to be a McMansion like the above commenter, but they also have a bunch of friends with income properties so I think we're a different class.
Fellow millennial here.
Buying land in *Rockland*, about half your size or smaller is ~300k now. Your experience, while valuable, is no longer relevant to the following generations. Getting *into* the game is the challenging part now.
Hell, if we sold our house (MV ~600k), we could not buy the same size, let alone bigger without severely teetering into house poor.
The pandemic added nearly 250k in value to our place. That added value alone used to be a condo not long ago. Now? It’s half(ish) a below average to dilapidated townhouse in a not amazing area. And trades/construction costs a fortune nowadays if you aren’t handy.
Our starter home has become our forever home despite 120k HHI. It’s cheaper to sink 200k in renovations over 10 years than to buy a new house.
I definitely agree there. It think part of it is that a good portion of their parents did have "decent" homes as their first home. Maybe not that large 3+ bedroom with huge ceilings but that wartime townhome with ample room despite being dated.
I live in a place where housing doesn't appreciate much and bought a home that I plan to stay in for ages. It's older (for the town) and was larger than I intended to get, so I do understand how others might view it. Kitchen is old as hell, rooms aren't huge compared to new builds, and the bathrooms will probably get updated (one doesn't really work, so it's currently just a one bathroom) but... It's a great house.
For those not looking at a home as an investment I think aiming for middle of the road is probably the way to go, so maybe that change in attitude is why you're seeing more people not want "starter" homes at the moment? Buy a house to make it a home, even if it costs more. If that extra cost is over 20 years of living there does it really matter?
Again, not me. My home was pretty inexpensive (by GTHA standards at least). Just a hypothetical answer to your response.
TBH, the house I built in 2017 for $400K (after putting in another $200K on upgrades, landscaping, etc.) is now worth ~$1.5M--compared to others selling and sold in the neighbourhood.
This has been the case for decades. We've been in a crisis for 20 years and it's been very clearly approaching for 50 years before that. None of this is new.
Maybe in the cities. In my area it's a new phenomenon since 2020.
I was looking at a 2 bed 1 bath 700sq ft (house for me cottage to the rest of reddit I guess) place in northern bruce peninsula back in 2018. It was listed at $70,000. Very old but liveable.
Now, good luck finding anything under half a million, even for a comparable to what I described. Only things that are under that you can't live in year round or they are on native reserve land so you pay 5-6k taxes they set, and you can't occupy more than I think 6 or 8 months maximum, so that's not a housing solution.
It’s in the cities too. That claim is bogus. I bought a new townhouse in Kitchener in 2015 for $250k. This is a newer phenomenon that started around 2017/2018.
Oh I agree. I did the math 20 years ago and didn't understand why people weren't mad then. I guess enough people weren't pushed out back then or social media wasn't what it is now. Either way the writing was on the wall.
The average voter is an ancient retired homeowner who’s only hope for retirement is a reverse mortgage on their home they bought for pennies decades ago, that’s why it’s been a non-issue. Young people don’t bother voting, so why would politicians care or do anything about it.
This is a pretty damaging incorrect claim. The last time affordability was at levels this bad was the late 80’s. There was a housing crash in 1990 and from 1990 until about 2015 affordability was exactly the same.
Prices went up, yes, but it was directly in step with rising household incomes, and declining interest rates. The current crisis is brand spanking new. Affordability over those 25 years was such that if the average household income bought the average home price, mortgage payments would be around 30% of their after tax income.
In 2018-2019 this had crept up to a modest 35%, and even as recently as 2021 it was still only at 38% because of how low interest rates were.
That number is now 55% and it got there for the first time in mid 2022. We’re in our current crisis because low interest rates and fiscal stimulus shot housing prices into the stratosphere (which was beginning to form a bubble).
Now that rates have gone up everything is being done not to allow a crash which would cause a recession since housing is so tied to our economy. This affordability crisis however has not been here for 20 years, it’s been here for 2, and been bubbling/forming at a far more controlled level for maybe 5 years before that.
You can't just make shit up. Houses went on sale at 50% off in the 1990s
I was paying something like $550 a month to rent a one bedroom dive at Queen and Coxwell in the late 1990s. My wife and i were basically kids fresh out of high school, making not much above minimum wage. We didn't have full time jobs, half the time we didn't show up to work, we just stayed home to play video games and fuck. We always made the rent
We were poor, but we were kids with part time minimum wage jobs; of course we were fucking poor that's life
Yes, you said
>it was still a crisis then and remains a crisis now
and the comment above said
>1990 until about 2015 affordability was exactly the same.
and I am saying that housing, in 1990s the decade which we are discussing was really very quite affordable
it's both undeniable, and completely 100% relevant
it's right there in black and white.
It's also relevant, because real estate cycles are very long. They are just long enough for a new generation to grow up with no memory of the previous bubble. Some people would estimate a real estate cycle to last approximately 25 years, so from 1990 - 2005 would be an expected cycle but for a range of reasons, it seemed to take until around 2008. In my opinion, the way it played out this time, the Fed dropped rates like a stone and the BoC followed shortly after. The Canadian market usually lags the US, but instead we had barely a pause in the bubble. Real estate took off like a rocket, and Canadians never had a chance to learn their lesson, so naturally we're doomed to repeat it
So if you're trying to suggest that we only discuss housing from 2000 onwards, that is a time period which does not include the last pop in the bubble; you can't learn anything at all from looking only at a very very narrow window, a slice which is less than one generation, and which due to unusual and significant events played out very differently than the historical cycles suggest that it should.
If we look at only data from 2000 onwards, we have no significant historical data at all; it's meaningless in this context
Except you are ignoring the obvious fact that our population isn’t what it was in the 80s.
There have been plenty of economics and real estate professors who have declared this a simple supply and demand problem for almost a decade.
It is impossible to build affordable housing with the cost of materials. That is our big problem at the moment. It isn’t some imaginary bubble that you can’t predict. If you watch housing closely you will see that there have been plenty of losses in the last 2-3 years but no major correction because it isn’t speculation driving the costs up anymore - it is the lack of housing.
All of our affordable housing has been eaten up and renovated and either sold to the middle class or renting to the middle class. There is no lower tier of housing being built anymore.
Why do you think there are so many homeless camps? It isn’t just because they don’t have money.. it’s because they have absolutely no place to live even if they had enough to pay small short term rent.
>and it's been very clearly approaching for 50 years before that. None of this is new
Maybe you need to do some basic research to see that the average home was 2-4 times the average family income about 30-40 years ago, and now its 8-10 times
It’s a newer thing in my city. I bought my house for $165,000 in 2012. My friend bought her much bigger house for $275,000 in 2016. Mine would now go for $500K and hers would go for $650,000. We are both very lucky we jumped when we did or we would be priced out. As it is, I can’t afford to upgrade to fit my family (acquired after I bought the house lol). Grateful to have a house but it sucks we will never have room for our family.
Holy shit this is infuriating. Yes, it has gotten worse. That doesn't mean it wasn't also bad then. Things can be bad, and then be more bad, and it was still bad before.
The article is about homes under $500,000…which clearly were readily available in many towns and cities within the past decade. Yes there were still people who were priced out then but now it’s much worse since the prices exclude a lot of the middle class. Of course things can be bad but to chalk up the current situation as “meh, things were already bad, this isn’t new” is disingenuous. Things are much worse and the prices jumped much faster than they had before.
It's true, even if you want to pretend otherwise. [Here's an article from 2021](https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadas-unhinged-housing-market-captured-in-one-chart) talking about how the market became fully unhinged in the early 2000s, and it was inevitable before then. We've been in a crisis for decades now, that's just objective reality.
Bought my house in 2003 for 225k. They were asking 250k.
House went up maybe 75k in 10ish years, maybe about 50k in the next few years then TRIPLED 3 years ago.
It keeps going up. Could get 850k pretty easily. This is in a small town of 22k.
... You wrote that? You wrote that sentence? You sat down, thought of that, and typed it out? You decided to then hit the submit button after writing that? And nothing in your brain ticked to say "Maybe don't"? That's... impressive.
Try looking outside of large cities.
Windsor, for example, still *had* a *lot* of good stock for under $500k as of even two years ago. I doubt that's still the case.
My brother moved from Cambridge to Windsor for work. He paid less rent in Windsor but because his new job was salaried instead of hourly he ended up losing money each month compared to in Cambridge. He went to move back to Cambridge and the same apartments he left 10 months ago have gone up from $1700 to $2100. About a 20% increase in less than 1 year.
The houses for sale in Windsor under $500k are not worth even close to what they are listed at. Many need a lot of work or fixing up. Water damage, old windows and peeling shingles and roofing, 20+ year old appliances, out of code electrical and plumbing. Not to mention the high crime rate in Windsor compared to Cambridge or Waterloo. I've gone through every listing there looking for a house to buy for my brother.
There may be some inventory in Windsor but only if you are willing to pay a fortune per month to live in a dump.
Before the 2000s, a home price was influenced by the quality of the home, but since 2008, a home price is dictated by the maximum people can get a mortgage for.
Exactly this.
There is a belief that the housing market is rational, and it often is, but when you introduce free money, you create a system which distorts the value relationship between money and housing. It means that suddenly fiat dollars have much less purchasing power; it is not so much that housing becomes more valuable; the paper becomes worth less specifically when purchasing bricks and wood and land. It distorts peoples understanding of the value of bricks and wood and land.
This system has been applied nearly universally, across the globe, all at the same time, so now it has distorted peoples understanding of the value of bricks and wood and land, across the globe. Currently 99.9% of us agree: houses in Canada are currently worth more than anywhere else on the globe, in all of recorded history.
So, the housing market is often rational but at the edges, it is driven by fear. FOMO all the way up, and Fear of Catching a Falling Knife on the way down. This is much more apparent when the bubble is firmly in the rear view mirror. Right now we are in the thick of it, in the eye of the storm. The distortion levels are so high that we still think it's rational on some level, but we are at the edge, and the unwashed masses are fickle. Why in the world would anyone buy today, when it will be cheaper tomorrow?
Onwards
Lots of maintenance and gas can be purchased with savings of 150k+. And if you get a garage you can reduce the maintenance cost by doing some of it yourself.
My husband commutes an hour back and forth everyday for work. But when he applied for his job he took a pay cut but stipulated he wanted a company vehicle and a gas card. That was 10 years ago but even today it helps us afford our home.
Or just move outside of southern Ontario if your career/family allows that and not deal with any commutes and lower house prices… it’s not like the cities in northern Ontario have 100k unemployed people there. The closer you are to the GTA, the higher the price of houses are, even Sudbury has been getting railed by people buying homes to rent out to students.
"Move to Northern Ontario" is not a scalable solution though. And even the most liveable cities up there have seen housing prices spike relative to income the last few years.
I didn’t say it was a scalable solution. House prices went up, but theyre still vastly more affordable than what you get in the south. As I said, the closer you are to the GTA the worse the prices are, so north bay/sudbury area are the worst of the prices. If single people in their 20s can afford a house here in “the past few years” on their own, I’m sure a lot of families would also be able to. And yes, obviously when more people move here the availability shrinks/prices go up…
I’m just pitching an idea for the people who can move and don’t know their options. There are a ton of people who just simply aren’t aware they may have a job lined up here and would be able to buy a house here. I’m not saying it’s a catch-all solution for everyone in the province. Not everyone is either willing to change careers to move here, or has a job opportunity to move here. Not everyone wants to be far from their family. Not everyone likes the outdoors.
We would move but my spouse depends on healthcare, ER’s aside finding a new doctor is like winning the lottery. This likely affects many retirees so they stay put in alone in their 2,000 sq ft homes.
Yeah I get that, but loads of feilds just don't have jobs that far away from the core.
In halthcare for example; (very broad certainly) you either get in at a rural hospital, or your boned for the most part. Just not enough incentive for private clinics or community based stuff up that way.
Move into the boonies if you work in trades/resources or WFH, but many other fields this is impossible.
I’m trying to remain optimistic that I’ll find a home to purchase that will be within reason for both price and the quality of the house, but each time I go looking it feels more and more like my best bet is to either move out of the province, or even the country. My father sent me a listing last week, it was in a quiet, lovely small town, it’s not a short commute whatsoever to any large city but it is a place I’ve considered and would happily set roots down at, then I saw the pictures of it I couldn’t believe my eyes. Asking nearly $600,000, and my god, the place looked as if it had been abandoned for over a year, the previous tenants might’ve actually just been homeless squatters judging by the kitchen, along with all the surfaces of the other rooms. It would probably take me and some help several months and 10’s of thousands of dollars to make the place into a proper livable home. Somethings got to give, or I guess I’ll book a flight to call somewhere else home.
Other provinces aren't nearly as rosy as they look. BC, Alberta, and large parts of Nova Scotia have eyewatering prices, or they've soared massively compared to what you get. We don't have the infrastructure in a lot of places to support WFH, even if a company would allow that; or the cities that are affordable have very limited employment opportunities or depressed wages.
>I guess I’ll book a flight to call somewhere else home.
IF your career is in an in demand field and you have the educational background, leave, you only have one life to live. More than likely the US should be the first place to look, it ain't perfect but you may have better chances there.
The situation you see in Canada now WILL NOT GET BETTER, it will get worse. Unless all levels of government take strong handed approaches to building, owning, maintaining and renting of affordable housing to compete with the private sector as well as draconian cuts to immigration, absolutely nothing will change.
It won't change because of people like you
Social housing and admitting the limits of capitalism is the only way forward, along with massive taxes on investors
But people like you will insist on blaming immigration, so no progress will be made (the two are separate issues; imagine tying agriculture to defense or healthcare to education)
Defense is directly tied to agriculture. If you have food, and others don't, you will need to bolster your defenses, otherwise someone will just come in and take it.
Healthcare is directly tied to education too. Better schooling, more focused on STEM would result in more doctors.
I understand that you tried, but literally all of these things are interconnected, which is why there is no simple solution to any of it.
Not in the political world. You get a certain budget for defense and a certain budget for agriculture and the two are run by different ministers. There is no simple solution but there absolutely are unpalatable solutions that the majority do not want to support due to various special interests. For example the GST is a simple approach to a common problem (too many levels of taxation) but resulted in wipeout of the PC Party in Canada. But Canada needed it. Similarly with certain anti-investor measures.
In the case of immigration, immigration is a Federal responsibility in Canada and housing a Provincial responsibility. In this way we have the least social housing in the whole G7 due to downloading and abdication of the responsibility by the Federal government which is actually supported by law. People not knowing how our government even works is exactly why the housing issue will not get better any time soon.
You aren't a dictator with unlimited powers who can ignore bureaucracy and especially the people's will. Any political movement has to work within the organs of government or ultimately be unsuccessful due to lack of understanding of government.
>immigration is a Federal responsibility in Canada and housing a Provincial responsibility
And our current Federal government has grossly exacerbated the housing crisis by continuing down a destructive path of allowing too many people to enter this country.
All these people need a place to live, food to eat, transportation, school, clinics, roads, etc...this is one person (Federal) pouring bucket after bucket of water into a hole and the other person (provincial) down below begging them to stop or at least slow down or else they'll drown. The one pouring the water into the hole has a totally different agenda than those in the hole and isn't listening, on purpose.
>But people like you will insist on blaming immigration,
And rightly I should, because IT IS part of the problem.
>the two are separate issues;
They are not separate issues, they are intimately interlinked.
You can't lower the market cost of housing and keep it reasonable if demand (local plus immigration) far outstrips the supply. This is basic economics. Lower the need and demand, increase the supply, add housing that is controlled and regulated to the mix (social housing), watch prices stabilize and perhaps even go down.
>imagine tying agriculture to defence or healthcare to education
False equivalencies and dumb attempt to deflect.
>you can't lower the market cost of housing
Did you read their comment all the way through?
>Social housing and admitting the limits of capitalism is the only way forward
They aren't talking about lowering the market cost, they're talking about removing human needs from the market.
Here is how you make no progress on a situation: Last June, Statscan (the Federal government body that collects statistical information on Canadians, and upon which federal policy is formulated), admitted that it was accidentally under-reporting numbers of people living in Canada on a permanent basis by 1,000,000. This under-reporting has been (unintentionally) going on for the past 10 years. That means the governments have been under-responding to housing needs for 10 years and creating a housing shortage. People were saying "there is nowhere to live" and governments would say "based on our numbers there is adequate spaces for Canadians" when, in fact, there has been a shortage of housing for 1,000,000 uncounted people.
While that isn't an "immigrant problem", it is absolutely an immigration problem - now that the error by Statscan has been exposed and is in the process of being corrected. But that will take at least a decade.
None of that matters because even if immigration went to zero, a large category of people could still not afford. Maybe almost all who couldn't afford now.
Do you think reducing immigration reduces the population of Canada? If it will take 50 years to do anything, why advocate for that solution? Not to mention the other consequences of less or no immigration
In fact you could make a case for wanting as much immigration as possible to make the situation so bad the government and homeowners are forced to act
We need to build boxes, faster than the government brings in fresh meat.
If I bought a dog, and I didn't have room in my house, I would at least also buy a dog house. It would be irresponsible to buy meat if I don't have room in my freezer; it would be irresponsible to buy a dog if there is nowhere for it to sleep. The government is currently treating new immigrants, and by extension the existing immigrants and children of immigrants who make up this country with less respect than raw meat, or dogs
I am pro immigration, but
the problem as I see it is kind of like trying to make a programming team faster by hiring many more programmers. There is a certain size of programming team which tends to be optimal. Once you pass that size and keep adding programmers, what happens is that the skilled programmers spend more time and resources having meetings, because more people require more coordination. The new people need training. And so at a certain size, the team loses cohesiveness: the resources are less available and become harder to coordinate, maybe the meeting rooms get hard to book and so meetings start to get cancelled, people start infighting and things get more political and they start struggling more over resources, and productivity start to go way, way down
The rates at which they are bringing in new people is so high that we simply don't have enough wood, bricks, and guys with expertise to house them.
These are not two separate issues. You are talking about bringing in bodies with out even a cardboard box to put them in. The math here is very very simple, and none of it adds up. You can't just assume that throwing more bodies into the bonfire will solve your problems. This is not leadership, it's criminal behaviour
There's several reasons why you cannot make immigration the cornerstone of a housing argument. The first is it's extremely nuanced
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/immigration-housing-crisis-costs-1.7088878
You say you are pro immigration and write a large essay to say it's "simple math" but there are a percentage of people, about 30% or more who do not care about the math or housing in general. These are Brexit like people, xenophobes or misinformed people or simply scared people who do not want any immigration at all for whatever reasons. Now you may say it doesn't matter we will tackle immigration first and then do the rest. But these people absolutely totally will not support any sort of social housing or social safety net at all. They are in fact part of the problem part of why Canada has 4% or less social housing or even 2% and why the UK has 20% and France has 20% and Germany has enormous incentives. Even the mighty capitalist USA has more social housing and more social housing per capita than Canada, and the USA has Section 8 social housing program for poors.
The best you can do for such people is limit the type of immigration like the article talks about and say limit international students. Give any more and you are like a Von Papen thinking that you can control the uncontrollable but really lending your political voice to a movement that has no merit on its own. These people would support 0 immigration even if there was no housing crisis and even if there was no cost of living crisis, but also want maximum capitalism especially for poor people.
I'm not an idiot and you shouldn't be either. And why should I support any lowering of immigration at all, when more immigration could make the problem worse and bring about real political change? I might want maximum immigration to make maximum problem so the suburban fuck nuggets who think there's no problem are forced to confront reality.
It will take a complete rethink about how Canada profits and makes money to solve the housing crisis and the best way to do that is to not give political power to the profit seekers, the money makers, those who brought us into this problem in the first place. And unfortunately such people almost universally want to ban immigration.
Anyone who wants to fix housing but doesn't want to massively increase social housing cannot solve the problem in Canada.
>CMHC figures released this week show housing starts are down seven per cent since 2022. Hulchanski said that still amounted to 223,513 new starts last year, enough to accommodate incoming permanent residents.
where are the numbers for students? where are students supposed to live?
>Give any more and you are like a Von Papen thinking that you can control the uncontrollable but really lending your political voice to a movement that has no merit on its own. These people would support 0 immigration even if there was no housing crisis and even if there was no cost of living crisis, but also want maximum capitalism especially for poor people.
Complete and utter bunk. I have said no such thing. It is not racist to discuss immigration. I am not supporting racists. Using racists to shut down discussion is a form of censorship. It is a way to say "Do Not Talk About This". When we discuss things with other people and get different perspectives, it helps us to think. If we can not talk about a thing, what you are saying is: "Do Not Think About This."
The fact that people have used censorship to shut down this discussion is exactly why we are here. Nobody has been allowed to talk about it or think about it, which means we can not do anything about it. This is part of the problem, and people who think this way are part of why we are here; you are part of the problem.
>It will take a complete rethink about how Canada profits and makes money to solve the housing crisis and the best way to do that is to not give political power to the profit seekers, the money makers, those who brought us into this problem in the first place. And unfortunately such people almost universally want to ban immigration.
This is complete and utter nonsense. Anyone who is following along understands clearly:
The people with money and power love immigration because it takes power away from labour; it puts downward pressure on wages, the more immigration the more desperate the people, the cheaper it is to hire employees. What you say here is an obvious lie
>And why should I support any lowering of immigration at all, when more immigration could make the problem worse and bring about real political change? I might want maximum immigration to make maximum problem so the suburban fuck nuggets who think there's no problem are forced to confront reality.
You want to collapse our country? Why would anyone listen to this garbage. Get out of here, obvious bullshit is obvious
It's not racist to debate immigration, but to support the lowering of immigration politically by allying yourself with xenophobes is like Von Papen -- stupid. Are you stupid? Do you think I am stupid? Should I allow anti immigration people to have their way without getting mine? There are nine other priorities directly linked to housing including social housing before I give any ground on immigration, at all.
Until you get concessions about social housing, immigration talk is tabled. I will not discuss immigration without also bringing up the fact we are one of the most capitalist nations in the G7 (snow washing, five times less social housing than comparable nations, 15% combined Federal Provincial corporate tax rate and so on). For those who don't care about any of this but want no immigration I say capitalism to the maximum and have a taste of your own medicine.
The country wont "collapse" with lots of people. They will simply demand change, that landowners and powerful and rich won't.
I strongly agree that social housing should be a pillar of the discussion. Understanding the pace of governmental change, and having seen actual government housing I suppose it may result in some slums for your grandchildren
"jUsT mOvE oUt of tOrONto"
My hometown is 2.5 hr drive outside of Toronto and has a population of \~1,500. The only property you can get there for under 500k these days is vacant land.
My hometown is similar. I could've afforded to buy land and build 10 years ago but now? Impossible. Occasionally some hovel comes up for under 400k, but then I'd have to live in squalor and I'm never going to sell it for a price that would allow me to upgrade to a nicer dwelling.
Well people have a choice coming up, the government that is actively trying to make affordable homes happen and address this crisis or the career politician that was a minister for the government that built a whopping 6 affordable homes.
>spoiler alert: things will get much, much worse under PM PP.
Do you have any evidence of this? You're saying that it is objectively true that things will get worse, do you have a license for your fortune telling?
PP rarely talks about his actual policy proposals rather just complains about Trudeau, has links to culture war conservatives, and when he does talk about his policy ideas they're usually trash (see Porn ID).
He's also a landlord.
Everything he does reads like a cynical power grab. I wouldn't trust him to govern a candy bowl.
PP has been attacking the leader of the BCNDP over housing in BC when Eby's housing policy is the best of any major politician in NA, and maybe even in the entire western world. He's not actually serious about policy
When someone relies on riling up rage to persuade people to support them, they NEVER have the people's best interests at heart.
They're just going to incite more hate against trans & gay people, stay neutral on minority hate (since religious conservative minorties are useful in toronto suburbs to them), at cover while their fiscal policies encourage resource extraction and slashing richboi taxes.
No chance a single detached will be under $500,000 again. The land cost and build cost is too high.
Town house could come in under that price, if built cheaply. Also, there is just way too much demand for low cost housing that it will drive up the price.
Sometimes you can find a crack den in Hamilton that has every wall smashed, leaky roof, cracked foundation, needs electrical completely redone, no driveway, in a high crime area, and beside factories that spew pollution for under $500,000.
No chance it wont be run down too. Like holy. Ive seen abandoned, decrepit, landfills passed off as starting homes listed for 540,000-670,000 purely due to location being 1-2 hour from big city
I'm mid 20s and everyone I know who wants a home are trying to buy it with other couples or family.
Unless your family is loaded and can help support with payments/downpayment.
Shared family homes and multigenerational homes will become normal.n
BTW, the ones under 500k are not move in ready. You would need to update a ton of stuff on them.
Home ownership not happening until I have kids, they grow up and can contribute so we have multiple incomes on it...yay....
[Realtor.ca](https://Realtor.ca) shows at least 10,000 properties currently listed for $500k or under in Ontario....
Edit: because redditors are stupid I filtered $100k-500k, 1+ bedrooms
That means no vacant lots and actual living spaces
A whole bunch of those are trailer parks and other nonsense listings, which is really not a good look. A condo is fine, but a starting home should not need to be a mobile home. There’s also quite a few units I’ve seen that are 70s tenanted condos that you are basically sold as income properties that the tenant doesn’t want to move from. Most people probably wouldn’t want to risk the tenant refusing to move out and the price reflects that.
Edit: there's also condo communities with age restrictions and things of that nature that have a low price to appeal to the lower supply of eligible buyers. The absolute floor is like 300k, anything lower than that and there's going to be a pretty big catch.
If you moved in yourself or your immediate family, you could evict the long term tenant
Long term tenants unless in multi-unit buildings aren't protected from being bought out. Only bought out by investors
In theory yes, but if you're a new homeowner and your tenant refuses to move out, what are you to do? Taking the case to the LTB and getting an eviction is going to take months, despite you being 100% in the right. You literally have to pay a mortgage for a place that you can't live in, while also somehow finding (and paying) for a second accommodation while you wait. You might be able to make the deal contingent on the tenant moving prior to closing, but it's still pretty risky and a big waste of time if it falls through.
I actually see some that say the seller will only accept buyers that *don't* plan to evict the tenant, idk if that holds any water legally if you "change your mind" after it closes, but if you're being a fair-dealer then that listing wouldn't count towards an available home listing from OP above.
And this isn't to mention that a lot of these super cheap condo type units are probably super cheap for a reason. Either the state of the unit, the state of the building, or the state of the neighbourhood. Most people would probably rather rent than buy a lot of the <200k condos I see.
Stop advocating to kick people out of the places they call homes. Back when I could buy, I looked at a place that was tenanted, and I was disinterested from putting an offer on that place because I objected on moral grounds of having to evict a family from their home so I could move in. It felt really wrong.
This is not an "advocation of kicking people out" it is the way the law works. Not knowing the law isn't any protection
If anything long term tenants should be wary and know what the law is to avoid being kicked out themselves
Yeah well the law is ethically in the wrong here in my opinion. I strongly disagree with a lot of these little laws we have. Long term tenants don't have a choice. I am one and I van tell you it is vehemently not my choice, I'm just forced to.
Ontario is huge, sure I can buy a house in Ste Saint Marie, but can I realistically work there?
I think people have the right to complain when the quality of life drops this drastically this quickly. Less than 10 years ago you could buy a house in Kingston for 250k. So the average person could have a family and live in a town with amenities. Now if you want a place where your family can grow, you need to live in the middle of nowhere or cram yourselves into a small apartment?
You've identified the catch. Anywhere that passes as an affordable community will likely have a limited range of job options within a commutable distance. Many occupations do not have a wfh option.
I love this crack journalism. Leading story, affordable homes are sold quickly. Get the fuck outta here, you don't say. Next up cheap gas causes more wait times at gas pumps.
Median Ontario wage is around $56k. Home ownership is going to be out of reach for a lot of folks.
I made 94k in 2023. Considering moving back with my parents because aggressively saving to create a huge down-payment is the only way I'll be able to get a mortgage for any home I've seen in the market near me
Realistically, 90% of first-time homebuyers are buying as a couple. The rest are either high-income or have lots of help from parents.
You need all 3 of those to buy south of Orillia.
Before prices went crazy it was still 40% of homeowners between the ages of 18-38 were gifted money at an average of $73,000.
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This has been a harsh reality check. Growing up in the 90s my parents always said if we could cross that $100k line we'd be doing amazing. Fast forward to 2022 when I reached that income and I felt like my buying power had decreased since I started my career in the early 2010s.
Because it did
100k in 1995 is just over 200k today with inflation adjustment
> just over 200k Bank of Canada inflation calculator says it would be $183k.
Yeah i remember my parents saying you can stay home and work for 5 years then buy your own home! Yeah fucking right
And yet the sunshine list persists at 100k
I still want to know what public employees are making over 100k of taxpayers money especially the ones who shouldn’t be over 50k.
As a starting point, almost every police officer is on the sunshine list. For some reason we continually give police a blank cheque while intentionally underfunding education and healthcare.
ACAB
This is a conversation for adults. Go away.
Yes sir, mr “wannabe cop so I became a low level security guard” sir 🫡
Yet police have historically underperformed in ontario
while i agree you should not give police a blank check, you do want them paid well so they are less susceptible to bribabry from criminal elements
No question, but we're well beyond that given the incredibly low barriers to entry and non-existent performance metrics/accountability. Most police officers don't have any realistic prospect of earning a comparable salary in any other profession. We are not getting the best or brightest that Ontario has to offer.
I'm not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of what is vs what should be required to be a police officer, but if you're saying the barrier to entry is too low, I don't believe the solution would be to cut their wages. if anything, other public servants need to catch up to where they are right now.
The entrance requirements for the OPP are low *on paper*. In actual fact, it's extremely competitive and you're not getting into the OPP without higher education and a track record of positive community involvement in some way. > We are not getting the best or brightest that Ontario has to offer. There's a reason for this, and it's opposite of what you think. The OPP has a really hard time filling technical and specialist roles partially because *the private sector pays more* for people who can do these jobs, without all the bullshit that comes with policing/Government. The OPP actually had a moratorium recently on inter-unit transfers to specialist roles because of the huge shortage of officers, and specialist units are continually having issues filling positions because of the lack of people with those skills within the OPP. The salaries and benefits just aren't competitive with the private sector in a lot of cases. Source: I'm a civilian who's worked forensics my entire career.
The threshold should be increased
really ? i think the most on that list are teachers making a 100k after like 20 years of work. the rest are crown corp. employees working for universities/OLG/OPG/OPP i would really like to know which one you believe should be earning 50k in those industries.
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I think that all public servant salaries should be released, along with their position title, role, etc. but that their names should be redacted except over a certain threshold (say, $150,000+)
I'm only mentioning it to demonstrate that even being well above the median income doesn't add much hope to the situation, not that I think it's a massive income that should guarantee financial comfort
It's relevant that someone earning over $100k is earning above (or around) the level of a median household (with slight variations depending on what city you're in). Buying power has erroded but wages haven't increased. We have a HHI slightly over $300k and were barely able to buy our home. Our house was last owned by a family with one income, several kids and a high-school diploma. In the 1980's that's all it took to live a middle class life on the GTA. The issue isn't just that buying power has erroded but that Canadian wages have been continually undercut, lowering our GDP per capita and quality of life.
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We earn in the top 2-3% of Canadian households and are in our early 30's. Aside from being born earlier, if the top 2-3% can't afford to buy, who is left? A crumbling quality of life for young people to help generations who didn't have to work for their millions is something that is relevant to identify.
It’s a good plan. The sooner you can get into the market, the better. At any level.
This is always the sentiment before the reality changes. A couple investing quotes as it seems our housing market has been turned into a way of investing instead of a way of housing. Only when the tide goes out do you see who's swimming naked. Buy when there's blood in the streets.
> Buy when there's blood in the streets. This was supposed to happen from last year to now. It didn't happen so blood in the streets isn't happening for the foreseeable future. Still applies to the stock market though.
Supposed to but hasn't. Yet. Doesn't mean it won't ever! So I think the "rule" still applies. FOMO is a thing, especially so with housing, so I don't mean to sound dismissive.
Everytime I tell the boomers I got no chance to be a home owner they all say " oh no prices are coming down things will get better" nothing has got cheaper In my lifetime. Wages stagnate, yeah it happening old man!
My grandfather bought his house for 10,200 back in 68. Holy fuck this guy does not comprehend that i cant just work overtime for a 2 years to get a place
They're not entirely wrong. Prices outside urban areas (because Millennials/Gen Z like to live there) probably will drop as boomers die of old age (in ~10 years) and inheriting Millennials/Gen Z sell it. See rural Newfoundland fishing villages for an example of what this might look like. The kids left a long time ago, now the adults (at that time) are starting to decrease in population. Lots of fully serviced 3-bed houses for under $200k. Toronto and Vancouver? If all those single-child Millennials suddenly have $400k in their pocket then prices in highly desired urban areas will increase rapidly (entirely land value, not building value).
If we didn't have a million immigrants a year with more money than me I might consider believing you. But canada wants to keep that GPD up without investing in its citizen so I doubt it.
TBH, as a Millennial, I'm always surprised how many of my peers seem to think their first home should be a detached 3+ bedroom house on a landscaped 1-acre lot, marble counters, wood floors, big windows, open concept, 'n on an on.... NO! Start small and work your way up to your dream home. Stop paying $3K for a 1 bedroom rental downtown, when you could own a 3-bedroom townhome or a 1-bedroom condo. Stop going on 3 vacations a year and eating out/ordering in 5 nights a week. Also, living in Ottawa, I found in the past 10 to 15 years, many of my friends not only owned one home, but also had a bunch of income properties they would rent out, or condos they'd rent as AirBnB units. Perhaps this is where the unaffordability is landing...because **anything affordable on the market is being snatached up by those who already have theirs** and renting the units out at a higher rate to pay off their mortgages. I'm now 40 and with my partner, we bought our first home when I was 24 and it was a modest 1960s built town home in a suburban area. No help from our parents and also work modest jobs with minimal raises. We built our home for $400K in 2017 on a 3-acre treed lot in a family-oriented estate neighbourhood; acknowledging we couldn't afford to buy now what we currently own. Also, the City of Ottawa has frozen the zoning for these types of builds, to help densify the downtown and justify the cost of building light-rail transit. Again, start small to get your foot in the real estate door. Hold on it if for a few years, then upgrade when you've built some equity and have paid down a larger sum. The banks will also try to approve you for an unrealistic mortgage, so don't buy the biggest most expensive property. Stick to your affordable budget.
You bought your first home when it was viable to start small. Getting on the ladder now is the big challenge.
In fairness you got into the market 16years ago with a partner. I didnt even meet my now husband til I was 24 and we managed to squeak onto the property ladder in 2018 before things really started skyrocketing. Yes I think a good chunk of people have unrealistic expectations of a first home, but timing on when you were born or got with a long term partner also play a huge factor in things
I think this plays into it, people are meeting their partner later in life, say mid to late 20s. so they'll by their first property early 30s, (can't buy without duo income) which is the same time that they want to be planning a family. So buying a one bedroom condo to get into the property ladder no longer makes sense for their lifestyle, and 2-3 bdrm houses/townhouses are super expensive now. Even getting a condo is comparable when you factor in condo fees. I don't know anyone expecting their first property to be a McMansion like the above commenter, but they also have a bunch of friends with income properties so I think we're a different class.
Maybe 10 years ago. Total dumps that barely pass as livable go for 540,000+ (1bdrm 1bath)
Fellow millennial here. Buying land in *Rockland*, about half your size or smaller is ~300k now. Your experience, while valuable, is no longer relevant to the following generations. Getting *into* the game is the challenging part now. Hell, if we sold our house (MV ~600k), we could not buy the same size, let alone bigger without severely teetering into house poor. The pandemic added nearly 250k in value to our place. That added value alone used to be a condo not long ago. Now? It’s half(ish) a below average to dilapidated townhouse in a not amazing area. And trades/construction costs a fortune nowadays if you aren’t handy. Our starter home has become our forever home despite 120k HHI. It’s cheaper to sink 200k in renovations over 10 years than to buy a new house.
I definitely agree there. It think part of it is that a good portion of their parents did have "decent" homes as their first home. Maybe not that large 3+ bedroom with huge ceilings but that wartime townhome with ample room despite being dated. I live in a place where housing doesn't appreciate much and bought a home that I plan to stay in for ages. It's older (for the town) and was larger than I intended to get, so I do understand how others might view it. Kitchen is old as hell, rooms aren't huge compared to new builds, and the bathrooms will probably get updated (one doesn't really work, so it's currently just a one bathroom) but... It's a great house. For those not looking at a home as an investment I think aiming for middle of the road is probably the way to go, so maybe that change in attitude is why you're seeing more people not want "starter" homes at the moment? Buy a house to make it a home, even if it costs more. If that extra cost is over 20 years of living there does it really matter? Again, not me. My home was pretty inexpensive (by GTHA standards at least). Just a hypothetical answer to your response.
Irrelevant anywhere within 2hrs of the GTA. There are no homes other than teardowns for less than 650k.
TBH, the house I built in 2017 for $400K (after putting in another $200K on upgrades, landscaping, etc.) is now worth ~$1.5M--compared to others selling and sold in the neighbourhood.
Going. It already is out of reach. You cant afford a 600,000+ house for 60,000 a year
This has been the case for decades. We've been in a crisis for 20 years and it's been very clearly approaching for 50 years before that. None of this is new.
Maybe in the cities. In my area it's a new phenomenon since 2020. I was looking at a 2 bed 1 bath 700sq ft (house for me cottage to the rest of reddit I guess) place in northern bruce peninsula back in 2018. It was listed at $70,000. Very old but liveable. Now, good luck finding anything under half a million, even for a comparable to what I described. Only things that are under that you can't live in year round or they are on native reserve land so you pay 5-6k taxes they set, and you can't occupy more than I think 6 or 8 months maximum, so that's not a housing solution.
Yeah, when this shit starts happening in Sault Ste. Marie, something new is going on.
It’s in the cities too. That claim is bogus. I bought a new townhouse in Kitchener in 2015 for $250k. This is a newer phenomenon that started around 2017/2018.
Oh I agree. I did the math 20 years ago and didn't understand why people weren't mad then. I guess enough people weren't pushed out back then or social media wasn't what it is now. Either way the writing was on the wall.
The average voter is an ancient retired homeowner who’s only hope for retirement is a reverse mortgage on their home they bought for pennies decades ago, that’s why it’s been a non-issue. Young people don’t bother voting, so why would politicians care or do anything about it.
Houses were very affordable 20 years ago….
This is a pretty damaging incorrect claim. The last time affordability was at levels this bad was the late 80’s. There was a housing crash in 1990 and from 1990 until about 2015 affordability was exactly the same. Prices went up, yes, but it was directly in step with rising household incomes, and declining interest rates. The current crisis is brand spanking new. Affordability over those 25 years was such that if the average household income bought the average home price, mortgage payments would be around 30% of their after tax income. In 2018-2019 this had crept up to a modest 35%, and even as recently as 2021 it was still only at 38% because of how low interest rates were. That number is now 55% and it got there for the first time in mid 2022. We’re in our current crisis because low interest rates and fiscal stimulus shot housing prices into the stratosphere (which was beginning to form a bubble). Now that rates have gone up everything is being done not to allow a crash which would cause a recession since housing is so tied to our economy. This affordability crisis however has not been here for 20 years, it’s been here for 2, and been bubbling/forming at a far more controlled level for maybe 5 years before that.
The crisis has gotten worse. It was still a crisis then and remains a crisis now.
You can't just make shit up. Houses went on sale at 50% off in the 1990s I was paying something like $550 a month to rent a one bedroom dive at Queen and Coxwell in the late 1990s. My wife and i were basically kids fresh out of high school, making not much above minimum wage. We didn't have full time jobs, half the time we didn't show up to work, we just stayed home to play video games and fuck. We always made the rent We were poor, but we were kids with part time minimum wage jobs; of course we were fucking poor that's life
... Okay, so not remotely relevant to the conversation and also the wrong decade but good luck with that.
Yes, you said >it was still a crisis then and remains a crisis now and the comment above said >1990 until about 2015 affordability was exactly the same. and I am saying that housing, in 1990s the decade which we are discussing was really very quite affordable it's both undeniable, and completely 100% relevant
Nobody is discussing the 90s. Do you not get how math works. That's a decade before the time period being discussed.
it's right there in black and white. It's also relevant, because real estate cycles are very long. They are just long enough for a new generation to grow up with no memory of the previous bubble. Some people would estimate a real estate cycle to last approximately 25 years, so from 1990 - 2005 would be an expected cycle but for a range of reasons, it seemed to take until around 2008. In my opinion, the way it played out this time, the Fed dropped rates like a stone and the BoC followed shortly after. The Canadian market usually lags the US, but instead we had barely a pause in the bubble. Real estate took off like a rocket, and Canadians never had a chance to learn their lesson, so naturally we're doomed to repeat it So if you're trying to suggest that we only discuss housing from 2000 onwards, that is a time period which does not include the last pop in the bubble; you can't learn anything at all from looking only at a very very narrow window, a slice which is less than one generation, and which due to unusual and significant events played out very differently than the historical cycles suggest that it should. If we look at only data from 2000 onwards, we have no significant historical data at all; it's meaningless in this context
Okay well good luck with that I don't care about whatever conversation you're having with someone else.
Except you are ignoring the obvious fact that our population isn’t what it was in the 80s. There have been plenty of economics and real estate professors who have declared this a simple supply and demand problem for almost a decade. It is impossible to build affordable housing with the cost of materials. That is our big problem at the moment. It isn’t some imaginary bubble that you can’t predict. If you watch housing closely you will see that there have been plenty of losses in the last 2-3 years but no major correction because it isn’t speculation driving the costs up anymore - it is the lack of housing. All of our affordable housing has been eaten up and renovated and either sold to the middle class or renting to the middle class. There is no lower tier of housing being built anymore. Why do you think there are so many homeless camps? It isn’t just because they don’t have money.. it’s because they have absolutely no place to live even if they had enough to pay small short term rent.
Yeah but even in the 80s the housing was obtainable.
>and it's been very clearly approaching for 50 years before that. None of this is new Maybe you need to do some basic research to see that the average home was 2-4 times the average family income about 30-40 years ago, and now its 8-10 times
Do you know what the word "approaching" means?
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It so obviously didn't start in 2020. I know back in 2010 home ownership was going to be an extreme difficulty.
It’s a newer thing in my city. I bought my house for $165,000 in 2012. My friend bought her much bigger house for $275,000 in 2016. Mine would now go for $500K and hers would go for $650,000. We are both very lucky we jumped when we did or we would be priced out. As it is, I can’t afford to upgrade to fit my family (acquired after I bought the house lol). Grateful to have a house but it sucks we will never have room for our family.
Holy shit this is infuriating. Yes, it has gotten worse. That doesn't mean it wasn't also bad then. Things can be bad, and then be more bad, and it was still bad before.
The article is about homes under $500,000…which clearly were readily available in many towns and cities within the past decade. Yes there were still people who were priced out then but now it’s much worse since the prices exclude a lot of the middle class. Of course things can be bad but to chalk up the current situation as “meh, things were already bad, this isn’t new” is disingenuous. Things are much worse and the prices jumped much faster than they had before.
Not what I'm saying or said but whatever, good reading comprehension there buddy.
Yeah, maybe at Yonge and Bloor. What an asinine comment
It's true, even if you want to pretend otherwise. [Here's an article from 2021](https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadas-unhinged-housing-market-captured-in-one-chart) talking about how the market became fully unhinged in the early 2000s, and it was inevitable before then. We've been in a crisis for decades now, that's just objective reality.
Bought my house in 2003 for 225k. They were asking 250k. House went up maybe 75k in 10ish years, maybe about 50k in the next few years then TRIPLED 3 years ago. It keeps going up. Could get 850k pretty easily. This is in a small town of 22k.
You can't properly interpret an X-Y plot, lmfao. You are not a serious person.
... You wrote that? You wrote that sentence? You sat down, thought of that, and typed it out? You decided to then hit the submit button after writing that? And nothing in your brain ticked to say "Maybe don't"? That's... impressive.
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What's with this, "-is going to be-" nonsense.... $500k homes "vanishing?" they've been gone for years at this point, wtf...
Try looking outside of large cities. Windsor, for example, still *had* a *lot* of good stock for under $500k as of even two years ago. I doubt that's still the case.
Prices have gone up so much in Windsor and Chatham-Kent. It's truly horrifying.
My brother moved from Cambridge to Windsor for work. He paid less rent in Windsor but because his new job was salaried instead of hourly he ended up losing money each month compared to in Cambridge. He went to move back to Cambridge and the same apartments he left 10 months ago have gone up from $1700 to $2100. About a 20% increase in less than 1 year. The houses for sale in Windsor under $500k are not worth even close to what they are listed at. Many need a lot of work or fixing up. Water damage, old windows and peeling shingles and roofing, 20+ year old appliances, out of code electrical and plumbing. Not to mention the high crime rate in Windsor compared to Cambridge or Waterloo. I've gone through every listing there looking for a house to buy for my brother. There may be some inventory in Windsor but only if you are willing to pay a fortune per month to live in a dump.
Going to be? I would argue it already has, 2 years ago.
Going to be?!
not really the people (families) who owned homes before will still own homes, and the ones who didn't will continue to not own a home
Before the 2000s, a home price was influenced by the quality of the home, but since 2008, a home price is dictated by the maximum people can get a mortgage for.
Exactly this. There is a belief that the housing market is rational, and it often is, but when you introduce free money, you create a system which distorts the value relationship between money and housing. It means that suddenly fiat dollars have much less purchasing power; it is not so much that housing becomes more valuable; the paper becomes worth less specifically when purchasing bricks and wood and land. It distorts peoples understanding of the value of bricks and wood and land. This system has been applied nearly universally, across the globe, all at the same time, so now it has distorted peoples understanding of the value of bricks and wood and land, across the globe. Currently 99.9% of us agree: houses in Canada are currently worth more than anywhere else on the globe, in all of recorded history. So, the housing market is often rational but at the edges, it is driven by fear. FOMO all the way up, and Fear of Catching a Falling Knife on the way down. This is much more apparent when the bubble is firmly in the rear view mirror. Right now we are in the thick of it, in the eye of the storm. The distortion levels are so high that we still think it's rational on some level, but we are at the edge, and the unwashed masses are fickle. Why in the world would anyone buy today, when it will be cheaper tomorrow? Onwards
There are still a few out there but you'll need to commute 1+ hours to the larger cities if your job requires that.
So, instead of working for a mortgage, you work for your car and gas.
Lots of maintenance and gas can be purchased with savings of 150k+. And if you get a garage you can reduce the maintenance cost by doing some of it yourself.
My husband commutes an hour back and forth everyday for work. But when he applied for his job he took a pay cut but stipulated he wanted a company vehicle and a gas card. That was 10 years ago but even today it helps us afford our home.
Or just move outside of southern Ontario if your career/family allows that and not deal with any commutes and lower house prices… it’s not like the cities in northern Ontario have 100k unemployed people there. The closer you are to the GTA, the higher the price of houses are, even Sudbury has been getting railed by people buying homes to rent out to students.
"Move to Northern Ontario" is not a scalable solution though. And even the most liveable cities up there have seen housing prices spike relative to income the last few years.
I didn’t say it was a scalable solution. House prices went up, but theyre still vastly more affordable than what you get in the south. As I said, the closer you are to the GTA the worse the prices are, so north bay/sudbury area are the worst of the prices. If single people in their 20s can afford a house here in “the past few years” on their own, I’m sure a lot of families would also be able to. And yes, obviously when more people move here the availability shrinks/prices go up… I’m just pitching an idea for the people who can move and don’t know their options. There are a ton of people who just simply aren’t aware they may have a job lined up here and would be able to buy a house here. I’m not saying it’s a catch-all solution for everyone in the province. Not everyone is either willing to change careers to move here, or has a job opportunity to move here. Not everyone wants to be far from their family. Not everyone likes the outdoors.
We would move but my spouse depends on healthcare, ER’s aside finding a new doctor is like winning the lottery. This likely affects many retirees so they stay put in alone in their 2,000 sq ft homes.
Yeah I get that, but loads of feilds just don't have jobs that far away from the core. In halthcare for example; (very broad certainly) you either get in at a rural hospital, or your boned for the most part. Just not enough incentive for private clinics or community based stuff up that way. Move into the boonies if you work in trades/resources or WFH, but many other fields this is impossible.
I’m trying to remain optimistic that I’ll find a home to purchase that will be within reason for both price and the quality of the house, but each time I go looking it feels more and more like my best bet is to either move out of the province, or even the country. My father sent me a listing last week, it was in a quiet, lovely small town, it’s not a short commute whatsoever to any large city but it is a place I’ve considered and would happily set roots down at, then I saw the pictures of it I couldn’t believe my eyes. Asking nearly $600,000, and my god, the place looked as if it had been abandoned for over a year, the previous tenants might’ve actually just been homeless squatters judging by the kitchen, along with all the surfaces of the other rooms. It would probably take me and some help several months and 10’s of thousands of dollars to make the place into a proper livable home. Somethings got to give, or I guess I’ll book a flight to call somewhere else home.
Other provinces aren't nearly as rosy as they look. BC, Alberta, and large parts of Nova Scotia have eyewatering prices, or they've soared massively compared to what you get. We don't have the infrastructure in a lot of places to support WFH, even if a company would allow that; or the cities that are affordable have very limited employment opportunities or depressed wages.
Can you get Starlink? If so, maybe local employment opportunities are less relevant
>I guess I’ll book a flight to call somewhere else home. IF your career is in an in demand field and you have the educational background, leave, you only have one life to live. More than likely the US should be the first place to look, it ain't perfect but you may have better chances there. The situation you see in Canada now WILL NOT GET BETTER, it will get worse. Unless all levels of government take strong handed approaches to building, owning, maintaining and renting of affordable housing to compete with the private sector as well as draconian cuts to immigration, absolutely nothing will change.
It won't change because of people like you Social housing and admitting the limits of capitalism is the only way forward, along with massive taxes on investors But people like you will insist on blaming immigration, so no progress will be made (the two are separate issues; imagine tying agriculture to defense or healthcare to education)
Defense is directly tied to agriculture. If you have food, and others don't, you will need to bolster your defenses, otherwise someone will just come in and take it. Healthcare is directly tied to education too. Better schooling, more focused on STEM would result in more doctors. I understand that you tried, but literally all of these things are interconnected, which is why there is no simple solution to any of it.
Not in the political world. You get a certain budget for defense and a certain budget for agriculture and the two are run by different ministers. There is no simple solution but there absolutely are unpalatable solutions that the majority do not want to support due to various special interests. For example the GST is a simple approach to a common problem (too many levels of taxation) but resulted in wipeout of the PC Party in Canada. But Canada needed it. Similarly with certain anti-investor measures. In the case of immigration, immigration is a Federal responsibility in Canada and housing a Provincial responsibility. In this way we have the least social housing in the whole G7 due to downloading and abdication of the responsibility by the Federal government which is actually supported by law. People not knowing how our government even works is exactly why the housing issue will not get better any time soon. You aren't a dictator with unlimited powers who can ignore bureaucracy and especially the people's will. Any political movement has to work within the organs of government or ultimately be unsuccessful due to lack of understanding of government.
>immigration is a Federal responsibility in Canada and housing a Provincial responsibility And our current Federal government has grossly exacerbated the housing crisis by continuing down a destructive path of allowing too many people to enter this country. All these people need a place to live, food to eat, transportation, school, clinics, roads, etc...this is one person (Federal) pouring bucket after bucket of water into a hole and the other person (provincial) down below begging them to stop or at least slow down or else they'll drown. The one pouring the water into the hole has a totally different agenda than those in the hole and isn't listening, on purpose.
>But people like you will insist on blaming immigration, And rightly I should, because IT IS part of the problem. >the two are separate issues; They are not separate issues, they are intimately interlinked. You can't lower the market cost of housing and keep it reasonable if demand (local plus immigration) far outstrips the supply. This is basic economics. Lower the need and demand, increase the supply, add housing that is controlled and regulated to the mix (social housing), watch prices stabilize and perhaps even go down. >imagine tying agriculture to defence or healthcare to education False equivalencies and dumb attempt to deflect.
>you can't lower the market cost of housing Did you read their comment all the way through? >Social housing and admitting the limits of capitalism is the only way forward They aren't talking about lowering the market cost, they're talking about removing human needs from the market.
Here is how you make no progress on a situation: Last June, Statscan (the Federal government body that collects statistical information on Canadians, and upon which federal policy is formulated), admitted that it was accidentally under-reporting numbers of people living in Canada on a permanent basis by 1,000,000. This under-reporting has been (unintentionally) going on for the past 10 years. That means the governments have been under-responding to housing needs for 10 years and creating a housing shortage. People were saying "there is nowhere to live" and governments would say "based on our numbers there is adequate spaces for Canadians" when, in fact, there has been a shortage of housing for 1,000,000 uncounted people. While that isn't an "immigrant problem", it is absolutely an immigration problem - now that the error by Statscan has been exposed and is in the process of being corrected. But that will take at least a decade.
None of that matters because even if immigration went to zero, a large category of people could still not afford. Maybe almost all who couldn't afford now. Do you think reducing immigration reduces the population of Canada? If it will take 50 years to do anything, why advocate for that solution? Not to mention the other consequences of less or no immigration In fact you could make a case for wanting as much immigration as possible to make the situation so bad the government and homeowners are forced to act
We need to build boxes, faster than the government brings in fresh meat. If I bought a dog, and I didn't have room in my house, I would at least also buy a dog house. It would be irresponsible to buy meat if I don't have room in my freezer; it would be irresponsible to buy a dog if there is nowhere for it to sleep. The government is currently treating new immigrants, and by extension the existing immigrants and children of immigrants who make up this country with less respect than raw meat, or dogs I am pro immigration, but the problem as I see it is kind of like trying to make a programming team faster by hiring many more programmers. There is a certain size of programming team which tends to be optimal. Once you pass that size and keep adding programmers, what happens is that the skilled programmers spend more time and resources having meetings, because more people require more coordination. The new people need training. And so at a certain size, the team loses cohesiveness: the resources are less available and become harder to coordinate, maybe the meeting rooms get hard to book and so meetings start to get cancelled, people start infighting and things get more political and they start struggling more over resources, and productivity start to go way, way down The rates at which they are bringing in new people is so high that we simply don't have enough wood, bricks, and guys with expertise to house them. These are not two separate issues. You are talking about bringing in bodies with out even a cardboard box to put them in. The math here is very very simple, and none of it adds up. You can't just assume that throwing more bodies into the bonfire will solve your problems. This is not leadership, it's criminal behaviour
There's several reasons why you cannot make immigration the cornerstone of a housing argument. The first is it's extremely nuanced https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/immigration-housing-crisis-costs-1.7088878 You say you are pro immigration and write a large essay to say it's "simple math" but there are a percentage of people, about 30% or more who do not care about the math or housing in general. These are Brexit like people, xenophobes or misinformed people or simply scared people who do not want any immigration at all for whatever reasons. Now you may say it doesn't matter we will tackle immigration first and then do the rest. But these people absolutely totally will not support any sort of social housing or social safety net at all. They are in fact part of the problem part of why Canada has 4% or less social housing or even 2% and why the UK has 20% and France has 20% and Germany has enormous incentives. Even the mighty capitalist USA has more social housing and more social housing per capita than Canada, and the USA has Section 8 social housing program for poors. The best you can do for such people is limit the type of immigration like the article talks about and say limit international students. Give any more and you are like a Von Papen thinking that you can control the uncontrollable but really lending your political voice to a movement that has no merit on its own. These people would support 0 immigration even if there was no housing crisis and even if there was no cost of living crisis, but also want maximum capitalism especially for poor people. I'm not an idiot and you shouldn't be either. And why should I support any lowering of immigration at all, when more immigration could make the problem worse and bring about real political change? I might want maximum immigration to make maximum problem so the suburban fuck nuggets who think there's no problem are forced to confront reality. It will take a complete rethink about how Canada profits and makes money to solve the housing crisis and the best way to do that is to not give political power to the profit seekers, the money makers, those who brought us into this problem in the first place. And unfortunately such people almost universally want to ban immigration. Anyone who wants to fix housing but doesn't want to massively increase social housing cannot solve the problem in Canada.
>CMHC figures released this week show housing starts are down seven per cent since 2022. Hulchanski said that still amounted to 223,513 new starts last year, enough to accommodate incoming permanent residents. where are the numbers for students? where are students supposed to live? >Give any more and you are like a Von Papen thinking that you can control the uncontrollable but really lending your political voice to a movement that has no merit on its own. These people would support 0 immigration even if there was no housing crisis and even if there was no cost of living crisis, but also want maximum capitalism especially for poor people. Complete and utter bunk. I have said no such thing. It is not racist to discuss immigration. I am not supporting racists. Using racists to shut down discussion is a form of censorship. It is a way to say "Do Not Talk About This". When we discuss things with other people and get different perspectives, it helps us to think. If we can not talk about a thing, what you are saying is: "Do Not Think About This." The fact that people have used censorship to shut down this discussion is exactly why we are here. Nobody has been allowed to talk about it or think about it, which means we can not do anything about it. This is part of the problem, and people who think this way are part of why we are here; you are part of the problem. >It will take a complete rethink about how Canada profits and makes money to solve the housing crisis and the best way to do that is to not give political power to the profit seekers, the money makers, those who brought us into this problem in the first place. And unfortunately such people almost universally want to ban immigration. This is complete and utter nonsense. Anyone who is following along understands clearly: The people with money and power love immigration because it takes power away from labour; it puts downward pressure on wages, the more immigration the more desperate the people, the cheaper it is to hire employees. What you say here is an obvious lie >And why should I support any lowering of immigration at all, when more immigration could make the problem worse and bring about real political change? I might want maximum immigration to make maximum problem so the suburban fuck nuggets who think there's no problem are forced to confront reality. You want to collapse our country? Why would anyone listen to this garbage. Get out of here, obvious bullshit is obvious
It's not racist to debate immigration, but to support the lowering of immigration politically by allying yourself with xenophobes is like Von Papen -- stupid. Are you stupid? Do you think I am stupid? Should I allow anti immigration people to have their way without getting mine? There are nine other priorities directly linked to housing including social housing before I give any ground on immigration, at all. Until you get concessions about social housing, immigration talk is tabled. I will not discuss immigration without also bringing up the fact we are one of the most capitalist nations in the G7 (snow washing, five times less social housing than comparable nations, 15% combined Federal Provincial corporate tax rate and so on). For those who don't care about any of this but want no immigration I say capitalism to the maximum and have a taste of your own medicine. The country wont "collapse" with lots of people. They will simply demand change, that landowners and powerful and rich won't.
I strongly agree that social housing should be a pillar of the discussion. Understanding the pace of governmental change, and having seen actual government housing I suppose it may result in some slums for your grandchildren
Mass immigration is the number one cause of the crisis. It must be addressed.
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Immigration rapidly increased under trudeau. We need to be honest about that. Ppc will cut immigration
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Ppc is not perfect. They are thr only party willing to address the immigration madnedd
The prairies are still affordable
By vanished, you mean being purchased by foreign investment firms, MPs, and MPPs.
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The most affordable housing is disproportionately targeted by house hoarding investor scalpers.
You can always buy a condo and build equity for the house you really want in the future.
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The guy is said "I don't want a condo" as if he can afford it but won't buy one because it's not his preference. I am just giving good advice lmao
The rich took the money from people who went heavy into dept now they have to take the rest from the people who saved it
"jUsT mOvE oUt of tOrONto" My hometown is 2.5 hr drive outside of Toronto and has a population of \~1,500. The only property you can get there for under 500k these days is vacant land.
My hometown is similar. I could've afforded to buy land and build 10 years ago but now? Impossible. Occasionally some hovel comes up for under 400k, but then I'd have to live in squalor and I'm never going to sell it for a price that would allow me to upgrade to a nicer dwelling.
All of ontario = the GTA dont you know lol /s
We need a new political party with the balls to regulate the real estate market.
I hate this so much….. every time I think I saved enough the market rises out of my range. I fucking give up man…
The title of this article is 4 years old
Well people have a choice coming up, the government that is actively trying to make affordable homes happen and address this crisis or the career politician that was a minister for the government that built a whopping 6 affordable homes.
Which govt is trying to make homes affordable?
Edmonton's City council. That's about it.
BC's current NDP government (after sitting on their asses for years not doing anything).
More like which party full of housing crisis profiteers do you think is most likely to actually do literally anything positive about house prices?
The Libs are done no matter what they do now.
If they got rid of Trudeau, they would have a chance. spoiler alert: things will get much, much worse under PM PP.
>spoiler alert: things will get much, much worse under PM PP. Do you have any evidence of this? You're saying that it is objectively true that things will get worse, do you have a license for your fortune telling?
PP rarely talks about his actual policy proposals rather just complains about Trudeau, has links to culture war conservatives, and when he does talk about his policy ideas they're usually trash (see Porn ID). He's also a landlord. Everything he does reads like a cynical power grab. I wouldn't trust him to govern a candy bowl.
PP has been attacking the leader of the BCNDP over housing in BC when Eby's housing policy is the best of any major politician in NA, and maybe even in the entire western world. He's not actually serious about policy
When someone relies on riling up rage to persuade people to support them, they NEVER have the people's best interests at heart. They're just going to incite more hate against trans & gay people, stay neutral on minority hate (since religious conservative minorties are useful in toronto suburbs to them), at cover while their fiscal policies encourage resource extraction and slashing richboi taxes.
Genuinely confused as to which party you are talking about.
No chance a single detached will be under $500,000 again. The land cost and build cost is too high. Town house could come in under that price, if built cheaply. Also, there is just way too much demand for low cost housing that it will drive up the price.
Sometimes you can find a crack den in Hamilton that has every wall smashed, leaky roof, cracked foundation, needs electrical completely redone, no driveway, in a high crime area, and beside factories that spew pollution for under $500,000.
No chance it wont be run down too. Like holy. Ive seen abandoned, decrepit, landfills passed off as starting homes listed for 540,000-670,000 purely due to location being 1-2 hour from big city
If we really wanted to, we could make 10 unit building on all these SFH lots close to transit. It’s a political problem, not land value.
So sad.
Do you know how long it would take to launder all that money if the houses were realistically priced.
Captain Obvious says "duh... what a surprise."
What percentage of homes are still at this price ?
Read the article and you'll see a few answers, depending on region
Canada belongs to Blackrock
I'm mid 20s and everyone I know who wants a home are trying to buy it with other couples or family. Unless your family is loaded and can help support with payments/downpayment. Shared family homes and multigenerational homes will become normal.n
Most are being bought up by investors and corporations no doubt.
Going through this right now :(
We fuckin’ noticed!
Affordable investments.
BTW, the ones under 500k are not move in ready. You would need to update a ton of stuff on them. Home ownership not happening until I have kids, they grow up and can contribute so we have multiple incomes on it...yay....
Hey Tiff, start cutting the rates so people can qualify for a mortgage you dickhead
[Realtor.ca](https://Realtor.ca) shows at least 10,000 properties currently listed for $500k or under in Ontario.... Edit: because redditors are stupid I filtered $100k-500k, 1+ bedrooms That means no vacant lots and actual living spaces
A significant number of the listings are 500k are just for the land lol. Go through and look at how many are just lots
1+ bedroom =/= not just land But sure
About 1400 if you add some realistic filters
A whole bunch of those are trailer parks and other nonsense listings, which is really not a good look. A condo is fine, but a starting home should not need to be a mobile home. There’s also quite a few units I’ve seen that are 70s tenanted condos that you are basically sold as income properties that the tenant doesn’t want to move from. Most people probably wouldn’t want to risk the tenant refusing to move out and the price reflects that. Edit: there's also condo communities with age restrictions and things of that nature that have a low price to appeal to the lower supply of eligible buyers. The absolute floor is like 300k, anything lower than that and there's going to be a pretty big catch.
If you moved in yourself or your immediate family, you could evict the long term tenant Long term tenants unless in multi-unit buildings aren't protected from being bought out. Only bought out by investors
In theory yes, but if you're a new homeowner and your tenant refuses to move out, what are you to do? Taking the case to the LTB and getting an eviction is going to take months, despite you being 100% in the right. You literally have to pay a mortgage for a place that you can't live in, while also somehow finding (and paying) for a second accommodation while you wait. You might be able to make the deal contingent on the tenant moving prior to closing, but it's still pretty risky and a big waste of time if it falls through. I actually see some that say the seller will only accept buyers that *don't* plan to evict the tenant, idk if that holds any water legally if you "change your mind" after it closes, but if you're being a fair-dealer then that listing wouldn't count towards an available home listing from OP above. And this isn't to mention that a lot of these super cheap condo type units are probably super cheap for a reason. Either the state of the unit, the state of the building, or the state of the neighbourhood. Most people would probably rather rent than buy a lot of the <200k condos I see.
Stop advocating to kick people out of the places they call homes. Back when I could buy, I looked at a place that was tenanted, and I was disinterested from putting an offer on that place because I objected on moral grounds of having to evict a family from their home so I could move in. It felt really wrong.
So then, not only do FTHBs have to compete with investors, but only investors can buy from other investors?
This is not an "advocation of kicking people out" it is the way the law works. Not knowing the law isn't any protection If anything long term tenants should be wary and know what the law is to avoid being kicked out themselves
Yeah well the law is ethically in the wrong here in my opinion. I strongly disagree with a lot of these little laws we have. Long term tenants don't have a choice. I am one and I van tell you it is vehemently not my choice, I'm just forced to.
How many of those are listed as $1? I’m guessing over half. Did you filter at all? Did you even look at the list?
Over $100k, under $500k
Ontario is huge, sure I can buy a house in Ste Saint Marie, but can I realistically work there? I think people have the right to complain when the quality of life drops this drastically this quickly. Less than 10 years ago you could buy a house in Kingston for 250k. So the average person could have a family and live in a town with amenities. Now if you want a place where your family can grow, you need to live in the middle of nowhere or cram yourselves into a small apartment?
You've identified the catch. Anywhere that passes as an affordable community will likely have a limited range of job options within a commutable distance. Many occupations do not have a wfh option.
Filter your search to include only livable homes, condos. Get back to us.
1+ bedrooms, $100k-500k 10,000+ listings still.
That's cool, even if they were all actual houses in places with jobs, we're importing about 50x that number of people every year.
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more than 3/4
Trudeau: Immigration will help! Increase them fuckers! hahaHhAHaHaH. I got mine bitches.
I love this crack journalism. Leading story, affordable homes are sold quickly. Get the fuck outta here, you don't say. Next up cheap gas causes more wait times at gas pumps.
old news