Shard

$50K - start with a condo - couple up - sell two condos and buy a house (disregarding actual house prices). Working backwards, notional couple ought to be able to afford a $600K house by the time they settle down. Seems possible in the Prairies and Maritimes.

not2old

is this doable?

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/2...treet-kamloops

https://www.zolo.ca/kamloops-real-es...ola-street/504

even then with $50k down could a minimum wage earner qualify for a mortgage?

JamesM

We had a double whammy in Toronto, possibly a triple whammy.

First up they bought in much tougher legislation on short term rentals that put a lot of Air B'nB stock on to the market.

Secondly the pandemic which shut everything down. People didn't need to be here to work and there is literally nothing to do. We've been locked down in Toronto now for 5 straight months with the exception of opening pub patio's for 11 days so they could blame it for the surge in cases that has only ever correlated with schools being open.

The third is that we have endless condo's going up- it's crazy. Within one block north they are literally rebuilding two streets with more condo's and then if you go one block East or West it's the same. They're also approving a development to cover the railway line and shove in another 8 towers. That's over 50 new towers within a 1km of me in each of the three directions as south of here is the lake.

I think the main impacter is the first two but the sustainability of the third just doesn't stack up.

So I read a story in the Toronto Star about a house in Brampton using the same numbers. It definitely happened but it's becoming a realtor's wives tale. I agree property is still high- when I looked at rents in Burlington/Oakville they have held firm and are more expensive to rent now than Downtown.

It shows you how little Toronto has to offer once you aren't faced with a commute.

I nearly landed a job with a firm in the Okanagan earlier this year and was going to try and use it to go there for a year. Property in Kelowna has been on a surge but it's well positioned to take advantage of the better ski/snowboarding terrain on a very regular basis and their concept of traffic is super light.

Look at the Sunshine list Siouxie- there is about 50,000 people earning that just working for the province. Once you bring in City Hall and Government of Canada you realize how the other half live. We have 100,000 people in the civil service in Ontario living like kings. Lots of vacation, pensions, job security and zero pressure. None of them needing CERB or being laid off during the pandemic and many of them getting time off to just relax. Once you start digging in there you can see why there is little effort to end the pandemic- they're having the time of their lives.

Beyond that as DBD points out- in the tech industry $100,000 is quite normal for those in software development. The salaries progress dramatically if you manage teams or can engineer software.

Lawyers, Doctors, High finance all up there as well.

But I've never bought into the myth immigration drives the property prices as I don't believe it's a big destination of choice for people with money. Canada typically uses immigrants to drive cabs, serve coffee and sweep up. I'm a big believer in Canada's real estate being used to launder and park money for the foreigners who don't want to live here.

I think two people at 50% in a given area would be a sensible benchmark for affordability.

What I find interesting about Ontario is salaries in Toronto don't seem to be any higher than elsewhere in the province for similar jobs. Perhaps this is the way it should be but it's different in the UK where in a profession it's not uncommon to get or ask for more just to help with the commute costs or additional rent.

Danny B

If they lived in Kamloops they would already be on the Kamloops property ladder, but they both live and work in Vancouver. They could afford a small place in Langley but who wants to drive that commute. I have suggested that they buy a rental property in Kamloops for now so that they can build some equity, but he wasn't too keen on the idea.

But yes, $50k down with two people earning minimum wage would get you into one of those two places.

Moses2013

Same for us and 3.5 was the rule in 2012. Wife was still in probation period and didn't qualify for mortgage but luckily there were plenty of fixer-uppers available and just used the money we saved to renovate over time.

Danny B

I had no idea house prices were that much in the Yukon

dbd33

You should see the price of car insurance there.. $1000/month isn't unusual.

scrubbedexpat091

The province plans to invest an additional $2 billion to support thousands of new homes priced for middle-income B.C. families.

https://www.saobserver.net/news/b-c-...home-projects/

scrubbedexpat091

Kelowna moving on up, moving on up.

Looks like Quebec City is one of the best place to be a renter. If only I spoke French fluently.

Winnipeg is more expensive than I would have thought

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/cana...ent-april-2021

scrubbedexpat091

High price tag on condos doesn't mean high quality.

Guess also a good example why condo insurance is climbing so quickly in price, floods like this must cost insurance companies an awful lot of money.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vanc...looding-damage

dbd33

Flood typically isn't covered under house or condo insurance in Canada. Flood products have been introduced in the past five years, starting around the time of the High River floods, but that coverage isn't bundled into standard policies. If that's actually sewer back up casually described as "flood" it may be covered but if it's a real flood, like a lake or river overflowing, then no.

scrubbedexpat091

Flood in this case = broken pipe of some sort.

It's not a natural flood from a lake or river, broken pipe on a higher floor, flooding unit below it.

scrubbedexpat091

At the rate things are going, Vancouver will not have any low to mid range hotels left, and will only have luxury hotels left.

Another hotel was bought, Best Western in Mount Pleasant.

The city hasn't disclosed the price.

https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/v...ousing-3640199

abner

Something wrong with those figures.

How can Canada as a whole be up 31.71%, when the only single province with a higher figure is NB, at 31.81%???

It's not as if New Brunswick swings major weight in Canadian real estate values...

Danny B

I think they mean the average house price in Canada in March 2020 vs March 2021 has increased by 31%

https://www.crea.ca/housing-market-s...nal-price-map/