[ipaddr]

Plenty of affordable homes in Canada at the $500,000 mortgage + down payment range. Go find a smaller city and grow with it because you have the same affordability problem in San Francisco or New York. Your tech salary isn't getting you a house there either. The time to buy a house in Toronto was when they cost $5,000 after the war or was the time to buy in 1975 when the property cost $30,000 or in the 90s when you could have gotten a house for $200,000. In 2012 for $500,000 you could get a house in 2021 it was 1.3 million now it's 1.1 million. In 2015 you could have purchased a home in New Brunswick for $25,000..

Your 1.1 million dollar home you buy today will be worth 5 million in 50 years at least 2 million in 20 years. Still as good of an investment as ever.

It's like bitcoin sure it would have been great buying coins for 5 cents and today and you would be a billionaire but you weren't able to make that bet. If you want to buy at the 5 cent level you need to find another coin because that opportunity passed. You weren't able to buy a home in 2010 or 1947 so you are never getting those prices again. You can buy today but don't expect the same prices on the same properties as if you lived in the past

[WarOnPrivacy]

> Plenty of affordable homes in Canada at the $500,000 mortgage + down payment range.

Canadian humor is weird.

Using the most typical US salary as a guide, it would require the combined salaries of 6.3 people to afford a $500k home. After adding insurance, maintenance, fees, property taxes, etc - I'm thinking more like 8 people (10 in FL).

ref: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-much-do-you-need-to-ea...

ref: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/common-jo...

[3vidence]

Even that $500,000 would be a steal in most markets in canada. The average house price is about 780,000 across the country and $900,000 in Ontario the most populous province.

If houses were just 500,000 and there were jobs in those areas I think we WOULD see more entrepreneurs because that was pretty much the conditions 10 years ago that TFA mentioned

[ipaddr]

The parent mentioned $500,000 mortgages are the thing of the past.

The $500,000 is usually carried by two. $250,000 mortgage while expensive is still much cheaper than current rental values.

[snovv_crash]

The rent would also be carried by 2.

[zinodaur]

yeah, but in 1975 the average household income was 50k. Now its 92k. The cost of a house in Toronto (and everywhere in Ontario) went from being 60k (120% of annual average family income) to 1.1m (1200% annual average family income).

"Go somewhere else" - They did that - and Halifax housing prices tripled in 3 years, from 310% annual average family income to 840% annual average family income.

We need to build more houses or have fewer people, but instead we're slowing down on building and importing new people as fast as we can

[ipaddr]

Halifax is a premier city. Think smaller.

[light_hue_1]

There's always one in every thread.

Someone who says the solution to the housing problem is to move somewhere horrible with no jobs, no culture, no services, horrible schools so that my children can waste their future, never mind if I want to go out and do something one in a while. These places are so awesome that the depression and suicide rates are far higher than in real cities.

Maybe you like living in such places. But the solution to the housing crisis cannot be to give up on having a reasonable life for most people.

[ipaddr]

You want to live in the top cities but you want mid city prices? Toronto wasn't always top city. It was known as hogtown and when people feared Quebec leaving Canada in the 1970s many in Montreal moved to Toronto. Vancouver wasn't an expensive city until China took over Hong Kong and many moved to Vancouver. Today many smaller cities are popping and posed for growth.

The culture argument is biased. People leaving Montreal for hogtown in the 80s probably felt the same way. But Toronto's cultural aura grew. Saying that the culture of say Miramichi or Yellowknife is horrible and your kids future will be wasted if you don't live in downtown Toronto is a little naive.

Young people are flocking to smaller towns because of affordability. Culture is being made there. Why do you want to live with older folks and try to relive there heyday in places they made big?

For jobs. Stick to remote. The longer these in person positions go vacant the more likely they become remote jobs. Be part of the solution.

[randomdata]

> Someone who says the solution to the housing problem is to move somewhere horrible with no jobs

The stated solution was always to move to where the jobs are. Perhaps counterintuitively, the trouble with high housing prices is that even the job providers don't want to live there. In fact, through the mid-to-late 2010s as Vancouver and Toronto became unmanageable, the strongest job market in Canada was in a predominantly rural area with an average home price of $200,000.

The trouble is that people eventually take notice, so it is always a moving target. The average home in that rural region is now $700,000 as people have pushed their way in to bask in the job opportunity. Which, of course, also means the job market is no longer as strong (although remains stronger than a lot of country according to September data – the decline takes time) as job providers have started moving to more prosperous ground again. You can't say "move to <location>, problem solved" because as soon as you do, <location> will necessarily need to change to somewhere else.

A story as old as time, of course. Canada wouldn't exist at all if people weren't always needing to find a new location. That is life, I suppose.

[wildrhythms]

I'm forced to be in the office, which is not in the 'think smaller' cities...

[NicolBolas]

COL is even higher in China relative to their domestic wages. Yet, entrepreneurship is much more dynamic in China than Canada.

It's a cultural problem. Hustle culture and entrepreneurship is respected in China. That's not the case in Canada.

[nmfisher]

I don’t know about Canada, but there’s also no unemployment safety net in China, which drives a lot of “neighbourhood” businesses (hairdressers, AirBnb, milk tea shops, etc).

[harimau777]

Small cities usually don't become cosmopolitan cultural centers in the span of a lifetime. So growing with a small city with the plan of living there long term isn't viable.

Growing with a small city as an investment vehicle seems like it would run into problems predicting which small city is going to see significant growth.

[ipaddr]

Toronto did. Other cities can too.

[thfuran]

They can. That doesn't mean any specific small city is likely to.