scrubbedexpat091

I worked there for a bit and it was a popular budget hotel, clean basic rooms, free breakfast, older building but was well kept.

caretaker

I'd be up at 5 or 6 and my hosts would often sleep till 8:30 or so, so I'd go to the McDonald's between Day's Inn and Victoria and have coffee and read the papers. All the assorted nightowls would come through on their way home to bed.

scrubbedexpat091

It can be a slightly colorful area especially overnight...ha ha or at least it was the 10 or so years ago when I worked there.

Some residents of the area are not happy with it being converted to homeless housing though.

CanadaJimmy

There's a youtube channel called FORMAFIST and the guy has been doing a series of interviews about the Real Estate market for a documentary. His recent interview with an analyst in Victoria,BC seemed worth sharing here.


There's a few other good interviews on his channel as well.

scrubbedexpat091

Angus Reid study on housing prices.

40% hopeful housing prices will continue to rise.
39% banking on a fall in prices.
22% would like to see prices 30% or more.

57% rural dwellers say housing is too expensive in their community, 67% of those in small city's say prices are too high, and 7 in 10 city/suburban dwellers say prices are too high.

Those living in Metro Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax are most likely to say housing prices are too high.

Among those who don't currently own a home:

21% do not want one
45% would like to own but can't afford to right now
25% would like to own, but doubt they will ever be able to afford one.

https://angusreid.org/housing-prices-2021/

scrubbedexpat091

https://globalnews.ca/news/7740756/h...across-canada/

BristolUK

Similar pattern - especially the recent rise - just lower.

Rete

Real Estate prices worldwide have always gone up,rather than down except in a depression/recession.

Isn't that what is desired when one purchases property ... a residence but also an investment for profit at some time in the future.

And yes, wages have never risen at the same rate as the real estate prices. Those in the lower and middle middle class population who were able to afford to purchase a home did so after a lot of hard work and doing without for the down payment. Many times it is with a family with multiple wage earners who are able to afford a home. Nothing has changed in life.

I'm going out on a limb here but I feel the limb is sturdy that many of the BE's were able to purchase homes in the US and Canada and elsewhere in the world because of their savings or profits from previous real estate and the excellent rate of exchange on the pound.

bats

I move out of London so I could afford to buy somewhere. I had to get a mortgage with some weird building society and at a higher interest rate as single women weren't usually given mortgages. I couldn't stand small town living and moved back to London. It was tough but just doable. Ive checked what those flats would be worth now, and the salary I would be on and there's no way I could afford to buy anything. Friends who bought later when prices had risen got stuck with negative equity when the prices fell.

dbd33

I came to Canada with nothing, I saved up and bought a house using only Canadian income. The ability to do that was the whole point of being in Canada. My one daughter who likes Canada has done the same. None of us can buy houses in the UK because we're not in that league financially but, despite the theme of this thread, we can still buy houses in Canada using only income from honest work inside the country.

Siouxie

Not everyone can - it depends on your income level and how high the prices may have risen. If you came to Canada now with nothing I very much doubt you would be buying a property for a fair few years, if at all.

dbd33

The ability to buy things has always depended on one's income and the price of things and it has never been the case that everyone could afford to buy a house; hence the council estates at home. In order to do so you have to have a good job and that typically means having worked hard and been lucky. If you want the house you have to out compete other workers in your field, if they bill 1700 hours you should shoot for 2000. If they work Monday to Friday, you should work Saturday as well.

Sacrifices might have to be made, particularly in location, but that was always the case, some of us moved to the back of beyond, Hogtown, in order to get a house. There are still people who want a house enough to do that; people live in Mississauga, Windsor, even Winnipeg. People buy half a house with someone else or they buy a house and rent out part of it, they cram multiple generations into a single house. Lots of people commute two hours each way. It can be done by many people, we're talking Canada here, not Camden Town.

Your chart is unhelpful, I think, in that it offers percentages and that does not make clear that houses in Canada had very little value at the start of the period considered. A rise in prices to bring say Toronto, up to the level of, say, Wolverhampton, would be enormous in percentage terms.

Jerseygirl

According to our agent the property market here in Toronto is hot, hot, hot. Yesterday we had a 9am appointment to view a lakeside condo. It was put on the market Friday. Appointments for Friday/Saturday/Sunday were full. Yesterday morning 3 offers had already been received. Just heard it is now sold. Waiting to hear how much it was sold for.

dbd33

There are vast new housing projects in places like Shelburne, Dundalk, Fergus, Grand Valley. Someone is buying these houses, presumably people who can't afford Brampton, still less Toronto. It all looks grim to me but, if buying a house is what you want to do, then maybe that's where you have to do it.

BristolUK

Of course. But you do know there was a time when loads of people could do so and now can't buy the equivalent in the same location.

Our family of 6 lived in the Bonzo's Keynsham on a council estate. My dad worked in the Sales office at WD and HO Wills. Mum didn't work.
They got a mortgage to buy a 3 bed semi on his earnings only.

I borrowed the (then) maximum 2.5 times my salary to buy my house in 1984. Identical houses in my little block have all been sold in the last three years for amounts needing 16 times the salary of the job I had back then.

Or the same job that was good enough 30+ years ago.

I would have said "or here" but even here houses are going for more than an already inflated asking price. The duplex I sold in 2016 went for 2.5 times last year. If only I'd been able to hang on another couple of years. Only the siding had been changed.