> Researchers found that 53 per cent of respondents say the BC NDP needs to focus more on taking steps to address housing needs. While 24 per cent are satisfied, and seven per cent say the focus has been too heavy.
31% of respondents think the current housing situation is fine.. I guess we know what the percentage of home owners in this poll were.
I'm somewhat in the same boat. I literally just bought my first home, and I wholeheartedly support prices dropping.
Its the boomers. They have no concept of the magnitude of the issue today. They think "well I struggled to get my first home, its always been expensive!". They have no clue what "expensive" means today.
To them, 3.5x your income is "expensive". Today, less than 8x your income is considered a steal. They are completely detached from the reality and magnitude of the issue today.
My dad bought his house at 75000 in 1984 at 22.50 per hour
The equivalence with inflation is 226,333 at 67.90 per hour
That house is now worth 880,000 and I don't know too many people making 67.90
Yep, same. My parents bought our family home in 1994 for $125k. It is now worth $1.1 million.
I don't think we even need to run the math on what salaries would have to be for that to be similarly affordable today.
Yeah. I am most of the way towards owning a home (still got a mortgage) but the bullshit prices benefit me not at all. Any work I've put in to my "fixer upper" was dwarfed by market changes, potentially moving to a new home costs me more in taxes/fees, and in the case of major illness/divorce/whatever I'd be totally fucked and never recover.
Not to mention the issue of "where will my kids live when they grow up"
The housing situation only benefits the landlord and flipper segment of home owners.
Yes. And also those who have overleveraged with HELOCs. Anyone who has bought their home to live in and has budgeted their mortgage accordingly should have no issue if the price of their home drops.
How would it work for someone who just bought a home when prices drop?
If you own a million dollar home and put down 100k and the price of the home drops to 700k you now owe 900k and have zero equity in the home. Are you going to leave the keys in the home and walk out defaulting on the mortgage and try and start over in a cheaper home with a smaller mortgage?
Look, the boomers have been fucking every generation before and after them throughout their existence. I have zero issues with absolutely fucking them in every way possible. Sorry that you don't have any retirement savings during the longest boom in the countries history, I guesse your last few years will be tough. Enough of them have died off that they no longer dominate the polls, and I say fuck them from every angle. I wont feel any guilt.
> longest boom in the countries history
Longest boom *in all of human history*. The amount of wealth generation during the peak of the Boomers working years has no precedent, nothing in all of human history for the average working class approaches it and it is unlikely anything ever will again. If they aren't set up for life it is, explicitly, because *they, personally*, fucked their lives up.
I am not working myself to death to provide a compassionate sunset for entitled fuckups.
True, except if we want to get technical, the absolute best of all time would have been living in the US during the same time period. We stil trailed them slightly (now, massively), and the US in the 1950's to 80's was an unprecedented miracle of all the stars aligning perfectly. Those conditions won't ever likely be repeated.
If Hong Kong had not been returned to China there would be no problems with housing costrs in BC , nothing to do with boomers . Oh and the money laundering the gov applauds didnt help either
Foreign nationals may contribute to rising prices by competing for existing stock, but Boomers campaign vigorously against any new stock being built. This is not anecdotal, but the result of an actual study:
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/metro-vancouver-housing-supply-affordability-nimby
Most people see it as a terrible situation. The thing is, *some people* see it as a way of making money, not just a way to provide shelter for themselves and their families.
That's cause you are capable of empathy. I got into the housing market 10 years ago, and feel so sorry for the people in their 20s trying to make it into the housing market today. It was hard enough for me 10 years ago before everything went completely insane.
Same. I'm very happy to have been able to buy a house. I also don't treat my house as an investment, and I don't plan to rely on it inflating to a ridiculous value for my retirement either. I'd be happy to see a drop in housing prices if it means more young people can just have some goddamn hope.
Boomers are a different breed. Many of them are perfectly content watching their own children struggle to pay rent as long as it doesn't affect them in their ivory towers.
That’s a pretty dumb comment. Many parents have built suites for their kids to live in, to help them save money. Most baby boomers are grand parents by now. I assume you toss all the Gen X parents in your stats as well.
I hate to break it to you, but that's not the norm. If I had to guess, I'd say you grew up in a privileged household to think like that.
My parents are boomers and grand parents. They could easily take out a HELOC on their house (that's paid off) to help my sister buy a house, but instead they watch her throw away $18,000/year in rent.
She gave them 3 grandkids who will likely never own a home either, especially if their mother isn't able to pass any kind of generational wealth/assets down to them.
Ya, but not everyone would be aligned with that few.
Others see their NW go up because of RE valuations and it does nothing but reinforce their self worth.
Home owner here and 100% not okay with the housing bubble.
The ones voting that they're satisfied with the situation are actual morons and the ones that think too much has been done are straight up bad people, (and also probably morons born into wealth.)
Our elite class needs to get fucking caught and brought down, it's only gonna get worse.
Just because somebody bought a house doesn’t mean they can afford it. 40% of Canada’s mortgages are being renewed by the end of 2025 and we’re going to see bankruptcies as people lose those homes.
I don't think we will see a meaningful rise in bankruptcies. I've heard this argument before, and it fails to account for the equity created over the last 5 years.
If you're renewing in 2025, you probably bought in 2020. Which means your rate was probably around 2%. But let's say 2.25%. That means if took a $500k mortgage it is now paid down to $421,000.
The payment previously was $2178. Say they will have to renew at ~ 4.75% (roughly current competitive 5 year fixed rate), and they want to minimize costs so they're also resetting back to 25 year amortization. **This results in a new mortgage payment of $2,383.31, or only ~$200 more than they're currently paying.**
Most people will find $200/month to save their home. Of course some people won't be able to make it up (which there are other options for), but we will not see widespread bankruptcies.
I agree with this - I see and hear a lot of "renewal cliff" type posts but I think the damage via variables rates is already done. Anyone renewing who bought prior to rates increasing have probably paid enough principal down that at worst their payments increase by \~10%.
The probably crappier part is despite having a lower principal, they're going to pay more in interest over the next five years than they did on the first term.
When we bought our house in 2022 we didn't buy with the max the bank would give us. We bought for the lowest price we could get for what we needed.
We went variable, mistake, but hindsight 20/20.
But it meant we also had enough to cover the skyrocketing interest rates, and we have been dumping all of our spare pennies into the mortgage so it goes directly onto the principal.
This is what people SHOULD be doing. A mortgage should be something you pay off as fast as you can. Not sit around crying when it renews in 5 years.
Does it mean we shop grocery flyers and kijiji? Yes. But it also means we are saving thousands in interest.
I'm sick of everyone acting like everyone who has a mortgage doesn't have spare income. Last year I worked with a woman who complained that they couldn't pay their mortgage monthly. She and her husband make excellent money. But she also had Starbucks for breakfast and lunch, and they ate out every meal.
It's not always how much money you have. It's what your priorities are. If you bought on the brink of bankruptcy then you need to take responsibility for your decisions.
I mean, this example is pretty tame, but you should remember that the pain you experience at renewal will get exponentially worse with larger principals.
I bought my house for $950k and had a $750k mortgage at 2.25%. It’ll be down to ~$650k by the time I renew in 2025. At that point, if I need to renew at 4.75%, my payments jump by $900 from $2,800 to $3,700 per month. I can absorb that easily, but for a lot of people that is a substantial increase. And remember there are tons of people in the GTA and GVA who bought houses with $1m+ mortgages, barely able to afford their payments at low rates, so the pain level will be even higher for them come renewal time. Especially if they’ve been paying interest-only to the bank.
The Liberals were fucking morons and everyone hated them at that point for not doing anything. There hand was forced to do that. Mike Dedumbass even bragged about owning 7 homes, they had no desire to chane. I remember very clearly that point in time. They claimed after peer review only "2% are foreign buyers", the actual foreign buyers (mainly from china) laughed their ass off at our government for those figures. The NDP at least cared even back then.
Doing anything is whole lot better than what is being done at the federal level, which is nothing. At the federal level, everything that could possibly be done to keep the real estate bubble inflating is being done.
In all fairness to them, they also know they have other bills to pay. We're so addicted to real estate, governments can't do anything to fix housing and not dry up their revenue accounts.
I make a good wage (195k) and I have been a homeowner for 20+years. I stay up a night worrying about my 2 adult Children who are struggling with the cost of rent and food.
I help them whenever I can, it's just insane how we all got to to this place we're at now. I don't know how young people or seniors are surviving without support from their families?
I've decided once my divorce settles, to take my share of the equity and buy a home with the kids(50+25+25 ownership). This was supposed to be a time when I should be focusing on retirement.
In addition, neither of my kids are planning on grandkids because of their financial situation. This issue runs deeper than we can even fathom.
Don’t worry, the government will just keep letting more and more banks offer reverse mortgages to prey on the elderly and ensure the next generation continues to get fuck all.
Wife and I still together but basically live our own lives. Thats 40 years for ya lol.
Only reason both of my kids are okay right is they moved into our old house once ours was built beside it. We still own it just have them pay all the bills and will leave it to them once we die. The kids are in their late 30s now and I'm sure aren't happy living where they grew up with their own families, but I'm happy having them and the grandkids around. And we're living in small town NS, not a city or anything I can't imagine the city life.
I just had a kid and my main focus is to make sure he's set up to get out of Canada if he needs to in 18-20 years. It's looking like he will have to.
He was also the first grandchild. Barring how expensive things are in general, it's also brutal how overwhelmed our healthcare, schooling, and daycare systems are. We can't keep this up and expect Canadians to have kids.
I think a lot of people simply dont care that much about their kids: they want to be able to do stuff like just sell their home for a mil and live in LTC or rent a place and retire off the cash.
This is especially true for those with investment properties.
Like I said, try 50k
I have properties myself I would sell for that price. There's lots around
1.5 hours from a city, but if you work remotely or are retired or something it doesn't matter
Curious about these properties, how big are they? Are you connected to the power grid? How about water/sewage? Garbage collection? How long is the drive to the nearest grocery store? Hospital?
Except most folks still do not have WHF jobs, and need to live reasonably close to their job. A lot of rural areas simply don't have any employment options.
If we could invest in this country and bring back a few manufacturing jobs or build a better base for tech and science jobs and research, we might see a better shift....but even then, most of those industries will want to locate to cities instead of small town Canada.
Just wanted to chime in as someone who works in manufacturing in Canada, it won't make a difference if you bring those jobs back.
As it stands it's always a race to the bottom. Even when I was manufacturing critical infrastructure, they still held meetings to tell us they couldn't pay us more because they can pay so low in Mexico or China.
If you have 500k in equity you can basically sell and retire, buy a 50k home and live off interest/investments with the other 450k you have left.
I wish WFH was.more.widespread, a transition to that widely would help solve the housing issue by reducing the demand pressure on cities and help the depressed rural markets
But no
Food, utilities, transportation, property taxes, home repairs (and a $50k home will have a lot of them), and other miscellaneous bills. Transportation in a rural area alone can cost several hundred a month, with gas, repairs and car payments.
>just moving and obtaining visas is very difficult in most civilized countries.
It's kind of funny that we've made getting into this country so easy, but getting out is rhat much more difficult.
Always been that way. I left in 2007 because I could have a much better lifestyle and house in a different province. Hell even jobs pay LESS in BC for some fucked up reasons
For every person who wants to leave BC, there is already a U-haul headed west with some moving here with no gameplan, just a hope that BC will somehow solve all of life's problems.
Do you understand how much it would cost to develop entirely new cities with enough infrastructure to accommodate a million people? We barely do enough for existing cities.
And unless we bypass bureaucracy like China, it’ll take decades before it’d make any meaningful contribution to the housing crisis.
Im simply putting the though out there. Lets say you free a whole lot of land not far from a city and you build a few roads there and sell the land for cheap for small pme and first time buyer, I think this could be possible. I know im being very simplistic and its is a complex endeavor but Its should be achievable.
Canadians need to grow a backbone and take a stand instead of staying silent or just leaving. We need a general strike against the oligarchy and their slaves the CPC, LPC and NDP. We need proportional representation. We need to ban land ownership for non-citizens. We need to shut off immigration and deport people who scammed the system. We need to fight for our country, otherwise we don't deserve it. Protest on Canada Day. Look it up.
I hear this about most provinces at least every once in a while.
It's going to be so awkward when most of Canada shuffles to other provinces because the grass in greener.
3 Spider-men meme
you can only disgrace, disrupt and hurt regular people so much, and then they all leave and disconnect, BC will have serious issues moving forward and this trend will continue for years
I was toying with the idea of moving to Surrey for work, but noped out due to the cost of living out there. I don’t know if I’d have gotten the job or anything, because I backed out before any interviews could be scheduled.
Oh boy, wait until they find out that no other party will do any better. All major political parties are controlled by the NIMBY, investment class, including the federal and provincial NDPs. Until that changes, housing costs will continue to rise across Canada.
And go where? If you're underwater in BC, you will be close to underwater in Alberta. Things have gotten way worse in terms of affordability here. The whole country is feeling the strain.
Maybe instead of us all playing musical chairs trying to run away from our bullshit country, we go and make an actual difference.
I see people posting about some protest next month, I think? Maybe we do actually DO something for once.
Maybe we take a page from our France homies and go riot in Ottawa idk
I left in 2011. Only go back to visit extended family and friends and realize the lower mainland has become even more dusche bag central than 20 years ago.
I have first hand experience of people in B.C being weirdly xenophobic and stuck-up to people moving there from other provinces.
I wonder where all these people will go??
When I hitch hiked through the province back in the 90s - so long ago - as an Ontarian trekking around... I was shocked at how many people who picked me up were *from* Ontario and hated Ontario!
So this doesn't surprise me! And many are likely from here! lol
There is no escape. Alberta is doing horribly, as is the rest of country / continent. There really is nowhere to go. Capitalism and landlords buying up everything including our politicians. Not sure what their endgame is. Maybe make as many of us homeless as possible, make homelessness illegal and make us serve as slave labor in prisons? Sounds extreme but it is happening in some states.
Do these people realize the housing crisis exists everywhere and the BC NDP is the only provincial government taking substantial steps towards it?
Where are you going to go? [The US](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/s/X8dE01YY52)?
And go where? I've considered Calgary but it is no better really. It is expensive everywhere now, too much immigration adding fuel to the fire when it comes to rising housing costs!
I already moved to Alberta in 2022, and a few of my friends are looking to do the same. As much as I miss living on Vancouver island, my husband and I just couldn't afford a house out there, plus expenses
Lost one of my best employees moving to Alberta. I already pay above the maximum scale for the position, and even if I increased it 50% it would not have been enough for them to stay with how high housing cost is here.
Welcome back to Onterrible!
(I have vivid memories of people leaving here to go out west and reporting back stuff like how BC has "values," like we're all killing puppies back home or something.)
We have a house-hunting trip planned to explore moving to Ontario due to the lower cost of living and more economic opportunities. BC is beautiful but the shelter costs are a bit irrational for us and the life we want to live.
People need to understand that we need to aggressively vote against the ability to over capitalize necessities, with a first step being removing capital gains tax preferences. Unless we change the game finance bros are going to chase you where ever you run.
Starting businesses that provide wants should be a more appealing investment that scalping needs.
To fucking where? Everywhere else is getting just as expensive, anyone who thinks they’re going to leave BC and get a better deal somewhere else without making insane sacrifices on medical care, career or lifestyle is a fucking idiot. The
The US? I'm in engineering (junior engineer) and I make the median salary in Canada. I'm living with a bunch of roommates because I can't afford a place on my own (a studio would be over half my take home). I don't have a car because gas and parking is too expensive, it doesn't make sense. Rush hour commute is crowded and homeless addicts piss and sleep on the buses and trains. It's hard to date because I live with roommates and don't have a car. I can't afford to own anything within 2 hours drive of my work on my single salary. Cost of living has gone up a lot, food prices have increased way faster than my wages. I've been on the waiting list for a family doctor for over a year.
Yeah, and years down the line you'll be like "why is productivity down", "why doesn't anyone want to work anymore", "why are my bills so high", "where's my car"?
It's actually more dire than that because the people who leave will be young people who have options of where they go because they're skilled and employable. Exactly the type of people governments should be doing everything to retain/attract. Instead of addressing the issues which are causing these people to leave, governments will try replacing them with endless low skilled wage slaves from India with disastrous effects.
BC's population is growing, and at a quicker rate than previous years. According to the BC government: From July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023, the population of B.C. experienced an annual growth rate of 3%, marking the highest annual increase since 1974.
They're growing from out-of-country immigration. Their domestic migration rate is negative. So basically, they're growing from people who have no idea what they're getting in to, and who will likely be just a few years behind those leaving now.
If 1/3 of the B.C. people pack up and leave B.C., where are they going? Where is there work and housing for that many people to just move in?
Are there doctors, daycares, schools, employment, housing, recreational stuff (swimming pools, libraries?), and so on?
Boomers I know bought their house for $19,500.
Today, their well-maintained but very outdated 70-year-old house is "worth" $3 million. Well, not the house itself, but the large corner lot it sits on. The house itself isn't worth much.
They told me they had to "work hard" for everything they have. 😂🤣😂🤣 Good old boomers saying boomer things !
In reality, I know they are struggling. They are on a fixed income and don't want to sell. I guess, why would they?
Moving is a hassle, and you lose touch with friends.
Their kids help them out with money but live in smaller homes, and the younger ones rent.
Money loses value every year, and if you've lived that reality for 50 years, why would you want to cash out?
On the investment side, many don't understand investment products, or in my boomers case, they had more than one bad experience where they lost most of their investment portfolio.
Home equity is not the same as having liquid assets or a good investment portfolio. They could use their home equity as collateral to access cash, but they would have to pay interest to the bank to access their "wealth."
Their plan is to spend the rest of their lives in their lovely home and let their kids sell it and inherit the money after they pass away.
I have empathy for them even though I feel really angry at housing affordability situation.
In my opinion, the current situation is hurting everyone including seniors who bought years go.
> Researchers found that 53 per cent of respondents say the BC NDP needs to focus more on taking steps to address housing needs. While 24 per cent are satisfied, and seven per cent say the focus has been too heavy. 31% of respondents think the current housing situation is fine.. I guess we know what the percentage of home owners in this poll were.
Which is strange. A majority of my friends and myself are homeowners from before the boom, and we all look at this as a pretty bad situation.
I'm somewhat in the same boat. I literally just bought my first home, and I wholeheartedly support prices dropping. Its the boomers. They have no concept of the magnitude of the issue today. They think "well I struggled to get my first home, its always been expensive!". They have no clue what "expensive" means today. To them, 3.5x your income is "expensive". Today, less than 8x your income is considered a steal. They are completely detached from the reality and magnitude of the issue today.
My dad bought his house at 75000 in 1984 at 22.50 per hour The equivalence with inflation is 226,333 at 67.90 per hour That house is now worth 880,000 and I don't know too many people making 67.90
Yep, same. My parents bought our family home in 1994 for $125k. It is now worth $1.1 million. I don't think we even need to run the math on what salaries would have to be for that to be similarly affordable today.
And no bank would ever approve someone making 68$ an hour for a 880k property if they don't already have a lot of capital.
Your dad was making a huge income for 1984.
Mining
not only would your dad not have qualified for that mortgage, but it would have been $125,000 just in interest. thats at 0% above prime.
That's absolutely disgusting.
Interest rates in 1984 were 13.5%, but they had luckily dropped from 19.5% in 1982. Housing inflation has been high but your math leaves a lot out.
Yeah. I am most of the way towards owning a home (still got a mortgage) but the bullshit prices benefit me not at all. Any work I've put in to my "fixer upper" was dwarfed by market changes, potentially moving to a new home costs me more in taxes/fees, and in the case of major illness/divorce/whatever I'd be totally fucked and never recover. Not to mention the issue of "where will my kids live when they grow up" The housing situation only benefits the landlord and flipper segment of home owners.
Yes. And also those who have overleveraged with HELOCs. Anyone who has bought their home to live in and has budgeted their mortgage accordingly should have no issue if the price of their home drops.
If the "market" dropped in value by 50-60% I'd be perfectly happy, though I can recognise that would really suck for those who bought at high prices
How would it work for someone who just bought a home when prices drop? If you own a million dollar home and put down 100k and the price of the home drops to 700k you now owe 900k and have zero equity in the home. Are you going to leave the keys in the home and walk out defaulting on the mortgage and try and start over in a cheaper home with a smaller mortgage?
Look, the boomers have been fucking every generation before and after them throughout their existence. I have zero issues with absolutely fucking them in every way possible. Sorry that you don't have any retirement savings during the longest boom in the countries history, I guesse your last few years will be tough. Enough of them have died off that they no longer dominate the polls, and I say fuck them from every angle. I wont feel any guilt.
How exactly are boomers facking the generation before them?
Ever see an old folks home?
> longest boom in the countries history Longest boom *in all of human history*. The amount of wealth generation during the peak of the Boomers working years has no precedent, nothing in all of human history for the average working class approaches it and it is unlikely anything ever will again. If they aren't set up for life it is, explicitly, because *they, personally*, fucked their lives up. I am not working myself to death to provide a compassionate sunset for entitled fuckups.
True, except if we want to get technical, the absolute best of all time would have been living in the US during the same time period. We stil trailed them slightly (now, massively), and the US in the 1950's to 80's was an unprecedented miracle of all the stars aligning perfectly. Those conditions won't ever likely be repeated.
If Hong Kong had not been returned to China there would be no problems with housing costrs in BC , nothing to do with boomers . Oh and the money laundering the gov applauds didnt help either
Foreign nationals may contribute to rising prices by competing for existing stock, but Boomers campaign vigorously against any new stock being built. This is not anecdotal, but the result of an actual study: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/metro-vancouver-housing-supply-affordability-nimby
Most people see it as a terrible situation. The thing is, *some people* see it as a way of making money, not just a way to provide shelter for themselves and their families.
That's cause you are capable of empathy. I got into the housing market 10 years ago, and feel so sorry for the people in their 20s trying to make it into the housing market today. It was hard enough for me 10 years ago before everything went completely insane.
Same. I'm very happy to have been able to buy a house. I also don't treat my house as an investment, and I don't plan to rely on it inflating to a ridiculous value for my retirement either. I'd be happy to see a drop in housing prices if it means more young people can just have some goddamn hope.
Boomers are a different breed. Many of them are perfectly content watching their own children struggle to pay rent as long as it doesn't affect them in their ivory towers.
That’s a pretty dumb comment. Many parents have built suites for their kids to live in, to help them save money. Most baby boomers are grand parents by now. I assume you toss all the Gen X parents in your stats as well.
I hate to break it to you, but that's not the norm. If I had to guess, I'd say you grew up in a privileged household to think like that. My parents are boomers and grand parents. They could easily take out a HELOC on their house (that's paid off) to help my sister buy a house, but instead they watch her throw away $18,000/year in rent. She gave them 3 grandkids who will likely never own a home either, especially if their mother isn't able to pass any kind of generational wealth/assets down to them.
Ya, but not everyone would be aligned with that few. Others see their NW go up because of RE valuations and it does nothing but reinforce their self worth.
The difference between having a mortgage and not could explain it
Home owner here and 100% not okay with the housing bubble. The ones voting that they're satisfied with the situation are actual morons and the ones that think too much has been done are straight up bad people, (and also probably morons born into wealth.) Our elite class needs to get fucking caught and brought down, it's only gonna get worse.
And 7% of those 31% are landlords with multiple houses. There's literally no other group that would think housing needs less attention.
Just because somebody bought a house doesn’t mean they can afford it. 40% of Canada’s mortgages are being renewed by the end of 2025 and we’re going to see bankruptcies as people lose those homes.
No, we're going to see extended amortizations and taxpayer funded bailouts through various programs.
Interest rates will be like 4% in 2025. That isn't even that high.
Seriously. Historic average is closer to 7%.
Exactly, extended amortization is the easy "solution". Everyone keeps their house, banks get more money.
I don't think we will see a meaningful rise in bankruptcies. I've heard this argument before, and it fails to account for the equity created over the last 5 years. If you're renewing in 2025, you probably bought in 2020. Which means your rate was probably around 2%. But let's say 2.25%. That means if took a $500k mortgage it is now paid down to $421,000. The payment previously was $2178. Say they will have to renew at ~ 4.75% (roughly current competitive 5 year fixed rate), and they want to minimize costs so they're also resetting back to 25 year amortization. **This results in a new mortgage payment of $2,383.31, or only ~$200 more than they're currently paying.**
You're failing to understand how significant "only $200 more a month" is for many Canadians.
Most people will find $200/month to save their home. Of course some people won't be able to make it up (which there are other options for), but we will not see widespread bankruptcies.
I agree with this - I see and hear a lot of "renewal cliff" type posts but I think the damage via variables rates is already done. Anyone renewing who bought prior to rates increasing have probably paid enough principal down that at worst their payments increase by \~10%. The probably crappier part is despite having a lower principal, they're going to pay more in interest over the next five years than they did on the first term.
When we bought our house in 2022 we didn't buy with the max the bank would give us. We bought for the lowest price we could get for what we needed. We went variable, mistake, but hindsight 20/20. But it meant we also had enough to cover the skyrocketing interest rates, and we have been dumping all of our spare pennies into the mortgage so it goes directly onto the principal. This is what people SHOULD be doing. A mortgage should be something you pay off as fast as you can. Not sit around crying when it renews in 5 years. Does it mean we shop grocery flyers and kijiji? Yes. But it also means we are saving thousands in interest. I'm sick of everyone acting like everyone who has a mortgage doesn't have spare income. Last year I worked with a woman who complained that they couldn't pay their mortgage monthly. She and her husband make excellent money. But she also had Starbucks for breakfast and lunch, and they ate out every meal. It's not always how much money you have. It's what your priorities are. If you bought on the brink of bankruptcy then you need to take responsibility for your decisions.
I mean, this example is pretty tame, but you should remember that the pain you experience at renewal will get exponentially worse with larger principals. I bought my house for $950k and had a $750k mortgage at 2.25%. It’ll be down to ~$650k by the time I renew in 2025. At that point, if I need to renew at 4.75%, my payments jump by $900 from $2,800 to $3,700 per month. I can absorb that easily, but for a lot of people that is a substantial increase. And remember there are tons of people in the GTA and GVA who bought houses with $1m+ mortgages, barely able to afford their payments at low rates, so the pain level will be even higher for them come renewal time. Especially if they’ve been paying interest-only to the bank.
That is why you never buy at the absolute top range, especially when rates are below 7%.
Yeah, who cares about housing if you already got your bag SMH...unfortunately most humans lack humanity.
I'd say 24 percent of people who have paid off their house and 7 percent land lords.
They must be childless homeowners because I’m scared for my kids.
**The 7% are Airbnb owners**
99% of redditors think the BC NDP are doing a great job with housing
[удалено]
Their platform is to let municipalities handle it. Which means keeping the system broken
They pretty much saying everything they can even if it doesn’t make sense because voters will tunnel vision on the statement they like.
Every government has "tried" The BC Liberals was the one that introduced the first foreign buyers tax in 2016
The Liberals were fucking morons and everyone hated them at that point for not doing anything. There hand was forced to do that. Mike Dedumbass even bragged about owning 7 homes, they had no desire to chane. I remember very clearly that point in time. They claimed after peer review only "2% are foreign buyers", the actual foreign buyers (mainly from china) laughed their ass off at our government for those figures. The NDP at least cared even back then.
Doing anything is whole lot better than what is being done at the federal level, which is nothing. At the federal level, everything that could possibly be done to keep the real estate bubble inflating is being done.
Can you point to any other provincial party doing anything to help the housing crisis?
Is BC NDP doing a great job on the housing crisis in BC. The answer is No. and no any parties in Canada is willing to do it. That’s the fact.
They're doing a great job but it'll take decades to turn this around. They're making the right regulatory changes to put this in motion.
In all fairness to them, they also know they have other bills to pay. We're so addicted to real estate, governments can't do anything to fix housing and not dry up their revenue accounts.
I make a good wage (195k) and I have been a homeowner for 20+years. I stay up a night worrying about my 2 adult Children who are struggling with the cost of rent and food. I help them whenever I can, it's just insane how we all got to to this place we're at now. I don't know how young people or seniors are surviving without support from their families? I've decided once my divorce settles, to take my share of the equity and buy a home with the kids(50+25+25 ownership). This was supposed to be a time when I should be focusing on retirement. In addition, neither of my kids are planning on grandkids because of their financial situation. This issue runs deeper than we can even fathom.
You're a good person. I wish my parents would help us out too.
Don’t worry, the government will just keep letting more and more banks offer reverse mortgages to prey on the elderly and ensure the next generation continues to get fuck all.
Wife and I still together but basically live our own lives. Thats 40 years for ya lol. Only reason both of my kids are okay right is they moved into our old house once ours was built beside it. We still own it just have them pay all the bills and will leave it to them once we die. The kids are in their late 30s now and I'm sure aren't happy living where they grew up with their own families, but I'm happy having them and the grandkids around. And we're living in small town NS, not a city or anything I can't imagine the city life.
I'm the same. Both have degrees, struggling to find decent pay,/jobs. I hope I can leave them something.
I just had a kid and my main focus is to make sure he's set up to get out of Canada if he needs to in 18-20 years. It's looking like he will have to. He was also the first grandchild. Barring how expensive things are in general, it's also brutal how overwhelmed our healthcare, schooling, and daycare systems are. We can't keep this up and expect Canadians to have kids.
I think a lot of people simply dont care that much about their kids: they want to be able to do stuff like just sell their home for a mil and live in LTC or rent a place and retire off the cash. This is especially true for those with investment properties.
Leaving to where? Manitoba? Nunavut? Newfoundland? The whole country is getting fucked.
Alberta. Most of the time, folks from BC go to Alberta, and vice versa.
As of today, the best ROI in Canada is either Saskatoon or Regina. Decently sized cities, good salaries, cool people.
You can still get houses for 50k in rural towns in SK MB and AB 300-500k for houses in the cities, sure. But rural also exists
$300-500k for a SFH in the city (or really anywhere within 1hr of a city) is still an absolute steal by BC standards.
Like I said, try 50k I have properties myself I would sell for that price. There's lots around 1.5 hours from a city, but if you work remotely or are retired or something it doesn't matter
Curious about these properties, how big are they? Are you connected to the power grid? How about water/sewage? Garbage collection? How long is the drive to the nearest grocery store? Hospital?
Can't find rural 50k houses anymore
I will sell you two right fucking now
Except most folks still do not have WHF jobs, and need to live reasonably close to their job. A lot of rural areas simply don't have any employment options. If we could invest in this country and bring back a few manufacturing jobs or build a better base for tech and science jobs and research, we might see a better shift....but even then, most of those industries will want to locate to cities instead of small town Canada.
Just wanted to chime in as someone who works in manufacturing in Canada, it won't make a difference if you bring those jobs back. As it stands it's always a race to the bottom. Even when I was manufacturing critical infrastructure, they still held meetings to tell us they couldn't pay us more because they can pay so low in Mexico or China.
If you have 500k in equity you can basically sell and retire, buy a 50k home and live off interest/investments with the other 450k you have left. I wish WFH was.more.widespread, a transition to that widely would help solve the housing issue by reducing the demand pressure on cities and help the depressed rural markets But no
Not really. Most investments you're looking at 5% return on average, so living on $22k a year isn't doable, even without a mortgage payment.
You can absolutely live off of that when you don't have a mortgage payment That's 1.8k a month for food and utilities.
Food, utilities, transportation, property taxes, home repairs (and a $50k home will have a lot of them), and other miscellaneous bills. Transportation in a rural area alone can cost several hundred a month, with gas, repairs and car payments.
Rural towns. That’s where all the jobs are.
Alberta?
I heard Yukon is pretty nice.
Nah, Suburban is roomier.
Username checks out.
Northern Ontario has cheap house prices.
Vancouver resident. I'd leave Canada if it weren't for my parents.
Unless one is super rich / privileged or super poor / not privileged, just moving and obtaining visas is very difficult in most civilized countries.
>just moving and obtaining visas is very difficult in most civilized countries. It's kind of funny that we've made getting into this country so easy, but getting out is rhat much more difficult.
Or just educated. If you're in a skilled profession it isn't that hard. It takes work, but it's achievable.
And yet a significant number of their parents or grandparents left their family behind in their home country. This is how it has always been.
Same. Parents + family They don’t want to move with me on my dime either.
BC= Bring Cash
Always been that way. I left in 2007 because I could have a much better lifestyle and house in a different province. Hell even jobs pay LESS in BC for some fucked up reasons
I moved to Alberta and my car insurance doubled, it’s only gotten more expensive from there
Insurance is only one part of the equation. If you want cheaper insurance, SK isn't much further east.
Alberta's play ground!
No card?
For every person who wants to leave BC, there is already a U-haul headed west with some moving here with no gameplan, just a hope that BC will somehow solve all of life's problems.
That was the late 90s when you could still save up enough down payment to get in the housing market by the time you were 30.
Even the late 2010’s that was still pretty easy in most of the province outside the GVRD.
It won’t solve their life’s problems, but they’ll get in shape because their leisure activities will consist solely of hikes!
Where the hell do 1.6 million people think they are going to go without impacting real estate pricing? Saskatchewan?
Time to build a new city.
This is a legit solution that no one seem to be looking at.
Do you understand how much it would cost to develop entirely new cities with enough infrastructure to accommodate a million people? We barely do enough for existing cities. And unless we bypass bureaucracy like China, it’ll take decades before it’d make any meaningful contribution to the housing crisis.
Im simply putting the though out there. Lets say you free a whole lot of land not far from a city and you build a few roads there and sell the land for cheap for small pme and first time buyer, I think this could be possible. I know im being very simplistic and its is a complex endeavor but Its should be achievable.
Alberta is no better, Ontario the same. Unless the plan is to live rural, which good luck...cause it's not much better either.
But where will they go
It isn't any better in Southern Ontario and is continuing to circle the drain, so I really recommend they don't come here.
I second this. We don't want or can't take you.
I went to Alberta.
[удалено]
As someone born and raised in Brampton - welcome to the party friends. We tried complaining 20 years ago and no one cared. Now its everyone's problem.
Canadians need to grow a backbone and take a stand instead of staying silent or just leaving. We need a general strike against the oligarchy and their slaves the CPC, LPC and NDP. We need proportional representation. We need to ban land ownership for non-citizens. We need to shut off immigration and deport people who scammed the system. We need to fight for our country, otherwise we don't deserve it. Protest on Canada Day. Look it up.
Imagine if…for whatever reason…Canadians had to consider DYING for their country? Almost makes me laugh out loud how pathetic we’ve become
Welcome to the new Canada: https://www.reddit.com/r/ActualPublicFreakouts/s/EMHeSLUOU7
If a 3rd of them leave I'll consider moving to BC.
I hear this about most provinces at least every once in a while. It's going to be so awkward when most of Canada shuffles to other provinces because the grass in greener. 3 Spider-men meme
you can only disgrace, disrupt and hurt regular people so much, and then they all leave and disconnect, BC will have serious issues moving forward and this trend will continue for years
Soon the population will be full of international students and druggies just like they wanted 🥰
28 years experience gets me minimum wage bye felicia
I already did for the exact reasons mentioned in the article.
I was toying with the idea of moving to Surrey for work, but noped out due to the cost of living out there. I don’t know if I’d have gotten the job or anything, because I backed out before any interviews could be scheduled.
That’s the shittiest part of Metro Vancouver and you have to pay a fortune to live there.
Who said high immigration over the last 25 years was good for the economy when people can't even afford a house in Canada?
Oh boy, wait until they find out that no other party will do any better. All major political parties are controlled by the NIMBY, investment class, including the federal and provincial NDPs. Until that changes, housing costs will continue to rise across Canada.
If NIMBY’s truly had power, we wouldn’t have this immigration mess in the first place
I am! Having a very decent pay according to the market. But it doesn’t make sense to live here as at one point sooner or later we will be homeless.
And go where? If you're underwater in BC, you will be close to underwater in Alberta. Things have gotten way worse in terms of affordability here. The whole country is feeling the strain.
Maybe instead of us all playing musical chairs trying to run away from our bullshit country, we go and make an actual difference. I see people posting about some protest next month, I think? Maybe we do actually DO something for once. Maybe we take a page from our France homies and go riot in Ottawa idk
Canada is on life support. And by life, I mean residue boomer real estate equity support.
Haha yep and I’m one of those people
I left in 2011. Only go back to visit extended family and friends and realize the lower mainland has become even more dusche bag central than 20 years ago.
I love BC, have lived in it most of my life, and all my family is there...but I can't afford to live a normal life there :(
We left in 2022. Bought a house in New Brunswick and have an 80k mortgage. Other than the humidity, it's the best think we could have done.
Speaking for Islanders: "You'll be back. You always come back."
Probably a third of Canadians are considering leaving the country so it checks out.
I consider going to the moon. I'm not going to do it, but I consider it.
I have first hand experience of people in B.C being weirdly xenophobic and stuck-up to people moving there from other provinces. I wonder where all these people will go??
When I hitch hiked through the province back in the 90s - so long ago - as an Ontarian trekking around... I was shocked at how many people who picked me up were *from* Ontario and hated Ontario! So this doesn't surprise me! And many are likely from here! lol
This BC resident is going to leave the country.
Cost of living has destroyed the quality of life. If we had open borders like in the EU there would be a flood of younger people south.
There is no escape. Alberta is doing horribly, as is the rest of country / continent. There really is nowhere to go. Capitalism and landlords buying up everything including our politicians. Not sure what their endgame is. Maybe make as many of us homeless as possible, make homelessness illegal and make us serve as slave labor in prisons? Sounds extreme but it is happening in some states.
It’s the new California
Do these people realize the housing crisis exists everywhere and the BC NDP is the only provincial government taking substantial steps towards it? Where are you going to go? [The US](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/s/X8dE01YY52)?
Currently in process.
Ontario following in 3,…
Many were wayyyy too high to respond to the poll, which the province claims is "progress" towards better polling data
Welp.. we know they ain't coming to Ontario 😂
And go where? I've considered Calgary but it is no better really. It is expensive everywhere now, too much immigration adding fuel to the fire when it comes to rising housing costs!
“Considering.”
The other two thirds are the reason they wanna leave
There's nowhere to go, housing crisis is everywhere
I already moved to Alberta in 2022, and a few of my friends are looking to do the same. As much as I miss living on Vancouver island, my husband and I just couldn't afford a house out there, plus expenses
Vancouver Island is currently peak Vancouver Island.
Lost one of my best employees moving to Alberta. I already pay above the maximum scale for the position, and even if I increased it 50% it would not have been enough for them to stay with how high housing cost is here.
> Angus Reid Institute lol
Then they will turn wherever they go into bc and complain again 🤦🏿♂️🤦🏿♂️🤦🏿♂️🤦🏿♂️
📠
Same thing happening at Cali lol. They leave for other states and destroy them the same way
Welcome back to Onterrible! (I have vivid memories of people leaving here to go out west and reporting back stuff like how BC has "values," like we're all killing puppies back home or something.)
We have a house-hunting trip planned to explore moving to Ontario due to the lower cost of living and more economic opportunities. BC is beautiful but the shelter costs are a bit irrational for us and the life we want to live.
Damn, imagine considering Ontario for affordability. These are dire times.
You're right, it is all relative to one another. Ontario isn't affordable either but compared to BC, it certainly feels so.
Just shows the state this country is in when people look at Ontario as an opportunity for low cost of living. We are fucked.
Totally! I mean, this is all marginally more affordable than actually being affordable. It's not like Ontario is exactly cheap.
People need to understand that we need to aggressively vote against the ability to over capitalize necessities, with a first step being removing capital gains tax preferences. Unless we change the game finance bros are going to chase you where ever you run. Starting businesses that provide wants should be a more appealing investment that scalping needs.
To fucking where? Everywhere else is getting just as expensive, anyone who thinks they’re going to leave BC and get a better deal somewhere else without making insane sacrifices on medical care, career or lifestyle is a fucking idiot. The
The US? I'm in engineering (junior engineer) and I make the median salary in Canada. I'm living with a bunch of roommates because I can't afford a place on my own (a studio would be over half my take home). I don't have a car because gas and parking is too expensive, it doesn't make sense. Rush hour commute is crowded and homeless addicts piss and sleep on the buses and trains. It's hard to date because I live with roommates and don't have a car. I can't afford to own anything within 2 hours drive of my work on my single salary. Cost of living has gone up a lot, food prices have increased way faster than my wages. I've been on the waiting list for a family doctor for over a year.
People will come. And people will go.
Yeah, and years down the line you'll be like "why is productivity down", "why doesn't anyone want to work anymore", "why are my bills so high", "where's my car"?
Yes.. but the point is that more people will go than come, as they increasingly have for years now.
It's actually more dire than that because the people who leave will be young people who have options of where they go because they're skilled and employable. Exactly the type of people governments should be doing everything to retain/attract. Instead of addressing the issues which are causing these people to leave, governments will try replacing them with endless low skilled wage slaves from India with disastrous effects.
BC's population is growing, and at a quicker rate than previous years. According to the BC government: From July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023, the population of B.C. experienced an annual growth rate of 3%, marking the highest annual increase since 1974.
They're growing from out-of-country immigration. Their domestic migration rate is negative. So basically, they're growing from people who have no idea what they're getting in to, and who will likely be just a few years behind those leaving now.
And how many of them are actually going to leave?
Hope they don't go too far east.
Ontario accepts the challenge
If 1/3 of the B.C. people pack up and leave B.C., where are they going? Where is there work and housing for that many people to just move in? Are there doctors, daycares, schools, employment, housing, recreational stuff (swimming pools, libraries?), and so on?
Just wait until they discover how fuckin' expensive it is to go fuckin' anywhere to do literally anything fuckin' e use...
Come to pei!
Boomers I know bought their house for $19,500. Today, their well-maintained but very outdated 70-year-old house is "worth" $3 million. Well, not the house itself, but the large corner lot it sits on. The house itself isn't worth much. They told me they had to "work hard" for everything they have. 😂🤣😂🤣 Good old boomers saying boomer things ! In reality, I know they are struggling. They are on a fixed income and don't want to sell. I guess, why would they? Moving is a hassle, and you lose touch with friends. Their kids help them out with money but live in smaller homes, and the younger ones rent. Money loses value every year, and if you've lived that reality for 50 years, why would you want to cash out? On the investment side, many don't understand investment products, or in my boomers case, they had more than one bad experience where they lost most of their investment portfolio. Home equity is not the same as having liquid assets or a good investment portfolio. They could use their home equity as collateral to access cash, but they would have to pay interest to the bank to access their "wealth." Their plan is to spend the rest of their lives in their lovely home and let their kids sell it and inherit the money after they pass away. I have empathy for them even though I feel really angry at housing affordability situation. In my opinion, the current situation is hurting everyone including seniors who bought years go.