DGLM

Yes, those of us who know economics 101 do blame the baby boomer generation, who have allowed our industrial base to be exported to the Far-East, who now see their market-linked pensions looking ropey, and who remortgaged their houses to become landlords to suppliment their 30% reduced pension income.
You say there isn't the home-owner obsession in Canada, but someone has to own the houses that are been rented...why should it be baby boomers for the most part living off the labour of younger people, who can't get a mortgage. Who is daft mate? Have you tried getting a mortgage? Why are the prices so high? Kinda obvious, if you aren't daft.

christmasoompa

There's no need to be rude. I'm 35 and have just bought my fourth house in the UK (so yes, have tried getting a mortgage), can't see why on earth anybody my age or younger than me should blame others for not being able to buy a house! It's no harder now than it's ever been, my parents had to scrimp and save and work several jobs to save up for their first house, just as my husband and I did.

If somebody has chosen to buy a rental property because they've worked hard over their life and invested in property, then fair play to them imo.

el_richo

It's funny, young people are complaining about the same thing in Canada. Who'd have thunk it

Median house price in Vancouver is ~$700k whereas Median household income is ~$68k. Work out the affordability with your economics 101

Welcome to Canada

alcat2010

My wife and I have a decent enough standard of life yes, thats due to not having high damands / living well within our means. And it was also through alot of hard work and determination (I did not get into the fire service easily, and my wife studied and worked hard for many years to be a nurse)

The villification was / is due to all our previous experiences growing up and currently living where we do. Definitely not all good.
Crime? Yep, Plenty. ..Violence? Yep, plenty..
The kind of experiences I dont want my daughters exposed to..

Immigration? Well this is something that is now in my opinion getting worse in the uk as a whole (info gained through media and also experiences in local communities in glasgow)

How will my life 'be better' on a day to day basis?
Well I honestly dont really know.. suppose hence the reason for the thread..
But my naive idea of escaping the rundown majority of areas in scotland, and having better surroundings for my kids would kinda make 'it better'...

DGLM

Don't be ridiculous! So house prices haven't risen in the past 10 years? Did they or did they not rise because mortgage holders were encourgaed to remortgage and become landlords? If you bought your first house before the mortgage farming mania kicked in last decade, then you didn't have to save 40% for a mortgage on an average house price of £180,000.
Also, no one needed to scrimp and save THAT much. There is scrimping and saving, then there is working for 25 years to pay for a deposit! You have no idea about the situation now, hence your ignorant reply.
The question still remains, do Canadians **** over the younger generation in the housing market, to live off younger peoples labour? Thats all I'm asking.

Your opinion then is no different to those living iunder feudalism, in tennant plots. You say its okay, but you'd say it wasn't if you were in other peoples situation. Hypocrit.

iaink

The funny thing is I have a brother lives in Glenrothes, and he's perfectly happy there. It seems nice enough to me when I visit, and by UK standards its far from expensive.

maybe we are missing something?

alcat2010

This pretty much confirms my way of thinking..
One piece of evidence that its true ha!

alcat2010

Hoping not to offend.... but nah, small towns in the east coast in fife i.e. Glenrothes / kirkcaldy / dunfermline...

To me just seem riddled with the same crap as in the west. run down, tired town centres with high unemployment, some affordable decent houses but affordable as they are spitting distance to skum ridden holes!

iaink

House prices in the UK have been rising for decades, there is nothing special about this generation.

There is a finite amount of land in places peope want to live in the UK, and thats reflected in the way prices rise. Its supply and demand. 60M people now compared to 40M a few decades back.

Thats true in Vancouver, wedged between see and mountains, and its true of waterfront property in Ontario. Its supply and demand.

To be honest you sound more than a bit bitter. Funny, both my brothers and all my friends from Uni managed to buy into property in the UK; Blaming the boomers for buying it all up and renting it out just doesnt add up. Those boomers with their mortgages were carrying interest rates in the teens in the 70s, so good luck to them. They have to die sometime. Maybe its you and not them? Previous generations had to scrimp and save to get a downpayment together too. My dad had to borrow from his father in law. Same shit, different bucket.

iaink

Exactly, its all about perspective isnt it. People look at the same thing and their brains process it totally differently.

The danger is you will look at some nice place in Canada and see the same rundown problems, and by then you will have chucked your nice secure life of today away.

el_richo

Fair enough. I guess it all depends where you intend to live and what that area has to offer in keeping issues out of sight. Like the UK, most places are good at that unless you go looking or read the media.

I'm a believer on not using the past (as in how we grew up) as an indicator or perceptor of how our kids will grow up. It sounds like you've moved away from that, to a point. So use where you are as a basis for the future. If you don't struggle with crime every day, wake up to glass covered streets, and are subject to violence in your daily life, then the chances of your kids having that are slim.

Take Vancouver for example. It's a beautiful place, has nice people, and offers me a great lifestyle. Since i've lived here there have been lots of shootings, murders, violence, robbery, sexual attacks, i've had 2 ipods stolen, etc etc. There are homeless people wandering the streets like a scene from a zombie movie, mental people who need help, drugs, drunken idiots, and trailer trash wandering the streets. I've spent time in small town Canada where drink driving is considered normal and acceptable.

Does it impact my life? No not really. I'm aware it happens but i don't directly associate with it in the same way you don't in Glasgow.

Immigrations is rife in Canada too. As in the UK, some of it is good and some bad. Some drain the coffers from society, some bring their criminal ways with them, some can't speak English, and the majority are looking to better themselves are are very nice people. It shouldn't be an issue as i doubt it impacts your life at all in either country.

You could quite easily escape the proximity of run down areas in either country, so if you're packing up and moving anyway, why not try Canada. There's nothing wrong with it, and it'll be exciting for a little while before daily normality is resumed and you see similar things in Canada as you do in the UK that get your back up. Like i said before, it's like a relationship where ultimately the freshness wears off and the usual reality comes to say hello.

I really enjoy my life here, so maybe you will too. Maybe it'll be the best thing you ever did. Maybe it'll emotionally scar your children for life and kill your marriage. Who knows. If you REALLY wanted it, and if you REALLY thought it was for the best, you'd not have to second guess your decisions or get confirmation from others. You'd just know and do it. This is why you should go ahead with the PR process, holiday in different areas of Canada over the next few years a few times each year, and go from there.

Just don't forget to live life where you're at now otherwise you'll miss some really good bits

Tangram

Good post. You really are on a roll. Exactly what I would have posted if I could be arsed.

iaink

+1000000.

Maybe I should create a sticky thread from of all this recent wisdom...

Did you fall and bang your head recently or something

el_richo

It's funny. I remember visiting places in the Lower Mainland of BC years ago with fresh eyes and thinking they were great and different and very North American quaint. Now i drive through thinking, **** me, what a shit hole. How can people live there with the trailer trash walking the streets, run down houses, unemployments, etc etc.

christmasoompa

+1. My grandparents never managed to afford to buy their own house, as much as they tried. The difference was they didn't blame anybody else for that fact.

I worked 3 jobs for years and years to save up a deposit for my first home, which was a wreck and a repossession (the only thing I could afford). It never crossed my mind to blame my parents for that.