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Not sure where senior lawyers make $150k. I'm in tech and junior employees are $100k+ in Atlanta, senior employees are $180k+ there, I don't even want to think what would happen if I had to hire in California.
This doesn't change the fact that my neighbor bought his house for $200k in 2008 from a bank and it's now north of $1kk. Chances are my household income is higher than his but he's in totally different net worth category.
So much of life is just based on where you live.
I'm from a small town in northeast TN. Until around the pandemic, being able to "make money" on a house, adjusted for inflation, was no guarantee.
My parents bought their house in 1998. Adjusted for inflation, they had no net gain on the value of the property until 2018. It's rocketed up since then.
I bought in 2019 - since then, my property is up 60%-70%. 2009-2019 would have been a small gain.
Contrast that to someone in coastal WA, CA, MA, etc. Those houses in 1980 or 1990 might have been twice or three times as expensive as here - today, that multiple is probably four or five times. Those people have had huge gains to their net worth simply by virtue of being in the "correct" area compared to flyover country. They have options we don't have.
This is where pumping up stonk prices goes wrong.... It leaves asset holders concentrating their wealth even more and prices non asset holders out of the system. When boomer parent has $300k to give kids for down payment because the markets remain perpetually overvalued, it disadvantages those without this built up net worth. QE is welfare for the rich. Stocks have been "overvalued" for over a decade now because of modern monetary theory and basically stay that way.
Young people earning six figure incomes can’t even buy 1 bedroom condos in Ontario, Canada right now.
This is the direct result of a fiscally irresponsible federal government who imposed an impotent carbon tax compounded by out-of-control spending that drove inflation rates to 40 year highs, then exacerbated the problem by bringing over three million immigrants to a country that currently has less housing starts than it did in 1973. In addition to that, more and more retirees are choosing to stay in their own house, rather than downgrading to move to a costly retirement home. This is causing supply to shrink even further than it did 40 years ago when life expectancies were far shorter than they are today.
It really should not come as a surprise to anyone. The most basic rule of any economic system states that when demand outstrips supply, prices will increase. Furthermore, they will continue to increase until this ratio is equalized or reversed. Sadly, Canada would need to build an additional 5 million homes by 2030 to return prices to an affordable level (based on current demand). Unfortunately, we do not have close to enough tradesmen to actually accomplish such a feat.
We bought a 3 bedroom bungalow 60 minutes from downtown Toronto in 2010 for 250K. Over the last eight years, we watched the value of the home climb to 1.2 million at the height of the COVID buying frenzy. Today, the average price of a three bedroom detached bungalow in my city is $926,975.
Last edited by MickIlhenney; 12-28-2023 at 11:45 AM..
There’s some truth to Trudeau’s Liberal government being responsible for exacerbating this problem, but it was already bad under Harper and it’s just gotten worse during Trudeau’s tenure.
It really is a global problem, hence most posters discussing it here being American as they’re experiencing similar issues in most of the United States.
Australia is in as bad of shape affordability wise as Canada is and they were governed by the Liberal Party (Australia’s centre right party, equivalent to our Conservative Party) for 9 of the last 10 years. It’s really hard to cast blame on one governing party at one level of government when this is a global issue. You’re right though, I’m disappointed by the LPC and Trudeau’s inaction. They should have been putting the policies they’re discussing now in place 8 years ago when they first got into power.
I can't speak to Canada, but much of the southwest US has reasonable priced homes. Not necessarily cheap, but affordable.
As far as income, get a job with the VA [Veterans Affairs]. Get your CNA license, and you can get hired, albeit with a lot of documentation. Just know you will have to work nights, weekends, holidays and 12 hour shifts. Sure the initial pay is low at first, but keep doing it, show up on time every time, and you can progress. Work for a year, and if you get accepted for nursing school, the VA will PAY for it while you work part time.
There is a VA hospital in San Antonio, as well as Kerrville.
There are lots of ways to skin a cat.
Or you can go in the military, and they will provide housing or pay you a housing allowance. Yeah, it's no fun sometimes [maybe a lot of the time], but but it's better than just typing away on a forum complaining how unfair it is.
Oh, and as a veteran in the military, you can get a VA loan with NO DOWN PAYMENT!
Anyway, it is up to you to change your circumstances, the world at larger is not going to change for you.
PS, read the frugal living forum for tips on how to save money.
There’s some truth to Trudeau’s Liberal government being responsible for exacerbating this problem, but it was already bad under Harper and it’s just gotten worse during Trudeau’s tenure.
It was nowhere near this bad under Harper by any stretch of the imagination. Stop blaming the guy who brought the loonie on par with the greenback who hasn't been in office for eight years. The guy in charge now literally stated he does not believe in monetary policy and that "the budget will balance itself."
It really is a global problem, hence most posters discussing it here being American as they’re experiencing similar issues in most of the United States.
Yes. We have out of control immigration and they have a unrestricted migration pouring over their southern border. Both governments are acting very irresponsibly in that regard. However, housing affordability and unemployment levels remain much lower south of the border. In Europe, Germany is in a recession due to extremely shortsighted energy policies and an economic war with Russia. So while this may look like a global problem on the surface, there is no common denominator that is causing the issue worldwide.
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Australia is in as bad of shape affordability wise as Canada is and they were governed by the Liberal Party (Australia’s centre right party, equivalent to our Conservative Party) for 9 of the last 10 years.
Comparing the current government of Australia to the Canadian Conservative Party is the equivalent of comparing an apple to an ostrich egg. Australia had one of the most repressive mandates in the Free World during COVID and their government seems to be utterly incompetent at best. I have not seen a single policy that has been forced on the Australian populace that would be welcomed by either the Conservatives or Liberals in Canada.
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It’s really hard to cast blame on one governing party at one level of government when this is a global issue. You’re right though, I’m disappointed by the LPC and Trudeau’s inaction. They should have been putting the policies they’re discussing now in place 8 years ago when they first got into power.
Between Trudeau's (lack of any) monetary policy, out of control spending, needless carbon tax, neutering of the energy sector, lack of inaction on LNG exports to Europe, failed ability to ink trade agreements with China or India, and scandal after scandal that has cost the people of Canada countless billions in wasted tax dollars, and I can't fathom how you see this as a global problem. This is the expected result of electing an entitled trust fund kiddie who has never worked nor wanted for a single thing his entire life, and a Finance Minister who's sole qualifications consist of studying Russian literature and causing problems with the Russians as a student journalist in Ukraine.
Mick, yes there was some overlap with regards to Covid policy, but the Labour Party was actually only elected recently in Australia, in 2022. Most of the last 10 years have been under 3 successive Liberal (their centre right party) Party governments. They were very similar to the Harper Conservatives in terms of monetary and foreign policy, yet they also have one of the absolute worst housing crises in the entire world, like us. During the last few years of Harper’s tenure, I saw rents double from about 800 to ~1300/month in my area, and yes they have continued to rise since but you can’t blame it entirely on money printing (which the responsibility of the independent Bank of Canada that is a private corporation with no affiliation with the federal government). The carbon tax is an easy scapegoat but was first proposed in Canada by Harper’s contemporary Preston Manning and I, like probably most people actually make a profit on via the rebate cheques we all get. If you’re worried about spending getting out of control, imagine the hundreds of billions of dollars of damage if climate change isn’t put under control.
Right now the best government for dealing with our housing crisis is BC under the NDP which has banned restrictions on small apartment buildings by municipalities. I also supported Ford’s attempt to develop parts of the Greenbelt, which I probably stand alone in supporting as a liberal leaning person, but my point is I support any solutions from either side of the political aisle.
All Pollievre wants to do is attack Trudeau, he hasn’t proposed anything to tackle this that the federal government isn’t already doing.
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