Scullboy sent in a link to this CBC editorial on housing affordability in Vancouver. Its written by a boomer who grew up here and is essentially a lament about the loss of affordability that the current generation is facing. Here’s a few select excerpts:
No one that I grew up with could afford to buy a house in that neighbourhood now and move back in. In my parents’ day, there was typically only one wage earner per family, and now there are two, and still, middle income, middle-class couples cannot afford to buy a house in the city. It is obvious that wages have not kept pace with the inflated price of housing.
Actually, I don’t know anyone who can afford to buy a house in the Lower Mainland (B.C.) anymore, unless they lock themselves into 30- to 50-year mortgages, and do nothing but work overtime for the duration.
This situation has to bottom out sometime. But right now, there is a whole generation of young Canadians who have no hope of owning their own place in a major city. Young doctors are turning down job offers in Vancouver because they can’t afford the housing.
…
The thing is, everyone buys property with the idea it will increase in value, and they will get more out of it in the end than they put in. This equation has been more or less manageable for generations. But there must be a breaking point, and I think we’re almost there.
Banks, which have been making hefty fortunes on all the mortgages on any given house, new owner after new owner, may start to worry about this soon. The bottom-out factor has already started in the USA, and will arrive here too.
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