Easiest way to legally avoid taxes is to just stay low income. One upside to being poor is the govt doesnt tax you much if at all. You even get most of your GST back since most purchases of are things that are GST exempt.

Back to the property values mentioned - Average price is an awful indicator of house prices in an area as one high value property will skew the figures substantially, but one low value property won't , as an example, if there is an area with 9 houses worth $100,000 and one house worth $10,000,000, then the average house value in that area is just under $1.1 million, yet that's not a good indicator of the price you would likely pay to live in that area, which would be $100,000.
On the flip side, if the $10,000,000 house was only worth $10,000, the average house value in the area is now $91,000 - very close to the price you would likely pay to live in that area.

When I first looked at moving to BC, I could afford to buy the property I wanted with the income and savings I had, firstly in Coquitlam, but as time went on and property values rocketed, I was pushed further out, first to Pitt Meadows, then Maple Ridge, then Mission. Had I waited any longer to buy, I would have ended up living in Chilliwack to get what I wanted.

(Note, I wanted a large house, with 2 acres minimum of land.)

Its a good indicator in Vancouver where the lowest priced house listes is 938,000 and average just over 1 million. Lol

I would take Chilliwack as an option but seems even there we are largely priced out now.

You can afford a house in Chilliwack.

Chilliwack Area MLS® Listings & Real Estate for Sale | REW.ca

So what exactly does one do if they like an area, but the house prices are, for example, $500,000, and a 10% deposit is required - which I believe is some new mandate from some government body for some mortgages? That's $50,000, which is a chunk of money I doubt many have just sitting around.

Some of those are not bad at all. Low fees too.

If you don't have the required deposit, you simply can't afford to live there, just like you can't afford to own a new Ferrari. Find somewhere else to live that you CAN afford.

I really can't understand why people don't get this.

Exactly, if you're prepared to compromise on location and you have a job, you can afford to buy a house.
If you can't scrape up the deposit, there are other options too - I have never tried one, but there are rent to own schemes out there.

Be thankful you didn't over extend yourself to buy in Alberta over the past year

We want to own for lifestyle for a yard and space. Condos just cant provide that so may as well rent and keel flexibility.

I will trade flexibility for a yard but not for a condo which wont improve anything.

When I search freehold and house under 150k on mls rarely does anything show up in the wack.

Search the whole province for that range and you end up with Texada, lilloet and other small towns.

I just dont see an advantage to an old condo building. Seems risky buying into a building that is 20 or 30 or even 50. How long are they going to last?

You don't actually get the HST back, at least I don't, what I get is an HST rebate. I don't know how they calculate the amount but it's nowhere near the amount I spend on HST and it's not determined by any sort of analysis of my HST spending. It may be a fixed amount for everyone with a taxable income below some figure.

When your poor though you buy little that is taxable. 2 biggest exspenses for us is rent and food. Neither are taxable. Rent might have it included but its not added to the rent in any visible way.

I kept track last year and in no quarter did our gst paid in purchases exceed what we get back.

When you have little extra to spend sales tax isnt paid on much.

We dont have HST in BC.

At least if you bought a condo you'd be putting money in to something rather than chucking it away as rent though.

Nobody (generally) buys what they want first time around - our first house was a grotty repossessed shoebox with horrendous damp, on a main road next to an industrial estate, in the worst part of an awful town. But we did it up, made a chunk of money on it as it had been improved plus the market had risen, and then we took that equity and put in to the next house. Repeat 4 times, and we're now in our dream house, but it took 15 years and a lot of hard work to get there.

You can't expect to just jump in to the house you'd like, that's why it's called the 'housing ladder' - you climb it.

I've no idea what the market is like in Vancouver now and if it's still expected to rise, but if it is then perhaps you'd be better of buying a condo if that's all you can afford, slowly doing it up and then selling in a couple of years when hopefully you've got some equity in it to put in to the house you want?

I think the housing ladder thing is something that only really exists in English speaking countries. It might have worked well in the past, but things are changing and enough people are now stuck in properties they can't get rid of. If you don't want a condo, then rent some crappy place that allows you to save enough money, or move to an area where housing is cheaper. As a first time buyer, you should only really buy when the market crashes. If you can't wait that long, then buy a property you can see yourself living long term.

There may be factors involved as to why you can't move somewhere else that is dramatically cheaper, for example; a longer commute, which can then fold into parental responsibilities, such as picking up kids from school.

Ah, but of course one could just, at a drop of a hat, get a job in a new cheaper location.

It must be wonderful to be in a position where this kind of thing seemingly isn't a big concern.