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[StreetsofBeige]

Same here. People buy (used) premium cars and when even the most basic maintenance has to happen they start to moan how expensive everything is.
And then i'm like "you bought a BMW with an R6 engine, you should have known how much it cost to change the timing belt on that thing". And that is just maintenance, if the gearbox breaks down or you need some engine repairs they just sit down and cry

Yup.

That's because most people dont look into the details. At least, if someone has good money it's not the end of the world if you get burned with an eye popping bill.

This year alone I changed my water heater for $4000 and got to get new brakes and rotors for my Alfa which is about $2500. All CDN prices. $6500. It sucks and I'm a cheap fuck and dont like seeing my bank account go down in chunks (I always want my assets going up), but at the end of the day who cares about $6500. You got to do it sometimes. I can float it. A lot of other people would be going on some high interest financing plan or credit card debt at 20% because they bought a home and car over their heads and cant afford maintenance. They hope and pray what they buy is trouble free forever.

Live pay cheque to pay cheque skin of their teeth hoping there's never a rainy day needing a bucket of emergency cash.

 

[cash_longfellow]

BMW 3 series or that equivalent based on where I live.

BMW 3 series is middle class. What do you live in a golden palace or something?

 

[eddie4]

Here in Texas it's big trucks and small pee-pee's. A lot of trucks, lifted, lowered, super doody extra wide take over the road size.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Calculate what people can afford and then add 50% and that's what the average American seems to be buying lol

 

[IntentionalPun]

BMW 3 series is middle class. What do you live in a golden palace or something?

A 3 series can be had for $50k or so.

Honestly a lot cheaper than many of the trucks/suv's and mini-vans that dominate the road.

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

Seems true to me.

You wouldnt believe the number of people at my work who are about 30-35 and have BMWs, Mercedes or Audis, but cant afford anything more than a small condo.

I dont think the average person even knows that mortgage qualifications and amount depend on the banks comparing income vs. debt as a factor. No doubt some people think mortgages depend simply on what their gross salary is. The higher you make the more you get. Not true at all.

I think it's a bit ridiculous to think that someone purchased real estate, even if it is a small condo, and isn't aware that that income and debt are are factors in determining how much they can borrow. People are stupid, but not that stupid.

Housing unaffordability is multi faceted, but people taking out car loans is a small negligible part of it . When the average single family home in the GTA goes for $1.8 million, they weren't going to be able to afford that regardless of whether they leased the BMW. Even with no debts at all, the average income earner cannot afford that.

 

[Vicetrailia]

Seems true to me.

You wouldnt believe the number of people at my work who are about 30-35 and have BMWs, Mercedes or Audis, but cant afford anything more than a small condo.

I dont think the average person even knows that mortgage qualifications and amount depend on the banks comparing income vs. debt as a factor. No doubt some people think mortgages depend simply on what their gross salary is. The higher you make the more you get. Not true at all.

Home prices are insane, so no everyone feels it. It doesn't matter what you have asset wise. Where I live billionaires are pushing everyone one out. Motherfucking billionaires, shouldn't they go live in fucking space or something.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I think it's a bit ridiculous to think that someone purchased real estate, even if it is a small condo, and isn't aware that that income and debt are are factors in determining how much they can borrow. People are stupid, but not that stupid.

Housing unaffordability is multi faceted, but people taking out car loans is a small negligible part of it . When the average single family home in the GTA goes for $1.8 million, they weren't going to be able to afford that regardless of whether they leased the BMW. Even with no debts at all, the average income earner cannot afford that.

Nobody jumps from a condo to a $1.8M house in Toronto. That's meant for people with money as a single person or a dual income family who both make good money. Which brings me to another whiner point. A lot of them not only want good cars but also want an awesome bigger place in the core, often in that stretch of land from Park Lawn all the way east to the Beaches. Nothing cheap in that stretch. They can buy a small house in Brampton for the price of their condo, but they dont want to leave the area and complain the condo is so small and bigger properties are $2M+ where they are.

End of the day, someone can free up lots of savings if they dumbed down their car or lived in another part of town. If someone cant afford it, dont buy it.

I've never had issues. Even when I moved out for the first time living by myself, I was breaking even for years, but then amped up in changing jobs and promotions. Kept the same living standards and Honda Civic for ages. Zero worries. Thats how you build up cash. It then gets to a point, you got cash to invest and grow it which amps up money even more. Now if I took that boost in job money and right away sunk it into buying a new Lexus, guess what? There goes the savings.

If someone never tries to save money (housing and cars being two giant buckets which someone can get by dumbing it down), they'll never have enough. Historically, cars like BMWs and Mercedes and big houses are for people who are established, older and got money to spend. The traditional image is white haired old execs. Now, the target is young professionals. Big difference is one demographic is older and got tons of money to burn. The other doesn't but has enough to scrape by getting a pricey car loan. Grey haired 55 year old Bob the VP isn't worried. But somehow it got to point even 28 year olds gun for pricey cars and expensive plots of land they can barely afford. If someone or a couple want to lock themselves into a tiny pricey condo go ahead. But dont complain there's no other cheaper options. You can get condos and houses half the price in other parts of the GTA. But the young people want spiffy cars in prime location asap. Thats why so many are broke.

Old generations start low, save and spend later. New generations are start high as possible and hope nothing goes wrong.

 

[Billbofet]

Younger folks around me also seem to own a lot of Teslas. Now, I think that's all well and good, but those are expensive any way you slice it.
I feel like some around here see that as their only option - until they have one kid or one dog and then upgrade to the 12 mpg SUV for that one time a year they take their dog to the beach or their bike to the park.

 

[cash_longfellow]

A 3 series can be had for $50k or so.

Honestly a lot cheaper than many of the trucks/suv's and mini-vans that dominate the road.

A $50k car is out of middle class price range all day long. Well, I suppose it depends on other bills and family, etc. The low end to middle of middle class is between 70k and 120k or so. 70k with no family maybe. Idk, I suppose you are right in a way, hard to say unless we really have a legit steady number of what middle class mean…but it doesn’t look like there is one anymore.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

A $50k car is out of middle class price range all day long. Well, I suppose it depends on other bills and family, etc. The low end to middle of middle class is between 70k and 120k or so. 70k with no family maybe. Idk, I suppose you are right in a way, hard to say unless we really have a legit steady number of what middle class mean…but it doesn’t look like there is one anymore.

Canada and US are similar. The avg wages are around $55,000 (give or take pending the site you read although it can oddly swing $10,000 which seems like a big difference in methodolgy). But for sake of argument, $55k single person where a family with two incomes making the avg is $110,000.

But this site classifies it as this, which is a very wide range.

https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/family-finance/articles/where-do-i-fall-in-the-american-economic-class-system

If those numbers have your head spinning, here's a breakdown of income and class for a family of three:

INCOME GROUP	INCOME
Low income	Less than $52,200
Middle income	$52,200 - $156,600
Upper income	More than $156,600

 

[Pagusas]

Toyota Rav4s/highlanders

 

[cash_longfellow]

Canada and US are similar. The avg wages are around $55,000 (give or take pending the site you read although it can oddly swing $10,000 which seems like a big difference in methodolgy). But for sake of argument, $55k single person where a family with two incomes making the avg is $110,000.

But this site classifies it as this, which is a very wide range.

https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/family-finance/articles/where-do-i-fall-in-the-american-economic-class-system

If those numbers have your head spinning, here's a breakdown of income and class for a family of three:

INCOME GROUP	INCOME
Low income	Less than $52,200
Middle income	$52,200 - $156,600
Upper income	More than $156,600

Makes sense, thanks. I know me personally. I make just around $50k a year. I’m single, live by myself and my ‘19 Kia Forte perfectly fits in my budget…but I also have a mortgage and student loans, etc. So I could see $50k being possible as a family car, or even if I rented and didn’t have loans to pay as a single person.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Makes sense, thanks. I know me personally. I make just around $50k a year. I’m single, live by myself and my ‘19 Kia Forte perfectly fits in my budget…but I also have a mortgage and student loans, etc. So I could see $50k being possible as a family car, or even if I rented and didn’t have loans to pay as a single person.

The thing about families, income and what cars people drive is that typically people assume they own brand new cars at full price. Of course thats not true. It might be used.

One of my good buddies is a director, makes good money and he only buys used cars many years old. On paper, a new car is XXXX. His car probably half the new price.

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

Nobody jumps from a condo to a $1.8M house in Toronto. That's meant for people with money as a single person or a dual income family who both make good money. Which brings me to another whiner point. A lot of them not only want good cars but also want an awesome bigger place in the core, often in that stretch of land from Park Lawn all the way east to the Beaches. Nothing cheap in that stretch. They can buy a small house in Brampton for the price of their condo, but they dont want to leave the area and complain the condo is so small and bigger properties are $2M+ where they are.

End of the day, someone can free up lots of savings if they dumbed down their car or lived in another part of town. If someone cant afford it, dont buy it.

I've never had issues. Even when I moved out for the first time living by myself, I was breaking even for years, but then amped up in changing jobs and promotions. Kept the same living standards and Honda Civic for ages. Zero worries. Thats how you build up cash. It then gets to a point, you got cash to invest and grow it which amps up money even more. Now if I took that boost in job money and right away sunk it into buying a new Lexus, guess what? There goes the savings.

If someone never tries to save money (housing and cars being two giant buckets which someone can get by dumbing it down), they'll never have enough. Historically, cars like BMWs and Mercedes and big houses are for people who are established, older and got money to spend. The traditional image is white haired old execs. Now, the target is young professionals. Big difference is one demographic is older and got tons of money to burn. The other doesn't but has enough to scrape by getting a pricey car loan. Grey haired 55 year old Bob the VP isn't worried. But somehow it got to point even 28 year olds gun for pricey cars and expensive plots of land they can barely afford. If someone or a couple want to lock themselves into a tiny pricey condo go ahead. But dont complain there's no other cheaper options. You can get condos and houses half the price in other parts of the GTA. But the young people want spiffy cars in prime location asap. Thats why so many are broke.

Old generations start low, save and spend later. New generations are start high as possible and hope nothing goes wrong.

I'm not really sure what the specifics of your coworkers are, but we're talking about generalities here so it makes more sense to discuss averages and medians. .

The challenges of younger people these days are very different from what you faced, so your anecdotes are not really meaningful. It was historically , even in the 2000s, feasible to buy a home in the GTA by saving on an average income. I bought my first investment condo in Toronto for $150K in 2007. It's 5xed in that time, but incomes have not. With price appreciation this steep, it doesn't make sense to save. A place in Brampton isn't cheap - an average single family home is still $1.4 million. For the median income of Toronto of 75-80k, that isn't going to buy you a home no matter how much you save. You'd have to go to KW to get a single family house for less than $1 million, but even then you're beyond the affordability of a median income and the commute becomes untenable.

Millennials/young people aren't actually broke. Their net worth is higher than Gen X at the same point in their lives (source:https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-626-x/11-626-x2019006-eng.htm) . The problem is that their purchasing power has diminished greatly because of asset inflation driven by monetary policy and poor economic policy. They do take on larger debts than Gen X/Boomers, but that's because of loose monetary policy of the last 15 years which isn't really something under their control. You can't really blame them for central bank policy which was decided by older generations - if they didn't take on the debt, they would have been priced out of assets by Gen X who were the first generation to take on a skyrocketing amount of debt (see Chart 2). Anyone who followed your advice of saving and being scrupulous with their money would have lost out on hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in gains in price appreciation.

 

[daveonezero]

I’d say a hybrid crossover suv.

Idk the market here is so manipulated their litterlity isn’t a middle class anymore.

Everyone just thinks they are upper class because of their crippling debt.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

I paid off my school loans early, making about $35k per year. On that same salary, I bought a used 2012 Nissan Altman in 2014 for $14k that's still running today and has been paid early off for years. (I shouldn't have said that. It's gonna bork tomorrow now).

I'd much rather have a basic ride that gets me from A to B while putting all that extra cash on a monthly car payment into retirement savings. If I'm 70, and still kicking, I don't want to have set myself up for elder life in the poor house because 20- to 40-year-old me thought it'd be kick ass to have a kick ass ride

 

[Batiman]

Ugly ass played out SUVs that no one barely needs. Sedans 4 life!

 

[Batiman]

I paid off my school loans early, making about $35k per year. On that same salary, I bought a used 2012 Nissan Altman in 2014 for $14k that's still running today and has been paid early off for years. (I shouldn't have said that. It's gonna bork tomorrow now).

I'd much rather have a basic ride that gets me from A to B while putting all that extra cash on a monthly car payment into retirement savings. If I'm 70, and still kicking, I don't want to have set myself up for elder life in the poor house because 20- to 40-year-old me thought it'd be kick ass to have a kick ass ride

I just had to let go of my 2007 Altima. It treated me great. I sort of miss it. Too much needed repairs started piling up to the point where a I figured wasn’t worth fixing. The trannys are known to go on them but mine was still kicking. I don’t really drive much though and the car only had a bit more than 200k on it. Was a good car.

 

[Joshmyersbv]

Honda CR-V's seem pretty middle class to me but I live in a Honda town so that's all I see. That in a lot of Civics.

 

[Soltype]

apparently the average new car is sold for around 50,000, and all I see on the roads are new garbage crossovers, what are people doing?

 

[daveonezero]

apparently the average new car is sold for around 50,000, and all I see on the roads are new garbage crossovers, what are people doing?

Have you seen the price of new cars?

 

[Lasha]

I've heard of people getting 10 year loans so they can get the car they want. I feel like there's going to be a crash in the car market like there was in the housing market in 2008, it's one of the reasons I've been trying to put off getting a new van. The markets likely going to be flooded with used inventory real soon.

Ten years is the norm where I live. Cars here can only be registered for a decade at a time. I bought my little 1.3 hatchback during a lull in the market when registration was "only" 30k. Registration alone is now 100k. My car is worth way more than I paid for it now.

 

[Laieon]

apparently the average new car is sold for around 50,000, and all I see on the roads are new garbage crossovers, what are people doing?

You can get decent new crossovers in the 20-30k range, a lot of manufacturers have completely abandoned that price point for cars.

Without looking at local prices and strictly going off of what their official websites claim the prices are:
You can get a Ford Escape cheaper than you can Ford's cheapest car.
You can get a Chevy Trax (whatever the hell that is) cheaper than you can Chevy's only car.
You can get a Kia Seltos or Niro for slightly more than what you would pay for a Rio or Soul.
You can get Honda HRV for right around the same price as a Civic.

The only manufacturer I've found that legitimately has a car cheap enough where I might not consider a crossover is Toyota with the Corolla (it's most affordable crossover is $10k more).

If you're someone who doesn't really care about cars or a family that's looking for a bit more room, then I don't think it's surprising at all that crossovers are all the rage right now.

Hell, I drive a Kia Rio in Texas and while ideally I'd live in some place that has heard of the magic of public transportation, my next vehicle will absolutely be a crossover because driving a car this small in a state where every other person has a massive truck just seems like a bad accident waiting to happen.

 

[Soltype]

Have you seen the price of new cars?

You can get decent new crossovers in the 20-30k range, a lot of manufacturers have completely abandoned that price point for cars.

yes, i bought a car last year. I'm saying a lot of people would be better off buying a good car vs. a middling crossover. I was in and out of rentals last year after my accident , and I tested some .no way you could get me to buy a cheap CUV. There's too much going on to have anything worth driving under 60,000.

 

[kiunchbb]

The cheapest car you can find and using it for as long as you can; unless you works in tech, if you want to be middle class you have to invest in house, stocks, and retirement.

 

[Blade2.0]

I was wanting a Chevy Bolt, but then they discontinued them, ugh.

 

[daveonezero]

yes, i bought a car last year. I'm saying a lot of people would be better off buying a good car vs. a middling crossover. I was in and out of rentals last year after my accident , and I tested some .no way you could get me to buy a cheap CUV. There's too much going on to have anything worth driving under 60,000.

It’s true they aren’t worth it but the industry is just a mess. All the cars are bloated heavy and way too many problems than they should have.

Anyone experienced rodents getting into the new insulation they started making out of soy?

I don’t even have a new car but a rodent came in and ate the electrical because I left my truck for a week.

 

[Soltype]

It’s true they aren’t worth it but the industry is just a mess. All the cars are bloated heavy and way too many problems than they should have.

Anyone experienced rodents getting into the new insulation they started making out of soy?

I don’t even have a new car but a rodent came in and ate the electrical because I left my truck for a week.

I just wish people weren't so short-sighted, there's a lot more to a vehicle besides ride height and room. I remember Mazda having issues with spiders in their cars, but I've heard of rats eating through wiring.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I'm not really sure what the specifics of your coworkers are, but we're talking about generalities here so it makes more sense to discuss averages and medians. .

The challenges of younger people these days are very different from what you faced, so your anecdotes are not really meaningful. It was historically , even in the 2000s, feasible to buy a home in the GTA by saving on an average income. I bought my first investment condo in Toronto for $150K in 2007. It's 5xed in that time, but incomes have not. With price appreciation this steep, it doesn't make sense to save. A place in Brampton isn't cheap - an average single family home is still $1.4 million. For the median income of Toronto of 75-80k, that isn't going to buy you a home no matter how much you save. You'd have to go to KW to get a single family house for less than $1 million, but even then you're beyond the affordability of a median income and the commute becomes untenable.

Millennials/young people aren't actually broke. Their net worth is higher than Gen X at the same point in their lives (source:https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-626-x/11-626-x2019006-eng.htm) . The problem is that their purchasing power has diminished greatly because of asset inflation driven by monetary policy and poor economic policy. They do take on larger debts than Gen X/Boomers, but that's because of loose monetary policy of the last 15 years which isn't really something under their control. You can't really blame them for central bank policy which was decided by older generations - if they didn't take on the debt, they would have been priced out of assets by Gen X who were the first generation to take on a skyrocketing amount of debt (see Chart 2). Anyone who followed your advice of saving and being scrupulous with their money would have lost out on hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in gains in price appreciation.

Home prices have really only skyrocketed the past 5-6 years. A young person trying to buy a place for the first time just lately would have trouble, but its not hard before that. When there's account managers at work making $120k + 20% bonus + for $800/mth to pay for a car and they are struggling to find a place before 2017 there's issues. And the coomon thing I always found was: they are young, downtowners, used the car allowance to get a BMW or Audi, and all complain that living at City Centre is a lot. That could all be solved if they saved their money on location and cars and bought modest stuff. I do better than them, yet I never splurged on nice cars and downtown at their age. Hey it costs a lot and you dont get much in terms of property. Thats life and most metro areas are like that on Earth. Unless you're really raking in the money, you cant have it all at age 30.

Guess what? My first investment property was 2007 too. Liberty Village. $225k. I was making around $70k at the time. I still did it. Guess why? My car was paid off and I lived in a tiny condo in the burbs. The condo I was living in was bigger and cheaper market cost than the Liberty condo. So at that time, I had around a $250k mortgage on my primary residence and needed about $200k for the mortgage for the Liberty place. I could float it. I didn't even make a lot of money on it when I flipped it and bought a different place at Queen/Portland for $320k in 2010 off the floorplan. Now if I maxed out my money on a good place and better car in the 2000s, I wouldn't have money to buy these inv props. I'd be pay cheque to pay cheque.

Only in the past year and a half have interest rates skyrocketed too. Before that interests were so low, anyone can get approved for a mortgage for something decent especially if it's a double income family and they're making decent money. The key difference as I said is income:debt ratio. Anyone getting saddled with a $800-1000/mth car loan is going to get blasted in mortgage qualifications.

And for avg home prices, Brampton at $1.4M is way off. I just checked Housesigma and you can get a decent starter detached home (not even a townhouse but fully detached) for $1M tops. Problem is a lot of people dont want to live in Brampton because it's stereotyped as Brown Town. And you know what I mean by that. Here's everything sold or listed now at $1M or less for detached homes.

The two marks saying $960-980 are these small starter houses. A dual income family can totally float paying for this. You got to either build up money, or dump the condo they had and put equity into it. Is it harder now? Yea, because interest rates probably doubled or tripled the past year. But before that rates were rock bottom for 15 years at the lowest ever in history. Problem is a lot of young people would rather cramp themselves into a condo in the same price range and complain about lack of space and backyard than drive an extra half hour to get downtown.

At $1.4M, you're bigger better homes meant for people who are established with more money and more kids. Those homes arent meant for avg income people or single or two person households.

Even cheaper are semis and towns. But what I've found with people struggling with moving up the chain of homes is they start small and then right away want to jump to nice seized detached house like their parents bought in 1982 (which is something like $200k at 14% interest). Times have changed. It might had been easier to go fast to a big family house 40 years ago, but now you start small and inch up. Or move far away from the core. Thats life. If the GTA is still expensive, then move. Not everyone on Earth is forced by government to live in pricey metro areas. It seems a shit load of people live in cheaper places with dirt cheap home prices. Pack up and copy them. But if someone has to live in a metro area then pony up because everyone else is doing the same thing. Thats why home prices go up in some cities and other places you can get a big house for half price. GTA is onw of those high demand/low supply kinds of cities, which we both know that.

 

[Celcius]

Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, etc...

 

[Sleepwalker]

Everyone in Canada seems to have one of those disgusting RAMs, they also can't drive for shit usually.

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

Home prices have really only skyrocketed the past 5-6 years. A young person trying to buy a place for the first time just lately would have trouble, but its not hard before that. When there's account managers at work making $120k + 20% bonus + for $800/mth to pay for a car and they are struggling to find a place before 2017 there's issues. And the coomon thing I always found was: they are young, downtowners, used the car allowance to get a BMW or Audi, and all complain that living at City Centre is a lot. That could all be solved if they saved their money on location and cars and bought modest stuff. I do better than them, yet I never splurged on nice cars and downtown at their age. Hey it costs a lot and you dont get much in terms of property. Thats life and most metro areas are like that on Earth. Unless you're really raking in the money, you cant have it all at age 30.

Guess what? My first investment property was 2007 too. Liberty Village. $225k. I was making around $70k at the time. I still did it. Guess why? My car was paid off and I lived in a tiny condo in the burbs. The condo I was living in was bigger and cheaper market cost than the Liberty condo. So at that time, I had around a $250k mortgage on my primary residence and needed about $200k for the mortgage for the Liberty place. I could float it. I didn't even make a lot of money on it when I flipped it and bought a different place at Queen/Portland for $320k in 2010 off the floorplan. Now if I maxed out my money on a good place and better car in the 2000s, I wouldn't have money to buy these inv props. I'd be pay cheque to pay cheque.

Only in the past year and a half have interest rates skyrocketed too. Before that interests were so low, anyone can get approved for a mortgage for something decent especially if it's a double income family and they're making decent money. The key difference as I said is income:debt ratio. Anyone getting saddled with a $800-1000/mth car loan is going to get blasted in mortgage qualifications.

And for avg home prices, Brampton at $1.4M is way off. I just checked Housesigma and you can get a decent starter detached home (not even a townhouse but fully detached) for $1M tops. Problem is a lot of people dont want to live in Brampton because it's stereotyped as Brown Town. And you know what I mean by that. Here's everything sold or listed now at $1M or less for detached homes.

House prices are not going down significantly, and its not realistic to expect anyone to invent a time machine back to 2017. Telling people to move is also not realistic - you have to go to smaller distant rural centres to get to affordable housing in Ontario, and at that point you're trading affordable housing for unemployment. Not exactly a great long term plan.

The most recent data shows that the average house price is $1.3 million in Brampton (source: https://www.therecord.com/local-bra...ses.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=rec_web_ymbii), so I was only a bit off. There's obviously going to be some houses cheaper than the average, but $900k is just about the cheapest you can get in the GTA and that still works out to a $180k down payment and monthly mortgage payment of $4200. The down payment alone is nearly the same as the price of the condo you bought in 2007 and you would need an income of around $150,000 to make the payment work using traditional metrics of affordability. You basically need to have a well above average income these days to buy a well below average house, which wasn't the case before. Its great that you paid off your car, but even that's more expensive: a Honda Civic was $16900 in 2007, compared to $28200 in 2023. That's about $5k (or 20%) more than inflation. Manufacturers have been able to do this because of low interest rates.

Older people lamenting about young people's work ethic, expectations, etc. is a story as old as time. It's usually just a sign that you're getting old and probably out of touch. Like the data I posted shows, millennials have more debt than prior generations but they also have more assets and higher net worth. Gen X were actually the first gen to take on massive amounts of debt, not millennials. This isn't due to any fundamental difference in attitudes between generations, but reflects the economic realities of our time - quantitative easing and loose monetary policy has made it necessary for people to take out large amounts of debt to keep up. Prices for things have gone up far higher than inflation because CPI calculate the cost of large assets based on their carrying cost, not their actual value. The problem is further compounded in Canada by our extremely low productivity numbers, massive amount of immigration, and tax laws which have made real estate a very favorable investment. Any young person who over the last 15 years that borrowed as much money as they could to buy the biggest property they could afford has done extremely well - its the ones who saved and tried to be be responsible who got screwed.

 

[Lasha]

Home prices have really only skyrocketed the past 5-6 years. A young person trying to buy a place for the first time just lately would have trouble, but its not hard before that. When there's account managers at work making $120k + 20% bonus + for $800/mth to pay for a car and they are struggling to find a place before 2017 there's issues. And the coomon thing I always found was: they are young, downtowners, used the car allowance to get a BMW or Audi, and all complain that living at City Centre is a lot. That could all be solved if they saved their money on location and cars and bought modest stuff. I do better than them, yet I never splurged on nice cars and downtown at their age. Hey it costs a lot and you dont get much in terms of property. Thats life and most metro areas are like that on Earth. Unless you're really raking in the money, you cant have it all at age 30.

Guess what? My first investment property was 2007 too. Liberty Village. $225k. I was making around $70k at the time. I still did it. Guess why? My carwas paid off and I lived in a tiny condo in the burbs. The condo I was living in was bigger and cheaper market cost than the Liberty condo. So at that time, I had around a $250k mortgage on my primary residence and needed about $200k for the mortgage for the Liberty place. I could float it. I didn't even make a lot of money on it when I flipped it and bought a different place at Queen/Portland for $320k in 2010 off the floorplan. Now if I maxed out my money on a good place and better car in the 2000s, I wouldn't have money to buy these inv props. I'd be pay cheque to pay cheque.

Only in the past year and a half have interest rates skyrocketed too. Before that interests were so low, anyone can get approved for a mortgage for something decent especially if it's a double income family and they're making decent money. The key difference as I said is income:debt ratio. Anyone getting saddled with a $800-1000/mth car loan is going to get blasted in mortgage qualifications.

And for avg home prices, Brampton at $1.4M is way off. I just checked Housesigma and you can get a decent starter detached home (not even a townhouse but fully detached) for $1M tops. Problem is a lot of people dont want to live in Brampton because it's stereotyped as Brown Town. And you know what I mean by that. Here's everything sold or listed now at $1M or less for detached homes.

The two marks saying $960-980 are these small starter houses. A dual income family can totally float paying for this. You got to either build up money, or dump the condo they had and put equity into it. Is it harder now? Yea, because interest rates probably doubled or tripled the past year. But before that rates were rock bottom for 15 years at the lowest ever in history. Problem is a lot of young people would rather cramp themselves into a condo in the same price range and complain about lack of space and backyard than drive an extra half hour to get downtown.

At $1.4M, you're bigger better homes meant for people who are established with more money and more kids. Those homes arent meant for avg income people or single or two person households.

Even cheaper are semis and towns. But what I've found with people struggling with moving up the chain of homes is they start small and then right away want to jump to nice seized detached house like their parents bought in 1982 (which is something like $200k at 14% interest). Times have changed. It might had been easier to go fast to a big family house 40 years ago, but now you start small and inch up. Or move far away from the core. Thats life. If the GTA is still expensive, then move. Not everyone on Earth is forced by government to live in pricey metro areas. It seems a shit load of people live in cheaper places with dirt cheap home prices. Pack up and copy them. But if someone has to live in a metro area then pony up because everyone else is doing the same thing. Thats why home prices go up in some cities and other places you can get a big house for half price. GTA is onw of those high demand/low supply kinds of cities, which we both know that.

Lots to unpack here. Starting capital is one. Your down payment should have been around 5% for the first property and you probably could have done the same for your second property due to the looser credit terms back then. Around $13,000 to get into your first hand and lets say another $15,000 to get into your second property. A young couple buying one of your starter homes is looking at a cash requirement of around $80,000, around your gross salary at the time, just to get into a primary residence. That is a sizeable amount of savings required considering taxes in Canada and the cost of living. Renting a room alone exceeds $2,000. You probably couldn't afford to buy your first property with that low 70k salary you mention much less own two properties in one of the hottest property markets on earth. I'm not even sure those sales guys you mention can meet affordability measures to buy an entry level home without saving up additional capital. The cost of all assets has far outpaced salaries.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

House prices are not going down significantly, and its not realistic to expect anyone to invent a time machine back to 2017. Telling people to move is also not realistic - you have to go to smaller distant rural centres to get to affordable housing in Ontario, and at that point you're trading affordable housing for unemployment. Not exactly a great long term plan.

The most recent data shows that the average house price is $1.3 million in Brampton (source: https://www.therecord.com/local-bra...ses.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=rec_web_ymbii), so I was only a bit off. There's obviously going to be some houses cheaper than the average, but $900k is just about the cheapest you can get in the GTA and that still works out to a $180k down payment and monthly mortgage payment of $4200. The down payment alone is nearly the same as the price of the condo you bought in 2007 and you would need an income of around $150,000 to make the payment work using traditional metrics of affordability. You basically need to have a well above average income these days to buy a well below average house, which wasn't the case before. Its great that you paid off your car, but even that's more expensive: a Honda Civic was $16900 in 2007, compared to $28200 in 2023. That's about $5k (or 20%) more than inflation. Manufacturers have been able to do this because of low interest rates.

Older people lamenting about young people's work ethic, expectations, etc. is a story as old as time. It's usually just a sign that you're getting old and probably out of touch. Like the data I posted shows, millennials have more debt than prior generations but they also have more assets and higher net worth. Gen X were actually the first gen to take on massive amounts of debt, not millennials. This isn't due to any fundamental difference in attitudes between generations, but reflects the economic realities of our time - quantitative easing and loose monetary policy has made it necessary for people to take out large amounts of debt to keep up. Prices for things have gone up far higher than inflation because CPI calculate the cost of large assets based on their carrying cost, not their actual value. The problem is further compounded in Canada by our extremely low productivity numbers, massive amount of immigration, and tax laws which have made real estate a very favorable investment. Any young person who over the last 15 years that borrowed as much money as they could to buy the biggest property they could afford has done extremely well - its the ones who saved and tried to be be responsible who got screwed.

Fair enough. But I even said that unless someone is trying to buy a home now for the first time lately it's tough as prices are and interest rates are high now.

But the exact same complaints I saw and heard from people 10 years ago when home prices were probably half the cost and mortgage rates were probably 3%.

its the ones who saved and tried to be be responsible who got screwed.

Unless someone just bought a place lately where home prices dropped the past year and a half when rocketing rates made everyone's properties go down 10% in value, anyone the past probably 20 years in that 2000-2017 range has had their home or condo go up (maybe even to 2018 or 2019). That's the point. Save money and buy something. If someone would rather throw their money into buying a BMW, twice a year trips and stuff like that as priority #1 than towards a home, they lost. One of the properties I bought was a 2 bedroom/2 bath condo in the beaches in 2013 for $450,000. I sold it years ago, but last time I checked it that area had them worth around $1M. You snooze, you lose. A smaller shittier condo would be probably $300,000s at the time. That's affordable.

Dont get me wrong I understand what you're getting it with home appreciation vs wages appreciation. But let's face it. There's a lot of people trying to jump to a house. But unfortunately for them detached house prices really skyrocketed the most the past 20 years. So aim lower. A semi or townhouse will be cheaper. They save and save hoping to jump from loving at home or a shitty condo to a big family house in one swoop. Hard to pull off. I couldnt do that myself back then either. I started with the second smallest you can get (1 bed + 1 bath). The only thing smaller is a studio apartment. For those of you who dont know what a studio is, it's like 500 sq ft tops and you dont even have rooms. It's just one big square shaped open room and a bathroom. Chances are good your bed is going to be a futon. It's like jumping from a rusty Corolla to a Mercedes. Its doable, but hard. The right way is to inch up.

And if home prices are still too expensive, well then metro areas like GTA arent for you. Move to a cheaper city. Nobody ever said every city has to have affordable homes at this moment of time. There's been threads like this in the past. I remember one were talking homes and people would post pics of their area and a giant ass home and yard would be something like $600,000. It was always places like Texas and Florida where it seems its dirt cheap for big places. And some of us were like that home would probably be $2-3M here. There's options.

People are just entitled. You cant get what you want just because someone else has it. Hey, it would be great if I could buy a house like my parents did 40 years ago at $200,000 too. But that's not 2023. That's like 1982.

 

[Vicetrailia]

.People are just entitled. You cant get what you want just because someone else has it. Hey, it would be great if I could buy a house like my parents did 40 years ago at $200,000 too. But that's not 2023. That's like 1982.

Or buy/gifted lots of ultra cheap stocks like boomers did 30 years ago, instead of trying to entry level at $300 a share.

It’s not a sense of entitlement. People know that their $80k upper middle class buy-me-a-home salary is more like middle class, which has greatly reduced buying power compared to the past. But when older individuals give younger people advice, they think young people are playing by the same difficulty level and they aren’t. It’s just harder now.

Florida is crazy expensive unless you live in ultra low population rural areas with no jobs. Times have changed. Texas you at least have a chance for now but that window is closing.

The sad fact is that a lot of people who have things got it from their parents, where as in the past you didn’t depend on those handouts as much, and were not as far behind.

 

[Lasha]

Fair enough. But I even said that unless someone is trying to buy a home now for the first time lately it's tough as prices are and interest rates are high now.

But the exact same complaints I saw and heard from people 10 years ago when home prices were probably half the cost and mortgage rates were probably 3%.


Unless someone just bought a place lately where home prices dropped the past year and a half when rocketing rates made everyone's properties go down 10% in value, anyone the past probably 20 years in that 2000-2017 range has had their home or condo go up (maybe even to 2018 or 2019). That's the point. Save money and buy something. If someone would rather throw their money into buying a BMW, twice a year trips and stuff like that as priority #1 than towards a home, they lost. One of the properties I bought was a 2 bedroom/2 bath condo in the beaches in 2013 for $450,000. I sold it years ago, but last time I checked it that area had them worth around $1M. You snooze, you lose. A smaller shittier condo would be probably $300,000s at the time. That's affordable.

Dont get me wrong I understand what you're getting it with home appreciation vs wages appreciation. But let's face it. There's a lot of people trying to jump to a house. But unfortunately for them detached house prices really skyrocketed the most the past 20 years. So aim lower. A semi or townhouse will be cheaper. They save and save hoping to jump from loving at home or a shitty condo to a big family house in one swoop. Hard to pull off. I couldnt do that myself back then either. I started with the second smallest you can get (1 bed + 1 bath). The only thing smaller is a studio apartment. For those of you who dont know what a studio is, it's like 500 sq ft tops and you dont even have rooms. It's just one big square shaped open room and a bathroom. Chances are good your bed is going to be a futon. It's like jumping from a rusty Corolla to a Mercedes. Its doable, but hard. The right way is to inch up.

And if home prices are still too expensive, well then metro areas like GTA arent for you. Move to a cheaper city. Nobody ever said every city has to have affordable homes at this moment of time. There's been threads like this in the past. I remember one were talking homes and people would post pics of their area and a giant ass home and yard would be something like $600,000. It was always places like Texas and Florida where it seems its dirt cheap for big places. And some of us were like that home would probably be $2-3M here. There's options.

People are just entitled. You cant get what you want just because someone else has it. Hey, it would be great if I could buy a house like my parents did 40 years ago at $200,000 too. But that's not 2023. That's like 1982.

Would you be willing to share your cash-flow and sources of capital? How long did it take you to save up for a down-payment for your first home? I just dropped a buck on a new house and I'm probably half your age so I assure you my curiosity is not a sign of entitlement. You keep saying the reason that people can't buy houses is because they all bought sick cars while you were some sort of guru. That doesn't really add up with my understanding of real estate. How would you have moved from Canada to rural America if you were faced with the same situation when you were starting out? Immigration is a bitch.

 

[Durien]

As an American, i have a Ford mustang and a Kia Telluride. If I had to say middle class cars, I'd probably go with the Honda Civic or Toyota Camry. Suvs are represented for the versatility in my area Pacific Northwest. People with kids, grocery shopping or hauling stuff. But then again, the middle class is getting squeezed. Here you either make over 100k because of tech or you are working service jobs... Although my son make almost $20 an hour stocking shelves for walmart part time (high schooler) no ask yourselves, why are prices so high?

 

[Durien]

Would you be willing to share your cash-flow and sources of capital? How long did it take you to save up for a down-payment for your first home? I just dropped a buck on a new house and I'm probably half your age so I assure you my curiosity is not a sign of entitlement. You keep saying the reason that people can't buy houses is because they all bought sick cars while you were some sort of guru. That doesn't really add up with my understanding of real estate. How would you have moved from Canada to rural America if you were faced with the same situation when you were starting out? Immigration is a bitch.

My wife and I were both tech and bought our house in 2003. We made a combined probably around 130k or so. We saved up, I sold some stock and that was our down payment. We are mortgage free now. Here is the difference.

When we bought our house it was 234k. According to zillow, our house is worth almost 700k. This is what is broken. I think people should only be able to buy one house. I also think you should need to be a citizen to buy a house. (This prevents foreign nationals doing what they did to Vancouver, bc). Housing is nuts here but Vancouver is just f'ing crazy.

The BC Foreign Buyers Tax is a 20% tax added to the Property Transfer Tax when a foreign citizen or non-permanent resident of Canada purchases a residential property in designated regions on Vancouver Island.

When that didn't seem to slow it down, this year starting on Jan 1st, a ban for 2 years on foreigners buying houses because it is just too expensive for locals to buy (supply and demand).

I feel bad for my kids because they are going to either need crazy well paying jobs are just flat out move from this area.

 

[Boozeroony]

I have noticed a sudden increase of Dodge RAMs on Dutch roads the past few years. I can't imagine a more inconvenient car when driving and parking in the Netherlands, unless you own a farm or work in construction. Somehow, all of them look brand new so I can't see that's the case.

Are they common in NA?

 

[Trunx81]

I´m riding a 2009 GMC Acadia right now. Whoever designed this car had to be drunk as hell while doing so. Bought it really cheap and searched for it AFTERWARDS on YouTube. The verdict: All of the corresponding videos are "The 10 worst cars to buy" or "Why I will never again buy an Acadia" and "What where they thinking?".

 

[dem]

I have noticed a sudden increase of Dodge RAMs on Dutch roads the past few years. I can't imagine a more inconvenient car when driving and parking in the Netherlands, unless you own a farm or work in construction. Somehow, all of them look brand new so I can't see that's the case.

Are they common in NA?

Giant pickup trucks are very, very popular.

 

[Vicetrailia]

Giant pickup trucks are very, very popular.

Yeah, they are the current status symbol now where I live. It doesn't even have to be a newer one.

Chevy Silverado's are massive, super expensive, and people want them bad.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Would you be willing to share your cash-flow and sources of capital? How long did it take you to save up for a down-payment for your first home? I just dropped a buck on a new house and I'm probably half your age so I assure you my curiosity is not a sign of entitlement. You keep saying the reason that people can't buy houses is because they all bought sick cars while you were some sort of guru. That doesn't really add up with my understanding of real estate. How would you have moved from Canada to rural America if you were faced with the same situation when you were starting out? Immigration is a bitch.

Quick and dirty:

- Graduated and had modest amount of student loan. Not a lot. But worked PT during some of the year, so I always had money on me
- I also sourced free money by scoping out the Financial Services office looking for grants the school gives out and hope you get something. I got like $5000 filling out a form
- I requested to get student loan reduction by applying. I actually didn't desperately need it but applied anyway. Got approved for $2,000 reduction out of the blue
- Got my first job making around $40k. Then rose to maybe $50k. Moved out around a year after working and put down approx. $20k for my condo. A 1 bed/1bath. A mortgage at the time was around 5% I think
- Sold it years later and banked money because the new condo I bought was the same price as my first one (it was actually $1000 cheaper) by moving to the burbs. Another 1 bed/1 bath. I pocketed about $30k after all closing costs
- Sold it years later and put all the banked profits (about $60k net of closing costs) into a newer bigger condo whose price I budgeted for used it all up. So no real gains or out of pocket swings in money. I basically just got a new mortgage and transferred the equity over like it's a wash
- By this time, I was making around $100k (around $90k + bonus)
- Had my trusty Honda Civic I bought in early 2000s and sold it after around 7 years, got lucky with a company car for 3 years (a Sebring). Then got a new job and car.... a modest Mazda 3. So not exactly kicking ass with a luxury car. Drove that till I was about 40. Finally got a nice car now
- During this entire time, aside from the first bunch of years I broke even, my money grew because my standard of living was basically the same. So my money grew fast. Add in making some modest money in the stock market and that helps too, but I've never had one of those giant (if you bought Amazon at $10 20 years ago you'd be a millionaire)
- I even remember analyzing the costs of buying furniture. When moved out, I had to buy furniture, a bed etc... I cant pay $3000 worth of crap in one monthly cycle paying 20% interest. I'll just find a place I can score a deal where you pay zero interest for 18 or 24 months. Pay it off then. All you got to do is pay like a $100 admin fee. Ok, so the deal is I pay $3000 of crap later and all I do is pay a $100 fee. That's 3% extra cost over close to 2 years. I'll take it. Some other people would buy shit and be paying VISA or Mastercard 20% at some other store. Saved up money and paid it off lining up at their customer service desk when full payment was due
- Around 10 years ago, I sold my place and sunk it all into a house. My mortgage went up since its way more than the equity I had selling, but thats ok. I can float it
- All the investment properties I've dabbled with over the years need anywhere from 15-25% down. Over time, you save up money and can do it. By the time the mortgage comes due, all you need to do is have a tenant in place with proof of agreement to cover most or all of it as that counts as income to the bank. So getting another mortgage (basically covered by the tenant) is easy. Now if the tenant leaves and I cant find a new one, then ya I'm fucked. But at this point of life, my car is paid off, my mortgage is X, and even if a tenant leaves, my monthly disposable income can cover that too
- So you can see with the way I buy my primary residence and inv properties (everyone has their own strategy), I never go too big into stuff I cant afford. And I try my best to just shift over gains with as little out of pocket cash outlays as possible. I'm more of the incremental gainer. Some people are more like the stay at home with parents, load up cash, and try to buy a big pricey place in one shot. I'm not that kind of guy
- I also got emergency funds from stocks, RRSPs and company contributions I can extract (which I wont)
- As a total desperation play, a line of credit can cover costs. I got like $50,000 LOC approved 15 years ago. Banks give it away like candy. Anyone in a weird CC debt hole is doing it wrong. Rates have gone up lately, but a LOC is like prime +3% (or whatever someone qualifies for). A CC is like 20%. Why pay 20% when you can 8%. And before rates shot up a LOC was probably 5%
- Now I make around $150k, so I just coast

 

[ReBurn]

Toyota Rav4s/highlanders

I rented a Rav4 Adventure on a trip this week and it was a lot of fun to drive. I don't know how to tell what economic class it belongs to but it seemed like something in reach of a middle class family.

 

[Lasha]

My wife and I were both tech and bought our house in 2003. We made a combined probably around 130k or so. We saved up, I sold some stock and that was our down payment. We are mortgage free now. Here is the difference.

When we bought our house it was 234k. According to zillow, our house is worth almost 700k. This is what is broken. I think people should only be able to buy one house. I also think you should need to be a citizen to buy a house. (This prevents foreign nationals doing what they did to Vancouver, bc). Housing is nuts here but Vancouver is just f'ing crazy.

The BC Foreign Buyers Tax is a 20% tax added to the Property Transfer Tax when a foreign citizen or non-permanent resident of Canada purchases a residential property in designated regions on Vancouver Island.

When that didn't seem to slow it down, this year starting on Jan 1st, a ban for 2 years on foreigners buying houses because it is just too expensive for locals to buy (supply and demand).

I feel bad for my kids because they are going to either need crazy well paying jobs are just flat out move from this area.

That scans. I think streets is not understanding that 70k back in the late 90s was like earning 120+ today. Assets were priced according to salaries and higher interest rates. Then interest rates dropped and assets ballooned in value. Adults at that time were able to build incredible wealth without any real effort. Some people missed out and others got burned by greed but the average middle class American/Canadian made out well. Wages never increased accordingly. Fresh grads are walking out making 60k-70k while assets are priced for people earning 200k.

Quick and dirty:

- Graduated and had modest amount of student loan. Not a lot. But worked PT during some of the year, so I always had money on me
- I also sourced free money by scoping out the Financial Services office looking for grants the school gives out and hope you get something. I got like $5000 filling out a form
- I requested to get student loan reduction by applying. I actually didn't desperately need it but applied anyway. Got approved for $2,000 reduction out of the blue
- Got my first job making around $40k. Then rose to maybe $50k. Moved out around a year after working and put down approx. $20k for my condo. A 1 bed/1bath. A mortgage at the time was around 5% I think
- Sold it years later and banked money because the new condo I bought was the same price as my first one (it was actually $1000 cheaper) by moving to the burbs. Another 1 bed/1 bath. I pocketed about $30k after all closing costs
- Sold it years later and put all the banked profits (about $60k net of closing costs) into a newer bigger condo whose price I budgeted for used it all up. So no real gains or out of pocket swings in money. I basically just got a new mortgage and transferred the equity over like it's a wash
- By this time, I was making around $100k (around $90k + bonus)
- Had my trusty Honda Civic I bought in early 2000s and sold it after around 9 years, got lucky with a company car for 3 years (a Sebring). Then got a new job and car.... a modest Mazda 3. So not exactly kicking ass with a luxury car. Drove that till I was about 40. Finally got a nice car now
- During this entire time, aside from the first bunch of years I broke even, my money grew because my standard of living was basically the same. So my money grew fast. Add in making some modest money in the stock market and that helps too, but I've never had one of those giant (if you bought Amazon at $10 20 years ago you'd be a millionaire)
- Around 10 years ago, I sold my place and sunk it all into a house. My mortgage went up since its way more than the equity I had selling, but thats ok. I can float it
- All the investment properties I've dabbled with over the years need anywhere from 15-25% down. Over time, you save up money and can do it. By the time the mortgage comes due, all you need to do is have a tenant in place with proof of agreement to cover most or all of it as that counts as income to the bank. So getting another mortgage (basically covered by the tenant) is easy. Now if the tenant leaves and I cant find a new one, then ya I'm fucked. But at this point of life, my car is paid off, my mortgage is X, and even if a tenant leaves, my monthly disposable income can cover that too
- So you can see with the way I buy my primary residence and inv properties (everyone has their own strategy), I never go too big into stuff I cant afford. And I try my best to just shift over gains with as little out of pocket cash outlays as possible. I'm more of the incremental gainer. Some people are more like the stay at home with parents, load up cash, and try to buy a big pricey place in one shot. I'm not that kind of guy
- I also got emergency funds from stocks, RRSPs and company contributions I can extract (which I wont)
- As a total desperation play, a line of credit can cover costs. I got like $50,000 LOC approved 15 years ago. Banks give it away like candy. Anyone in a weird CC debt hole is doing it wrong. Rates have gone up lately, but a LOC is like prime +3% (or whatever someone qualifies for). A CC is like 20%. Why pay 20% when you can 8%. And before rates shot up a LOC was probably 5%
- Now I make around $150k, so I just coast

I've bolded the weak link in your chain. A year living off your parents while making 50k was enough to save up for a down payment when you entered the housing market. Affording a mortgage isn't the problem for most people since they are already paying a similar amount monthly. Moving through properties once you have equity is also pretty straightforward. Getting the down payment is where young people have an issue today. You would probably have had to stay with your parents for 4-6 years to afford your first down payment if you faced today's market conditions. Properties would be going up the entire time so you may need to work even longer. I admire you for being frugal. I think you shouldn't be so quick to judge others when you entered the market before low interests rates distorted it so badly.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

That scans. I think streets is not understanding that 70k back in the late 90s was like earning 120+ today. Assets were priced according to salaries and higher interest rates. Then interest rates dropped and assets ballooned in value. Adults at that time were able to build incredible wealth without any real effort. Some people missed out and others got burned by greed but the average middle class American/Canadian made out well. Wages never increased accordingly. Fresh grads are walking out making 60k-70k while assets are priced for people earning 200k.



I've bolded the weak link in your chain. A year living off your parents while making 50k was enough to save up for a down payment when you entered the housing market. Affording a mortgage isn't the problem for most people since they are already paying a similar amount monthly. Moving through properties once you have equity is also pretty straightforward. Getting the down payment is where young people have an issue today. You would probably have had to stay with your parents for 4-6 years to afford your first down payment if you faced today's market conditions. Properties would be going up the entire time so you may need to work even longer. I admire you for being frugal. I think you shouldn't be so quick to judge others when you entered the market before low interests rates distorted it so badly.

Fair point, but it depends what someone guns for and how much downpayment they put down. I put down 10%.

You can get a small $500k condo in the GTA. If someone wants to gun for something costing $1M, then he (and partner if it's a tandem) has to scrape up $50-100k in savings. How hard and how long that takes depends on how much money they make and how much they can save.

Jobs now also pay a lot more too, o that helps. There's no denying wages have gone up. That $40-50k job I was doing pays $70k easy now. When I was promoted making $70k, that kind of job pays $100k. I know because someone in my team doing that exact same kind of job with similar tenure makes $100k while people like me were making dumbed down $70k way back.

 

[Lasha]

Fair point, but it depends what someone guns for and how much downpayment they put down. I put down 10%.

You can get a small $500k condo in the GTA. If someone wants to gun for something costing $1M, then he (and partner if it's a tandem) has to scrape up $50-100k in savings. How hard and how long that takes depends on how much money they make and how much they can save.

Jobs now also pay a lot more too, o that helps. There's no denying wages have gone up. That $40-50k job I was doing pays $70k easy now. When I was promoted making $70k, that kind of job pays $100k. I know because someone in my team doing that exact same kind of job with similar tenure makes $100k while people like me were making dumbed down $70k way back.

The cost of living and property has outpaced salaries because people who already had assets could borrow money for functionally nothing and grow their wealth. The path you walked is closed for most individuals. Even you admit it's going to take couples saving for years to get a tiny place when all you had to do was graduate and live with your parents for a year to do the same. It's a different era.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The cost of living and property has outpaced salaries because people who already had assets could borrow money for functionally nothing and grow their wealth. The path you walked is closed for most individuals. Even you admit it's going to take couples saving for years to get a tiny place when all you had to do was graduate and live with your parents for a year to do the same. It's a different era.

Depends what people go after. Just to prove its affordable, here's all the available and sold 1 bed/1 bath places at either 0-500k or 0-600k the past 90 days. These are the kinds of units I lived in for like 7 years before I bought bigger places. And my zoom range isn't even including the farther out surrounding cities in the metro area. (ignore the yellow star markers as those are paid promotions)

Ok fine, instead of living at home for a year scraping up $20k at a $40-50k salary, someone has to scrape up $50-60k at a modern day higher salary.

Trying to amp up to something bigger and better is a lot tougher to do now. But hey, I started small too

 

[Durien]

1 bed/1 bath places at either 0-500k or 0-600k

That is f'ing insane. If I read that correctly, that is 500k to 600k for a 1 bedroom/1 bathroom place.

Taking a look at the map, I saw Toronto and it starts making sense lol. (If that is Toronto Canada)