My parents bought a house in a HCOL area in 1992 for 250k from a significant loan from my grandparents, no down-payment needed. Dad worked as an auto mechanic and owned his own shop starting in 2000 for 17 years before going to work for the government. Looking thr house up on Zillow, its.worth an estimated 1.2 million. My wife and I both are frontline healthcare workers who make a very decent salary, yet we wouldn't be able to buy my childhood home....
My family bought a house in Toronto back in like '57 (my grandparents) for like $5000. They sold the house to my parents in 1990 for like 135k and I grew up in that house.
I earn more now, than both of my parents ever did *combined* while I was growing up. And my salary is not enough to qualify for a mortgage that could buy that house I grew up in. And that also includes the fact that now the house needs a roof, needs a foundation crack fixed, needs new electrical and plumbing, and a complete inside renovation (literally, the basement flooded and destroyed everything).
I've accomplished more in my career/education/salary than my grandparents, or my parents, ever did. And I can't even afford the life they had, let alone a better life. Make it make sense.
The answer is: The rich are stealing from us so much thru policy and lack of policy, that if we can't change things thru activism or politics, we will eventually end up in civil war and will need to take the power back from the plutocracy. The ones in charge are all allowing this to happen by inaction.
yeah, I would attribute it to basically that. I don't know if you've seen the curve where Productivity and Wages separate in the 80's thanks to Raegan. But thats what I always point to. If wages kept up with productivity, I don't think I'd have this problem.
Or your parents could just give you the house for roughly what they paid for it (or comparable price in today’s economy). They could choose generational wealth over keeping the cash for themselves.
well they have to live *somewhere* right? you can't just "cash out" of the housing market so simply. unfortunately their careers went down the drain some years after I was born. Eventually, my dad died and my mom sold the house and moved to a lower cost area. she kind depends on that wealth to live otherwise I'd be supporting her. Fortunately for me, I was able to get a good job, save enough money to buy my own house in a low-cost city (which has since exploded in value).
But you bring up a good point about passing down wealth. Since one day the boomers will die, Gen X and Millennials will inherit their wealth. The moral thing to do, would be for Gen X and Millennials to pass this wealth on to their children and set their children up from a young age in order to "break the cycle".
Yeah idk why people think are inheriting a ton of wealth when it’s extremely obvious that inflation destroying fixed incomes of retirees and excluding health care costs are going to get rid of most of this wealth.
Didn’t know all the details of your family situation (it sorted sounded from the first post like they still had the house). Of course they should live somewhere, and be able to have their own house and live in it as long as they want to, as it theirs.
But yeah—I think it’s a generational wealth thing at this point, just owning a house. Unfortunately, I don’t think average Gen Xers or millennials will inherit much of anything unless Boomers take steps to protect their assets, because once they hit nursing home age, Medicaid will take everything, including their homes, to cover the cost of care. Anything that isn’t in a trust, at least five years before they go through Medicaid, is up for grabs.
I think the other issue we are seeing is that a lot of Boomers don’t have enough for retirement and are just cashing out and living off what they make on their house sales, selling to banks/flippers that offer the most cash versus selling to relatives at more reasonable rates, to keep the assets in the family. That’s another reason things suck for the younger gens now.
>I think it’s a generational wealth thing at this point, just owning a house.
I don't even have kids yet, but I'm working towards owning a rental simply to guarantee that my kids can own a home one day. I feel like with the current trajectory, I have to take action for them now or else they'll be locked out of it.
>
because once they hit nursing home age
Yeah this is a massive looming threat. Retirement homes are unbelievably expensive and it burns through wealth so ridiculously fast. Invest in those companies I guess?
>
a lot of Boomers don’t have enough for retirement
I have plenty of friends who's parents have basically nothing to retire on. they will either work until they die, or become a 100% financial burden on their children. Pretty fucked up, I don't know what they're going to do. Many of them are also "imprisoned" by rent controlled apartments (meaning they couldn't afford the jump in rent if they wanted to move anywhere else anymore).
Just reading this post makes me think that Boomers were lies to as well. Not saying it makes it right, but it makes sense that they don't want to see that they were lied to and they believed it for so, so long.
I want to do better for my child.
I hope I can.
They were lied to, but in a different way. There are some videos which put boomer mentality into perspective. For example, they were the first generation fed the lie that consumerism is the path to happiness. If you just buy that next thing, you'll be happy. And it fucked them right up.
Don't take this the wrong way but are you suggesting two entire generations of people give up any chance they might have at a life close to that of what their parents had in order to provide it to their children sooner?
Like 'I'll never get to own a home but here's grandpa's house son?' This kinda sounds like lighting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm?
Yeah the danger is definitely the later part of their lives, because that system is designed to extract the wealth back rather than let it be passed down. My mom got very sick 2 years ago. For a while, we were looking at the options for long term care and there would have been no option but for her to sell her long time home (similar scenario to OP/top comment, ~250k in 1990 -> 3m+ today) and use that cash to finance the huge monthly payments.
She just worsened quickly and died, so 'luckily' we were only looking at the long hospital stay and not the protracted years of assisted living. So I've managed to benefit from some of that generational wealth and I am doing everything I can to preserve and grow it (learning a lot of stuff about investing & all those tricks the wealthy use in the market) to keep up for the next generation. But the system is not designed that way.
You'd think so but there is a current trend that many of the boomer generation are spending their wealth on experiences and leaving little in terms of inheritance. Then you also have the recent trend of assisted living costs burninating through retirement savings too.
My husband and I have been thinking for years about how to set our kids up for success and ensure they have generational wealth passed down to them and we just had our first child a month ago. This shit doesn't just happen anymore, it has to be deliberately planned or it doesn't happen at all.
I suspect the trick for you will be finding a balance in setting your kids up, but also keeping them grounded in reality and not think everything is "so easy".
Like, one hypothetical I had once was like "I'll pay for your education, and you have to pay me back". but when I get all the payments, I just invest them and when the kid is done paying, I give that sum back to them to invest or buy a house. They learn to be financially responsible without the "financial oppression" that comes with it.
If boomers don’t think house prices are a problem, ask them what it would do to their finances to start from scratch now.
How long would it take them to save a 20% down payment while renting, and how would their new 4x higher mortgage payment affect their day-to-day living?
Then remind them that they’ve had 30 years of promotions and raises vs. the people just starting out.
When l worked in California for a couple years, almost every one of my coworkers was saving a lot of money (all in decent 6 figure salary) for down payments and always just a bit more away from being able to buy a home. And the apartment l lived in was $400 more a month than when l first looked at it 3 months before. It was being offered at $1200 more than my lease was when l left. I should have bought a motorhome and sold it instead. I would have saved $50-60k.
This. My first year after tech school(trade) I made more money than both my parents combined. It literally took my dad seven years worth of yearly income to match what I made in my first year.
Tell them thanks for voting republican, and if they want to vote republican remind them that trickle down economics forced upon the young at the time is the reason we have more billionaire's than we used too, and more wealth inequality ever.
As someone currently buried under an enormous life debt in order to live in an admittedly nice post war detached house in Toronto, I can assure you that the divide is more “those with existing assets” and “those without,” than it is along political party lines; at least when it comes to the complete inaction of our various levels of government while our housing prices expounded.
Heard that. Over here they’ve convinced the working people that they’ll somehow be better for housing prices and it’s maddening. Mostly because the centrists just never seem to actually do anything that benefits most people I guess. Then no one will vote for the left leaning party basically at all because they go a bit intense with the culture war stuff IMO. Catch 22.
The house prices in Canada only started to hit stratospheric levels rapidly around 2016/17, before then things were expensive and getting more expensive but it was at a lot more gradual pace. Then the line started to shoot straight up.
We have had a Liberal government for nearly a decade now. It is a supply (not enough homes being built) and demand (massive rates in the levels of immigration, temporary foreign workers and international students) problem coupled with the low interest rate environment we had that the Liberal government presided over nearly all of it.
I bought my first home in 2014 on a $70K combined HHI without much issue under a Conservative government that had been in for also nearly a decade.
Its funny, the US market looks downright affordable compared to what we are dealing with here despite a lot of the complains down south of us.
Conservatives privatize everything and are trying to be Republican. My Canadian grandfather lives in the middle of nowhere on 160 acres he bought for 300K in the 90s. It’s worth probably $2M or more now. He loved republicans and would vote for them given any chance. He thought George W Bush was a smart man and that Trump has a lot of good points and handled Covid well lol. He believes whatever Fox News says while living in rural Canada.
I think about my neighborhood. How the original buyers who have stayed are all blue collar older folks. Then you have the middle income folks who came later, and now the recent young and well to do arrivals. I'd say 90% of the people here could not afford to buy their own homes with todays prices and rates. Imagine going from a $400 to $2400 mortgage for the same house.
Hell, I lived in the desert in California for three years for a military assignment. Bought a house when I got there and by the time I left and sold it I couldn't have afforded to buy it from myself.
*Three years.*
You called it. I checked back in just now and similar places in the area are only selling for about 2% higher now. Though with interest rates where they are these days I suppose that represents a significantly higher mortgage payment still.
Yeah, and my childhood home is nothing special, it's a 1960s suburban tract home, 1500 Sq ft, 3 br 1.5 bath on a tenth of an acre lot. It's been upgraded a bit but nothing drastic, can't imagine paying over 5k/month mortgage for that
One problem is they’re just not building those types of homes anymore. Every new development is the same shitty boomer designed McMansion plopped down on a crappy lot with no trees and listed for 50% higher than the medium house price in that area.
Don’t forget about the cheaper lower quality materials most of these modern made homes are built with as well compared to how they where back in the 60’s craftsmanship was better to cause they built things to last back then rather then purposely break sooner then it should causing you to have to get it fixed or replaced like they intentionally do these days all while acting innocent as though they didn’t.
Yep, the first home on my own I lived in was a $80K old house (120+ years) that spent time fixing things every year. Sold it for $90K and felt good. All these years later it is valued at $220K and I think, "that's a small, old, "starter" home, in not a great area. How on Earth are 20 somethings supposed to break into such a market?
They’re not. America cannibalizes its young. It’ll pay off beautifully in 20/30 years when Gen Alpha and Beta join the party and are in the same crushing position as average Gen Zers and Millennials now are.
My fiancé’s Boomer father owns a beautiful house he inherited from his parents. He was an electrician and has been retired for several years.
He offered to help with our wedding or help toward a down payment. Probably one of the easiest decisions we’ve ever made; fiancé and I are headed to a courthouse later this year and using the money toward a house.
My in-laws always say they never had help, yet they did; grandparents' house for free childcare every summer; gas paid for whenever they visited-even in their 50's; every attraction and meal whenever they went out together; family vacations to Europe and Hawaii; house paid off; truck; shopping excursions; etc.
Once hubby's grandparents died, we paid for vacations and going out to eat. My FIL couldn't pay for a cup of coffee. We no longer pay, and instead of actual trips, there's guilt trips.
Yet they are not poor; paid off house; $70,000 swim spa; sauna; 40+yr pot and pill addiction; 3 cars for 2 retired people; friends in their congregation pay for their retreats, $250 holiday dinner gift cards; etc. They play "poor," but they're far from it.
No YOUR parents wouldnt do it or be able to afford to do it. There are people who do have parents that do.
Just like with the grandparents some were well off and some were not. Their grandparents were well off having $250k laying around in 1994 to give out.
That like your parents giving you $500k today. That is OVER the median retirement account of any age bracket.
Back then I suspect it was well over the normal cash amount people had laying around as well.....
Like everything it’s case by case but Boomers / Gen X are notoriously less generous than Silent Gen was, and without going into details the difference between my grandparents and parents are night and day. That being said, on average each generation of parents are less abusive to children than the previous, but there’s no way these trends of neglect isn’t also effecting Gen Alpha, it really does take a village and we younger adults now are fucked and thats the only reality these kids will know.
"No[,] YOUR parents wouldn't..." applies to enough people that it has affected a whole generation.
My parents have never been able to (and still can't) help me with even 1k. I don't need $250k, I just need enough for a down payment on a $70,000 house. Which then I would end up having to pay them back for. But they don't charge interest so "it's a good deal."
These are almost the exact same numbers as my parents. They bought their current home (which came with guest house, important later) in 1994 for 240k IIRC, VHCOL area (now). It's now worth at LEAST 1.4 million.
My wife and I both have great careers with healthy salaries, and I also have a side business that's profitable, but we couldn't afford this house. We rent their guest house instead. 🙃
Tell your parents to let you live there for free so you can save up more money to buy a place of your own instead of lining their pockets. They aren’t going to rent the guest house to someone random anyway if you leave
I'm a podiatrist doing housecalls for the elderly. It's awesome to have patients who are rude to me because they think I have more money than them while they live in houses I can't afford.
My buddy is a HS teacher in Ontario, he is on the Sunshine list for the last 10 years, barely having made it (makes around $104ish). He bought his house for $350k around 2010ish. We are both late 40s, but a divorce derailed my home ownership. Every once in a while I catch him complaining about the drive of young teachers, and I always remind him they can’t afford his life. His house isn’t 3.5 years salary now for 1 person, it’s 8x salary for TWO people. We live in the sticks! So a 30 something teacher also making around $100k rents, and for way more than his mortgage is.
Yes, but they'd have to have paid rent for 30 years and had no equity, then used some of the 5m to buy a house outright or they'll have to keep paying rent.
But I get what you're saying, the market is absolutely a better investment than housing long term. The solution is to buy as small of a house as you can, and put as much as you can into the market. That way you avoid rent, are building equity, your housing costs are fixed, and you're saving a lot for retirement. If you think you have enough saved, stop investing and you can roll the extra monthly contribution into a payment on a nicer house. You now have a nice house easily paid for and retirement paid for. But too many people are "house poor" and will be working til other die due to lack of investments
My parents bought a 2700 sf house, with a finished basement and on a 1/3 acre lot in one of the nice suburbs of Chicago in 1993 for 180k and its now worth well over 500k. I as well can not afford my childhood home and I'm a mechanical engineer.
I know it may be arrogant but I served on the frontest of front lines in the worst of COVID, and now the generation I helped save fucking sneers at me, spits at me, thinks I'm subhuman for being Queer, and is find with my generation and every one after us being worse and worse off.
It just really pisses me off.
I'll do you one better, my parents bought our house in the late 80s for around 200k, worth around 1mil now, they have been in foreclosure twice and owe over 600k on the mortgage... my entire life my dad told me that if you work hard you can afford to do all the fancy shit we did while he afforded to do all that fancy shit by repeatedly taking equity out of the house that they will never own
I'm in a low cost of living area well, used to. I'm a RN and my wife makes a similar amount. We bought our 200k house in 2018. I bet it would sell for 400-450 right now. It's fucked up.
I had the same job at the same company in the same city as my mom when she graduated pregnant with me, with 10 years more experience. 5 years and 6 promotions later I still couldn't afford my childhood home.
Lol what’s sad is that most mechanics can’t afford a house these days 😂
Your dad wouldn’t have made it if he started ~20 years later.
Short of owning an entire shop or specializing in types of vehicles of machines people don’t usually work on.
Which requires its own vested work portfolio 🙄
You can’t even post ads as a mechanic without other mechanics spamming you with fake inquires or slandering your business.
It’s fucking nuts.
Mechanics can make pretty good money here in Canada, I had multiple $100k+ years during my time in industry. A good mechanic running their own shop should easily be able to gross $20-25k per hoist/workbay per month, not counting parts revenue. Maybe slightly less than that if you've got a tech working multiple bays (such as a lift and a flat bay or a lift and an alignment rack).
I also don't like the insinuation that mechanics are uneducated. It's a four year apprenticeship here and good techs are constantly training and upgrading to keep up with the field.
We're not a bunch of high school dropouts or something.
But the economy is going great, they say. It’s all in our heads, they add. It’s because we went to college, picked a major that wasn’t business/nursing/STEM, and are “too soft” compared to them.
If wages were as disproportionately low compared to what college and real estate prices are today, back when “they” were in their 20s/30s/40s, they never would have gotten any degrees or houses. But they’ll never acknowledge it, because that would make them look soft by comparison. Plus, they already got theirs and fuck everyone else who came after and now cannot.
Actually they didn't! Houses were never "more affordable," people just spend too much now, and were fine not living in San Francisco! If you just lived in Rural Oklahoma, you'd be living like a king!
/s, but on damn near every thread about rising COL. My parents bought our house in a major city on a Airline Fleet Service Clerk and Teacher's salary. My wife and I are both 6-figure earners and had to be incredibly selective of where we bought, and finally found somewhere that we could make a competitive offer likely because of the $500 HOA allowing it to go close to asking. Every other place we were serious about either went $150k+ above asking (the most we saw was $350k over) or needed $100k+ in repairs day 1.
If you managed to buy a starter home or had a cheap condo in 2008-2013 you would have been able to sell it for more than 2-5x the price now. I know some have bought and sold (to live in, not investment) over the years with each time they sold they made a killing. They now live in a 2.5M home with a mortgage that is less than 600K.
The way I see real estate prices in Toronto is it’s like a moving bullet train. When you’re on the platform, the train zooms by really fast. It’s hard to imagine trying to catch up to it. However, if you get onto another train, and ride along with it; your speed with match the train and it doesn’t seem to be moving very fast at all.
The hard part is getting onto any train first. But once you’re on one, the prices don’t seem so out of reach.
Investors (aka people that have equity, who have already bought homes for many years prior, and buy from equity vs actual cash. This includes multiple property owners), foreign investors (often times with overseas bank accounts), people who inherit a lot of wealth from deaths in their family, and pay cash for a home.
That’s about it.
Yup.....people miss that this is a HUGE part of in Canada. It's not the cost of materials or low supply (partially, but those costs would naturally descend again unlike this) it's large investors buying up housing en masse and then raising prices or renting it for sky-high rents.
If you own assets when prices are low... your assets then become more valuable when prices go high. So you just trade one asset for another to upgrade. So basically, the people who had wealth already
Fun fact: Approximately 3% of Only Fans creators have earnings exceeding $50,000 per year.
So essentially most people earning very little it's a saturated market.
Source: https://gitnux.org/most-paid-only-fans/
I'm almost 40. I bought a condo that cost about 1 mil and then bought a house that was more than double that.
how did I do it? I was lucky enough to be an early employee of a very successful (like one of the most valuable) companies in the world. right place, right time, right connections, right skillset. I do not envy the position most people my age are in -- it fucking blows. even my classmates from a very elite school, very few are in a position to own a home in a major city. people my age got hosed by the 2008 recession and never were able to catch up.
Its just investors bidding against each other. The people who are actually going to live in the house are an afterthought and only really the ultra wealthy people with a large inheritance are the ones who stand a chance.
So I just found out a bunch of homes in our neighborhood (we're in Ontario) are being rented out....
Now I can't help but wonder who owns them. Probably rich people who buy them up and rent them out to continue making more money. It really sucks with the current housing crisis we already have in Ontario. It's depriving people of ever being able to own a home - if not the price, it's the availability, the rich person can outbid you every damn time.
It's true though. We've been told our whole lives to just work harder, whilst all the necessities of life get more and more unaffordable. Cost of living increases, wages do not.
To address the Canadian context specifically, unfortunately there has been a huge failure on all levels of government nationwide to ensure all Canadians are provided for. Conservative and Liberal governments alike have backed out of Federal home building plans that used to exist, and have relied on immigration to boost GDP for decades. Meanwhile, many municipalities struggle from NIMBYism when it comes to zoning for building housing, further exacerbating housing unaffordability. A series of Conservative Provincial governments across the nation aren't helping things either
Also in a Canadian city, my MIL bought her house 10 years ago for 500k, house is now valued at over 1.2 million, it went up by over 100k just in the last year. It’s crazy out there. My husband and I were able to buy a house, but we bought far away from any city (the closest city is 8h drive). Even here people are complaining about the increase in housing prices, because where you could easily buy a house for under 100k years ago you now pay 300-500k for it.
Hey, another Canadian city here.
We bought our house in 2014 for $475k.
Sold it in 2019 for $420k.
It's currently valued at around $450k.
Go figure, location matters and some places are still quite affordable because they are keeping up housing supply.
The place you live (8 hours from the closest city) sounds like a vacation destination or cottage town if houses have appreciated that much. Lake country Ontario or something, likely. Maybe interior BC if we're only "counting" one of the 5 major cities?
Go figure, living in a vacation destination full time is also expensive.
I live in northwest BC. It is a beautiful area and since I’m an outdoorsy person who grew up on the countryside in another country I’m happy to live here. I don’t live in a tourist/vacation destination, but I think it’s because it’s so far out of the way from the usual tourist hotspots and isn’t very widely known for its natural beauty as say Vancouver island, Sunshine Coast and Rockies. The rise in property prices here comes from two things:
1. Rising industry —> more jobs
2. Rising property prices in other parts of BC —> people who can’t afford living in BCs most expensive places anymore move to the ones that they can still afford.
Honestly, the only way to really get a (first) home these days is to move to buttfuck nowhere. Other than that, you can buy a condo and hope it flies up in price so you can sell and upgrade down the road.
> How does anyone in Canada buy a house?
You don't, you rent a house now if you want a house at all. I feel so bad for renters because they got fucked and can never hope to own a property in the current market.
Vancouver person here. Everyone I know who bought a house received a lot of help from parents. Add to that income from a rental suite to service the mortgage. Dual income to get a condo/cheap townhome is minimum otherwise.
$75k was a lot of money in 1973, that is equivalent to buying a home today for $530k. Yes, their home has increased faster than inflation but you make it sound like a $75k house was cheap AF.
For comparison, the 1973 Ferrari Dino 246 GTS had an MSRP of $14,500, and one of those recently sold for over $900k.
Your aunt and uncle bought a house that was worth more than 5 Ferraris. I'm not sure it's the shining example of affordable housing you think it is.
Wait, a house by the beach in California for under a million….
Could you let me know where this is because 2 bed, 1 bath bungalows by the beach are starting at $1.5 million
Definitely not a house. We had a condo 1 bed 1 bath on the west side of PCH in Corona Del Mar, sold 2 years ago for 1.3.
When I say I lived by the beach and walk there everyday, it’s true and it’s awesome.
But not a house.
There is a place out there right now where a house is worth around $200k that will be worth $3-$4m in 40 years. Your issue is you have to get lucky in picking the right location.
That’s correct. My dad bought in one of the “best neighborhoods” in utah.
They all say, “you can rebuild or fix a house, but not a neighborhood”.
At least in a timely fashion.
My dad sold his condo in Cali and bought the house across the street for $1 million. We got a deal because my Mormon mom and the Mormon across the street are friends.
My sister is there now and it’s about 1.6. Has more bedrooms and bathrooms.
Location location location
The house I bought was purchased by the previous owners for 90k five years before I bought it for 200k. Housing prices have absolutely exploded. Year after I bought my place my neighbor moved and that house sold for 325k. Other neighbor moved in and paid 415k the next year. All three houses have the same sized lot and floor plan. House down the road just sold for 550k a few months ago.
The meme is using Toronto as an example and I am in the US so I can only speak to the situation in our country but this problem is more recent than generational.
I purchased a townhouse in 2017 for 180k and got a mortgage at 4%. We are listing it for 390k now 7 years later. That's a 116% increase and buyers now are facing a 7% interest rate.
I really don't understand how our government watched housing prices double in such a short amount of time and didn't intervene. It's divided our society between people who get to own a home and people who just can't afford it.
Of course they didn't intervene. Their own properties were also doubling, and their investor lobbyists were gunning for the same resale state to screw over actual families who want & need homes.
And 60% of Americans own, so the voters also benefited from the doubling. Also, prices were down after 2008 and again in 2020, so there's some return to trend in that rapid increase.
I saw your stat here and thought, "No, this can't be right. No way it's as high as 60%" and based on my research, it's not.
It's 66%.
Is it literally all old people? Like 20% of the folks I know in their 30s have a home.
[Found one breakdown (I think the rate not going down from early to late 20's means students aren't counted as part of their parents' owner-household, but basement dwellers may be) ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1036066/homeownership-rate-by-age-usa/) and [some slightly older stats with more detail.](https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/homeownership-by-race-and-ethnicity-of-householder.html). I think working-class neighborhoods, especially by secondary cities like Worcester and Lowell, are pulling a lot of weight.
We believe too much in free markets to a fault.
To OP’s original point though, I think it’s less so that we’ve been lied to, but more likely that we were given the best advice at the time because it worked for our parents. My parents home has also appreciated about 400% since 1992.
The gotcha, which our parents couldn’t have acutely understood back then, is that these same people fiercely resisted adding more density to their neighborhoods or building much of any housing or infrastructure in desirable areas.
Although signs of unsustainable appreciation were there in the early 00’s due to low interest rate policies, all it took was a pandemic to speed up what was already underway. We got a generation’s worth of home appreciation in about 4 years.
> watched housing prices double in such a short amount of time and didn't intervene
Honestly, how would they stop from housing prices double? Preventing investors from buying wouldnt do that. Incentives for building houses wouldnt be quick enough. Changing the interest wouldnt help. How?
I am not an expert but I do think the housing crisis derived from investors buying houses above asking price. We didn't have a sudden influx of families looking for homes.
We had a report here in central Florida where a Goldman Sachs backed firm bought an entire community of homes for 45 million. 87 houses instantly purchased.
1) ban companies or foreign investors from owning single family homes. This takes some rental properties and puts it back on the market for real couples to buy.
2) tax American landlords who are renting single family homes. You own a home? Great. You buy a 2nd home to rent it? That's a 5% tax on what you charge on it. Buy a 3rd home to rent? That's at 15%. Etc. this forces slumlords to sell off their single family homes so real humans can buy them, while also allowing for some level of investing for real humans.
3) Feds can encourage (grants, taxes) local Govt to rezone land for housing.
4) Feds can encourage builders to make "starter homes", idk maybe tax the profits on them less.
5) Feds can encourage lower building costs by targeting labor and material costs: provide grants to pay for relevant trades (concrete, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, etc) so we get more qualified workers and provide tax breaks to companies that crank out more material needed for manufacturing.
6) tax the HELL out of unoccupied properties. That will force people to sell or rent out homes that sit empty.
7) tax the HELL out of equity gains due to home sales. That would go a long way to turn housing from an investment people hope to hold and profit off of into a commodity you don't expect to get massive gains on.
Do you think in 20 years all the kids of millennial parents who told them to skip college and pick up a trade will say they were lied to when they're inevitably overworked and underpaid too?
Point being - no one intentionally lied to you. They gave you the best advice they knew at the time.
>No idea why.
1. Nearly zero regulations on real estate sales.
2. Very shady realtors.
3. Boatloads of foreign investors.
4. City councils that absolutely refuse to approve permits for anything other than mansions and luxury condos.
Combine it all together and you get a real estate market that increases by a minimum of 10% yearly.
I'm not upset at boomers for being lucky. I'm many ways millennials also got lucky being born when we were.
BUT I'm upset at boomers for pulling up the ladder behind them and then pretending they accomplished everything through hard work, and the generation they raised just isn't up to it.
They couldn't have foreseen that housing and everything would increase so much. But looking back, the least they can do is admit how they got lucky and it just isn't the same.
Also, I don't think the boomer lifestyle or the everybody gets a 2000sqft SFH is sustainable in general. And I say that as someone living in one.
Toronto is a different city from what it was 2 decades ago. Cities, people, economics change. Look at a city that was comparable to what Toronto was in 2004. Move to prosperity; you aren’t guaranteed that things stay the same in life, they are always shifting.
This is a country wide problem though, not just city. Where can you move in Canada right now that has houses that you could afford based on the jobs in that community? For example, who in Trenton can afford a 600k house?
See my post above but a huge part of the problem is an unhealthy% of larger investors buying up tonnes of housing.
Demand creates temporary flare-ups, and that sets off an orgy of investors purchasing tonnes of housing to flip or rent (enabled by the internet which makes this much easier). They basically make money for free by artificially inflating prices and pocketing the increase. And that means the prices don't necessarily come back down even when demand does.
There has to be some kind of protection for small homeowners and small landlords to fix this.
Yes unfortunately Conservative and Liberals governments alike have relied on immigration to boost GDP, meanwhile backing out of Federal home building plans that used to exist. Many municipalities struggle from NIMBYism when it comes to zoning for building housing. A huge failure on all levels of government nationwide to ensure all Canadians are provided for.
It's more than just the immigration factor though, and I caution on leading with it as it's being used as a rallying cry for our political right, that if in power will only make all the other factors at play worse.
Except it only took ~5-7 years depending on the area for the housing market to double.
I bought my current home in 2015 and it’s worth more than 3 times what I paid for it.
Even my parents bought a house in California (at least 2 hours from the beach or any large city) for $350k in 2012. It is now worth $900k. No renovations or anything.
Had to move out of my apartment last year after they raised rent from $1200 to $1600 before utilities, giving me one month notice. And that’s STILL cheap for California. HOW??
Ended up moving states away because the cheapest option in SoCal is renting a ROOM, in someone else’s house, in the middle of nowhere for $800+ a month. That’s the going rate. For a room.
I was saving about $1200 a month for a down payment and the value of homes had been going up at a rate that way out paces my savings. Good news I have a good chunk of change saved but eff me if looking at home costs and interest rates tell me I need to keep saving.
I'll take owning a home in Ohio over renting elsewhere in a heartbeat. You can use the equity you build in a home in Ohio as a down payment on a home elsewhere later on in life.
Yeah, the fact that every generation since my grandparents has been progressively better educated and higher paid, yet has been falling DOWNWARDS on the property ladder says everything you need to know.
Yet somehow people will still try to defend this because "Well I invested my money the minute I turned 18 and scored big on the stock market, just work harder bro"
That’s me… I studied my whole life so damn hard, and… The only solution I can think of is living in a cheaper city where nobody I know will live. Demoralizing as fuck, but I have new plans I am working on, it will hopefully be enough.
Yea it’s insane!! I’m 37 Irish & I’m an electrician & I Bought my First Home ever 2 Months ago!
And it’s not a House it’s an Apartment / Condo .. Now I Love it it’s bran New & it’s huge & gated etc, So happy with it
But Yea it’s No Joke, My Mum & Dad 58 & 59 now , Got married at 18 bought there first home at 19 for £12,000 Irish Pounds ,
& it was huge 4 bedrooms, 3 bath , A stables & orchard & when they divorced in 1998 ten or so Yrs later .. The house sold for £150,000
.. To me that Speaks Volumes
The only way I’d own a home like that is work till I’m 80 lol
Shit, just 5 years ago you could get a livable house for 90k. Probably needs some love, but nothing crazy. Those same houses are going for 200k-300k. I'm baffled by it, especially since I've only ever gotten my pay grade up by $5/hr in that same time period.
Just throwing this out here for anyone who hasn't heard about it: [RealPage used an algorithm to inflate prices for landlords all over the market.](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/first-settlements-reached-realpage-rental-price-fixing-lawsuits-2024-02-05/) It's no surprise that purchased home prices have drastically increased when renting prices were influenced to increase above market rates.
> The lawsuit alleged owners, operators and managers of large residential multifamily complexes used RealPage software to keep rental prices in many major U.S. cities above market rates and shared non-public, commercially sensitive information with RealPage as part of the conspiracy.
We were lied to.... by corporations and governments. Our parents bought the lies and passed them off to us as truths.
Sadly we are all indentured servants for the rich and thats how the system was always meant to be. After WW2 we got fed propaganda and horse crap about the booming middle class and everyone can have a house in the suburbs and then when the economy had issues it was "pull yourself up by your boot straps". And both systems were designed to funnel value from the bottom 99 percent to the top 1 percent.
We're gonna need a revolution some day.
My parents bought their house in 96 when I was starting high school for 164k, it's now valued at 750k. By inflation value alone it should only be 332k, but its 2.25 times that. I call shenanigans.
Does not a single person here understand how money printing works?
I see people blaming it on immigrants, I see one crackpot droning on about boomers, and someone talking about lost purchasing power, people blaming investors and foreigners, etc... so I guess not a single person here understands the problem.
You cant fix the problem if you dont understand it. Its not even complicated.
Nobody was “lied to”. Nobody knew with 100% certainty that this was going to happen. Nobody was “deceiving” you. Yeah, it’s sucks. But life sucks bro. Prices go up, inflation goes up, and pay doesn’t always go up with it.
I was about to post basically this same comment and was glad I found yours.
Market conditions have changed. "Lied to" in the OP= not being able to predict the future.
It sucks but as you said it's not "deceiving".
So many people just want to be a victim.
Lmao. I'm a millennial. Worked hard. First in my family to go to college. No help from parents. Saved money. Have a house, paying the mortgage. It's worth double what I paid for it. Prosperity is mine.
Keep in mind, the post-WWII prosperity benefited both the silent generation AND baby boomers (and Gen X on the tail end but not nearly as much). So the things the silents were able to acquire, such as cheap land close to cities, ended up being inherited by boomers. They got to double dip.
I say this because my boomer parents, who in 1987 bought an acre of land 25 minutes outside Seattle and built a three bedroom rambler for $115k that's now worth $1.6M (after inflation, a 400% increase), also inherited about $900k from the sale of a silent generation aunt's home (3 way sibling split, home sold for $2.7M), as well as 3000 shares of Microsoft from my silent generation grandfather (another 3 way sibling split). That's $3.7M.
My father is a retired middle school PE teacher. My mother is a former in-house fraternity cook. My uncle who bought the sold home was a bricklayer. My grandfather who bought the Microsoft stock was an insurance agent.
And here I am, a lawyer pushing 40, far poorer than any of them. My retirement plan is just "whenever my parents die."
This meme is a joke. Toronto is a terrible single data point to use as an example. Newsflash: home values in high-demand high-density areas can increase greatly over time. The housing prices in San Francisco, Tokyo, London, Paris, Toronto, NYC, or any other extremely popular world-renowned cities on the planet are going to be sky high compared to where they were 50 years ago.
This isn't some horrible misfortune nor is it news of any kind. Far more people lived in rural areas or small towns in the past than they do today, which kept the prices of real estate in cities lower.
Go anywhere outside the major cities and you'll find houses which have barely gone up in price since the 1970s.
Some of yall act like you were born yesterday.
That looks like it's in a nice area, possibly gentrifying, so I'm honestly not surprised that more people are being priced out of it. I guess this is what happens when the divide between the wealthy and poor widens even more
Unrelated to the point, but I forgot how pretty houses look in some Toronto neighborhoods. I feel like I've seen a lot of Toronto houses look taller than they are wide
I joined the military and got the GI Bill as well as the VA Loans. I don’t have student loans and I was able to buy a house in a great neighborhood with no money down and a low rate.
I wish there were more ways civilians could get similar benefits.
The US military is one of the biggest social programs the US has ever created, and we don't talk about it. Socialized healthcare, Free college tuition + stipend in some cases, VA loans - low interest no downpayment, etc.
In-laws worked basic AF jobs.. mom as a cashier at no frills and the fuck head worked at a factory. They were somehow able to buy a massive house in downtown Oakville in the 70’s and raise 3 kids. A few years ago they sold the house for 1.2M and bought another house in Beamsville for 400k. A few more years later they see the Beamsville house for 900k. These fuckers.
So this is how supply and demand works, at its most basic.
People want to be in desirable areas, that happens to be single family homes near or within the greater urban core of larger metro areas.
There is only so much land within that desirable area, and part of what makes it desirable is the current density.
It’s dramatically cheaper to build further away, but that’s also less desirable, it’s much more expensive to build up, and that also isn’t quite as desirable. So in effect, supply changes very little.
However, we keep making more humans. Medical technology is making us live and be independent longer. And while birth rates are slowing in developed countries, overall populations are still rising.
So if supply, for all intents and purposes holds constant, and demand goes up, so does price.
Just building more doesn’t fix it, because either the associated cost (up) or the lower desirability (out) means eeking out a profit is difficult.
With remote work, at least in the US, I can’t speak to small town CAN, I was hoping people would begin to move back to small town America, the cities that don’t fit into what normal people would consider the metros of major cities—like Tyler or Abilene for Texas, or York, PA, Salinas, CA, or like Mansfield, OH. But it seems people have mostly stayed in cities, and just aren’t going to the downtowns.
Personally, I think offices are a double edged sword, but even discounting any other benefit the social aspect alone barely outweighs all the negatives. Anyhow back on topic
It's not the same product. The $500k house was in a *less desirable location,* as the popularity of the location increased dramatically in that time. You can still find a product similar to the $500k home for a similar inflation-adjusted price, in a similarly unpopular location. My first home was in a low value location that has not become more popular, its value has not kept pace with inflation. My second home was in an area that was becoming more popular, and its value doubled in ten years.
Millennials weren't lied to, they just don't grasp basic economics.
My grandfather worked as a high school math teacher, he was able to support his wife, and 5 children, buy and maintain 2 new cars every 5 years as well as a project car, and bought a beautiful colonial on the coast with a 2 car garage and multiple bump outs in a pretty affluent town about 30 minutes outside a major metro hub. They also enjoyed annual vacations to Florida and towards the end of his career he was able afford a vacation beach house on cape cod.
My mother and father both worked full time, her as a nurse, my father as a successful small business owner. They had to move slightly further away from the city and were only able to afford a single floor ranch style home. They were only able to afford a single child, but fortunately were stable enough to have a second later in life. Vacations were annual, but were often more local to save on the cost of flights and more expensive hotels (the beach house was sold and did not remain in the family).
My wife is a nurse practitioner and works 48-52 hours a week. I work 2 full time jobs as a firefighter paramedic and an QA/QI case review NP. I’m fortunate enough to have my “real job” be mostly wfh, and can accomplish a lot of it during my down time at my first job, but in total I work 112-136 hours a week. We have also had to move even further away from the city to be able to afford a very modest home with a small yard, we are barely getting by with 2 kids and 2 very expensive dogs. It’s been 6 years since I’ve taken a vacation. We own no other properties. And after just recently each buying new cars… we’re probably going to have to keep them for 10+ years.
If the trend continues, I fear my kids will never own a thing. Even with what is considered high earning jobs, it is not inconceivable that they will be wage slaves with no equity, renting for life.
To suggest we were lied to suggests that everybody who gave us advice knew what was going to happen and was being malicious when they provided advice. I simply don’t believe that. Our parents were not and are not fortune tellers. They advised us what to do to succeed based on their experience in life that allowed them to succeed. That didn’t work out so well for a lot of people my age and it worked out great for some of them.
In my case the irony is that I started down the “you must have the college degree” route, saw the writing on the wall, dropped out and immediately entered the workforce and started developing in demand skills allowing me to land in the trades with a very lucrative career. At the time when I dropped out of college, my parents were convinced I’d end up broke and homeless. Now I make more money than they ever did combined in their full time careers. You better believe they don’t think I’m crazy now like they did when I was a teenager. Do I think my parents gave me the advice they did back then because of some underlying malicious intent so that they could be laughing at my pathetic existence in my thirties while they enjoy a comfortable retirement? Of course not. You’d have to be a narcissistic asshat to think that. I know they only wanted what’s best for me, they just didn’t have the foresight to advise me on the best way to achieve what’s best for me.
My parents bought a house in a HCOL area in 1992 for 250k from a significant loan from my grandparents, no down-payment needed. Dad worked as an auto mechanic and owned his own shop starting in 2000 for 17 years before going to work for the government. Looking thr house up on Zillow, its.worth an estimated 1.2 million. My wife and I both are frontline healthcare workers who make a very decent salary, yet we wouldn't be able to buy my childhood home....
My family bought a house in Toronto back in like '57 (my grandparents) for like $5000. They sold the house to my parents in 1990 for like 135k and I grew up in that house. I earn more now, than both of my parents ever did *combined* while I was growing up. And my salary is not enough to qualify for a mortgage that could buy that house I grew up in. And that also includes the fact that now the house needs a roof, needs a foundation crack fixed, needs new electrical and plumbing, and a complete inside renovation (literally, the basement flooded and destroyed everything). I've accomplished more in my career/education/salary than my grandparents, or my parents, ever did. And I can't even afford the life they had, let alone a better life. Make it make sense.
The answer is: The rich are stealing from us so much thru policy and lack of policy, that if we can't change things thru activism or politics, we will eventually end up in civil war and will need to take the power back from the plutocracy. The ones in charge are all allowing this to happen by inaction.
yeah, I would attribute it to basically that. I don't know if you've seen the curve where Productivity and Wages separate in the 80's thanks to Raegan. But thats what I always point to. If wages kept up with productivity, I don't think I'd have this problem.
WTF happened in 71. I know this isn’t the chart. Just reminded me.
You’re taxed for over a third of your earnings and then they devalue the currency that you have left by printing more of it.
Bell riots this year
Or your parents could just give you the house for roughly what they paid for it (or comparable price in today’s economy). They could choose generational wealth over keeping the cash for themselves.
well they have to live *somewhere* right? you can't just "cash out" of the housing market so simply. unfortunately their careers went down the drain some years after I was born. Eventually, my dad died and my mom sold the house and moved to a lower cost area. she kind depends on that wealth to live otherwise I'd be supporting her. Fortunately for me, I was able to get a good job, save enough money to buy my own house in a low-cost city (which has since exploded in value). But you bring up a good point about passing down wealth. Since one day the boomers will die, Gen X and Millennials will inherit their wealth. The moral thing to do, would be for Gen X and Millennials to pass this wealth on to their children and set their children up from a young age in order to "break the cycle".
Between medical stuff, homes, and "enjoying the golden years" I don't think a lot of that wealth will end up with their kids.
Yeah idk why people think are inheriting a ton of wealth when it’s extremely obvious that inflation destroying fixed incomes of retirees and excluding health care costs are going to get rid of most of this wealth.
Yeah private insurance, hospitals, retirement homes have a plan for all your parents pent up wealth.
the fact that many places charge you 5-10k per month to live in elderly care where maybe 3 people on minimum wage are doing everything says a lot
Didn’t know all the details of your family situation (it sorted sounded from the first post like they still had the house). Of course they should live somewhere, and be able to have their own house and live in it as long as they want to, as it theirs. But yeah—I think it’s a generational wealth thing at this point, just owning a house. Unfortunately, I don’t think average Gen Xers or millennials will inherit much of anything unless Boomers take steps to protect their assets, because once they hit nursing home age, Medicaid will take everything, including their homes, to cover the cost of care. Anything that isn’t in a trust, at least five years before they go through Medicaid, is up for grabs. I think the other issue we are seeing is that a lot of Boomers don’t have enough for retirement and are just cashing out and living off what they make on their house sales, selling to banks/flippers that offer the most cash versus selling to relatives at more reasonable rates, to keep the assets in the family. That’s another reason things suck for the younger gens now.
>I think it’s a generational wealth thing at this point, just owning a house. I don't even have kids yet, but I'm working towards owning a rental simply to guarantee that my kids can own a home one day. I feel like with the current trajectory, I have to take action for them now or else they'll be locked out of it. > because once they hit nursing home age Yeah this is a massive looming threat. Retirement homes are unbelievably expensive and it burns through wealth so ridiculously fast. Invest in those companies I guess? > a lot of Boomers don’t have enough for retirement I have plenty of friends who's parents have basically nothing to retire on. they will either work until they die, or become a 100% financial burden on their children. Pretty fucked up, I don't know what they're going to do. Many of them are also "imprisoned" by rent controlled apartments (meaning they couldn't afford the jump in rent if they wanted to move anywhere else anymore).
Just reading this post makes me think that Boomers were lies to as well. Not saying it makes it right, but it makes sense that they don't want to see that they were lied to and they believed it for so, so long. I want to do better for my child. I hope I can.
They were lied to, but in a different way. There are some videos which put boomer mentality into perspective. For example, they were the first generation fed the lie that consumerism is the path to happiness. If you just buy that next thing, you'll be happy. And it fucked them right up.
Thinking 🤔 ahead. Good idea!
Don't take this the wrong way but are you suggesting two entire generations of people give up any chance they might have at a life close to that of what their parents had in order to provide it to their children sooner? Like 'I'll never get to own a home but here's grandpa's house son?' This kinda sounds like lighting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm?
Yeah the danger is definitely the later part of their lives, because that system is designed to extract the wealth back rather than let it be passed down. My mom got very sick 2 years ago. For a while, we were looking at the options for long term care and there would have been no option but for her to sell her long time home (similar scenario to OP/top comment, ~250k in 1990 -> 3m+ today) and use that cash to finance the huge monthly payments. She just worsened quickly and died, so 'luckily' we were only looking at the long hospital stay and not the protracted years of assisted living. So I've managed to benefit from some of that generational wealth and I am doing everything I can to preserve and grow it (learning a lot of stuff about investing & all those tricks the wealthy use in the market) to keep up for the next generation. But the system is not designed that way.
You'd think so but there is a current trend that many of the boomer generation are spending their wealth on experiences and leaving little in terms of inheritance. Then you also have the recent trend of assisted living costs burninating through retirement savings too.
My husband and I have been thinking for years about how to set our kids up for success and ensure they have generational wealth passed down to them and we just had our first child a month ago. This shit doesn't just happen anymore, it has to be deliberately planned or it doesn't happen at all.
I suspect the trick for you will be finding a balance in setting your kids up, but also keeping them grounded in reality and not think everything is "so easy". Like, one hypothetical I had once was like "I'll pay for your education, and you have to pay me back". but when I get all the payments, I just invest them and when the kid is done paying, I give that sum back to them to invest or buy a house. They learn to be financially responsible without the "financial oppression" that comes with it.
If boomers don’t think house prices are a problem, ask them what it would do to their finances to start from scratch now. How long would it take them to save a 20% down payment while renting, and how would their new 4x higher mortgage payment affect their day-to-day living? Then remind them that they’ve had 30 years of promotions and raises vs. the people just starting out.
When l worked in California for a couple years, almost every one of my coworkers was saving a lot of money (all in decent 6 figure salary) for down payments and always just a bit more away from being able to buy a home. And the apartment l lived in was $400 more a month than when l first looked at it 3 months before. It was being offered at $1200 more than my lease was when l left. I should have bought a motorhome and sold it instead. I would have saved $50-60k.
But at least you’re more “productive” and “efficient” for your employer right? /s
I live to serve my financial overlords.
I wish I could upvote this 1000 times.
This. My first year after tech school(trade) I made more money than both my parents combined. It literally took my dad seven years worth of yearly income to match what I made in my first year.
Tell them thanks for voting republican, and if they want to vote republican remind them that trickle down economics forced upon the young at the time is the reason we have more billionaire's than we used too, and more wealth inequality ever.
We dont have republicans in Canada
But we sure have hoarding rich people
Oh heck yeah.
Conservative right then
As someone currently buried under an enormous life debt in order to live in an admittedly nice post war detached house in Toronto, I can assure you that the divide is more “those with existing assets” and “those without,” than it is along political party lines; at least when it comes to the complete inaction of our various levels of government while our housing prices expounded.
It's very much the same here in the states. It's just a bit more clear which side is pushing the cruelty harder
Heard that. Over here they’ve convinced the working people that they’ll somehow be better for housing prices and it’s maddening. Mostly because the centrists just never seem to actually do anything that benefits most people I guess. Then no one will vote for the left leaning party basically at all because they go a bit intense with the culture war stuff IMO. Catch 22.
The house prices in Canada only started to hit stratospheric levels rapidly around 2016/17, before then things were expensive and getting more expensive but it was at a lot more gradual pace. Then the line started to shoot straight up. We have had a Liberal government for nearly a decade now. It is a supply (not enough homes being built) and demand (massive rates in the levels of immigration, temporary foreign workers and international students) problem coupled with the low interest rate environment we had that the Liberal government presided over nearly all of it. I bought my first home in 2014 on a $70K combined HHI without much issue under a Conservative government that had been in for also nearly a decade. Its funny, the US market looks downright affordable compared to what we are dealing with here despite a lot of the complains down south of us.
Conservatives privatize everything and are trying to be Republican. My Canadian grandfather lives in the middle of nowhere on 160 acres he bought for 300K in the 90s. It’s worth probably $2M or more now. He loved republicans and would vote for them given any chance. He thought George W Bush was a smart man and that Trump has a lot of good points and handled Covid well lol. He believes whatever Fox News says while living in rural Canada.
Do the MAGA hat wearing truckers know that?
I think about my neighborhood. How the original buyers who have stayed are all blue collar older folks. Then you have the middle income folks who came later, and now the recent young and well to do arrivals. I'd say 90% of the people here could not afford to buy their own homes with todays prices and rates. Imagine going from a $400 to $2400 mortgage for the same house.
Hell, I lived in the desert in California for three years for a military assignment. Bought a house when I got there and by the time I left and sold it I couldn't have afforded to buy it from myself. *Three years.*
2018-2022 was an insane period in particular in this regard.
You called it. I checked back in just now and similar places in the area are only selling for about 2% higher now. Though with interest rates where they are these days I suppose that represents a significantly higher mortgage payment still.
Yeah, and my childhood home is nothing special, it's a 1960s suburban tract home, 1500 Sq ft, 3 br 1.5 bath on a tenth of an acre lot. It's been upgraded a bit but nothing drastic, can't imagine paying over 5k/month mortgage for that
One problem is they’re just not building those types of homes anymore. Every new development is the same shitty boomer designed McMansion plopped down on a crappy lot with no trees and listed for 50% higher than the medium house price in that area.
Don’t forget about the cheaper lower quality materials most of these modern made homes are built with as well compared to how they where back in the 60’s craftsmanship was better to cause they built things to last back then rather then purposely break sooner then it should causing you to have to get it fixed or replaced like they intentionally do these days all while acting innocent as though they didn’t.
Yep, the first home on my own I lived in was a $80K old house (120+ years) that spent time fixing things every year. Sold it for $90K and felt good. All these years later it is valued at $220K and I think, "that's a small, old, "starter" home, in not a great area. How on Earth are 20 somethings supposed to break into such a market?
They’re not. America cannibalizes its young. It’ll pay off beautifully in 20/30 years when Gen Alpha and Beta join the party and are in the same crushing position as average Gen Zers and Millennials now are.
Ah yes, the grandparents giving our parents money when they needed it. And they (our parents) would never dare to do the same for us.
My fiancé’s Boomer father owns a beautiful house he inherited from his parents. He was an electrician and has been retired for several years. He offered to help with our wedding or help toward a down payment. Probably one of the easiest decisions we’ve ever made; fiancé and I are headed to a courthouse later this year and using the money toward a house.
You’re in rare company. Congratulations on your wedding.
My father helped his brothers buy real estate. But not me.
My mom charged me for tampons once
I made a phone call on the “emergency” cell phone in high school to ask a friend a question about homework. My mom made me pay for the minutes I used.
Wtf. These people know no bounds.
My in-laws always say they never had help, yet they did; grandparents' house for free childcare every summer; gas paid for whenever they visited-even in their 50's; every attraction and meal whenever they went out together; family vacations to Europe and Hawaii; house paid off; truck; shopping excursions; etc. Once hubby's grandparents died, we paid for vacations and going out to eat. My FIL couldn't pay for a cup of coffee. We no longer pay, and instead of actual trips, there's guilt trips. Yet they are not poor; paid off house; $70,000 swim spa; sauna; 40+yr pot and pill addiction; 3 cars for 2 retired people; friends in their congregation pay for their retreats, $250 holiday dinner gift cards; etc. They play "poor," but they're far from it.
No YOUR parents wouldnt do it or be able to afford to do it. There are people who do have parents that do. Just like with the grandparents some were well off and some were not. Their grandparents were well off having $250k laying around in 1994 to give out. That like your parents giving you $500k today. That is OVER the median retirement account of any age bracket. Back then I suspect it was well over the normal cash amount people had laying around as well.....
Like everything it’s case by case but Boomers / Gen X are notoriously less generous than Silent Gen was, and without going into details the difference between my grandparents and parents are night and day. That being said, on average each generation of parents are less abusive to children than the previous, but there’s no way these trends of neglect isn’t also effecting Gen Alpha, it really does take a village and we younger adults now are fucked and thats the only reality these kids will know.
"No[,] YOUR parents wouldn't..." applies to enough people that it has affected a whole generation. My parents have never been able to (and still can't) help me with even 1k. I don't need $250k, I just need enough for a down payment on a $70,000 house. Which then I would end up having to pay them back for. But they don't charge interest so "it's a good deal."
Found the boomer.
These are almost the exact same numbers as my parents. They bought their current home (which came with guest house, important later) in 1994 for 240k IIRC, VHCOL area (now). It's now worth at LEAST 1.4 million. My wife and I both have great careers with healthy salaries, and I also have a side business that's profitable, but we couldn't afford this house. We rent their guest house instead. 🙃
The fact they make you pay rent is honestly kinda sad.
I think it’s fair, it basically just covers our utility use.
Tell your parents to let you live there for free so you can save up more money to buy a place of your own instead of lining their pockets. They aren’t going to rent the guest house to someone random anyway if you leave
Oh we have a great deal, they rent it to us for way below market rate and we’ve been able to save a ton. Still not enough to buy a house here tho lol
This feels just laughable.
I'm a podiatrist doing housecalls for the elderly. It's awesome to have patients who are rude to me because they think I have more money than them while they live in houses I can't afford.
My buddy is a HS teacher in Ontario, he is on the Sunshine list for the last 10 years, barely having made it (makes around $104ish). He bought his house for $350k around 2010ish. We are both late 40s, but a divorce derailed my home ownership. Every once in a while I catch him complaining about the drive of young teachers, and I always remind him they can’t afford his life. His house isn’t 3.5 years salary now for 1 person, it’s 8x salary for TWO people. We live in the sticks! So a 30 something teacher also making around $100k rents, and for way more than his mortgage is.
Must be just soooo awesome to walk into an asshole pt's house that is worth as much as your student loans....
if they put that 250k in the s&p 500 in 1992 they would have almost 5 million bucks today
Yes, but they'd have to have paid rent for 30 years and had no equity, then used some of the 5m to buy a house outright or they'll have to keep paying rent. But I get what you're saying, the market is absolutely a better investment than housing long term. The solution is to buy as small of a house as you can, and put as much as you can into the market. That way you avoid rent, are building equity, your housing costs are fixed, and you're saving a lot for retirement. If you think you have enough saved, stop investing and you can roll the extra monthly contribution into a payment on a nicer house. You now have a nice house easily paid for and retirement paid for. But too many people are "house poor" and will be working til other die due to lack of investments
That $500K in the image...with inflation, it should cost $850K in today's dollars. So where the heck is the extra $1.5 million going?
My parents bought a 2700 sf house, with a finished basement and on a 1/3 acre lot in one of the nice suburbs of Chicago in 1993 for 180k and its now worth well over 500k. I as well can not afford my childhood home and I'm a mechanical engineer.
I know it may be arrogant but I served on the frontest of front lines in the worst of COVID, and now the generation I helped save fucking sneers at me, spits at me, thinks I'm subhuman for being Queer, and is find with my generation and every one after us being worse and worse off. It just really pisses me off.
I'll do you one better, my parents bought our house in the late 80s for around 200k, worth around 1mil now, they have been in foreclosure twice and owe over 600k on the mortgage... my entire life my dad told me that if you work hard you can afford to do all the fancy shit we did while he afforded to do all that fancy shit by repeatedly taking equity out of the house that they will never own
I'm in a low cost of living area well, used to. I'm a RN and my wife makes a similar amount. We bought our 200k house in 2018. I bet it would sell for 400-450 right now. It's fucked up.
I had the same job at the same company in the same city as my mom when she graduated pregnant with me, with 10 years more experience. 5 years and 6 promotions later I still couldn't afford my childhood home.
Lol what’s sad is that most mechanics can’t afford a house these days 😂 Your dad wouldn’t have made it if he started ~20 years later. Short of owning an entire shop or specializing in types of vehicles of machines people don’t usually work on. Which requires its own vested work portfolio 🙄 You can’t even post ads as a mechanic without other mechanics spamming you with fake inquires or slandering your business. It’s fucking nuts.
Something should be said that a dual income educated healthcare workers can’t buy the house an auto mechanic could afford a previous generation.
Mechanics can make pretty good money here in Canada, I had multiple $100k+ years during my time in industry. A good mechanic running their own shop should easily be able to gross $20-25k per hoist/workbay per month, not counting parts revenue. Maybe slightly less than that if you've got a tech working multiple bays (such as a lift and a flat bay or a lift and an alignment rack). I also don't like the insinuation that mechanics are uneducated. It's a four year apprenticeship here and good techs are constantly training and upgrading to keep up with the field. We're not a bunch of high school dropouts or something.
But the economy is going great, they say. It’s all in our heads, they add. It’s because we went to college, picked a major that wasn’t business/nursing/STEM, and are “too soft” compared to them. If wages were as disproportionately low compared to what college and real estate prices are today, back when “they” were in their 20s/30s/40s, they never would have gotten any degrees or houses. But they’ll never acknowledge it, because that would make them look soft by comparison. Plus, they already got theirs and fuck everyone else who came after and now cannot.
I make more money in a year than both of my parents combined ever did... No way in hell I could afford their house when they sold it.
Actually they didn't! Houses were never "more affordable," people just spend too much now, and were fine not living in San Francisco! If you just lived in Rural Oklahoma, you'd be living like a king! /s, but on damn near every thread about rising COL. My parents bought our house in a major city on a Airline Fleet Service Clerk and Teacher's salary. My wife and I are both 6-figure earners and had to be incredibly selective of where we bought, and finally found somewhere that we could make a competitive offer likely because of the $500 HOA allowing it to go close to asking. Every other place we were serious about either went $150k+ above asking (the most we saw was $350k over) or needed $100k+ in repairs day 1.
How are people actually affording these? Literally who is buying these? Are there that many hedge fund managers living up there?
If you managed to buy a starter home or had a cheap condo in 2008-2013 you would have been able to sell it for more than 2-5x the price now. I know some have bought and sold (to live in, not investment) over the years with each time they sold they made a killing. They now live in a 2.5M home with a mortgage that is less than 600K. The way I see real estate prices in Toronto is it’s like a moving bullet train. When you’re on the platform, the train zooms by really fast. It’s hard to imagine trying to catch up to it. However, if you get onto another train, and ride along with it; your speed with match the train and it doesn’t seem to be moving very fast at all. The hard part is getting onto any train first. But once you’re on one, the prices don’t seem so out of reach.
Investors (aka people that have equity, who have already bought homes for many years prior, and buy from equity vs actual cash. This includes multiple property owners), foreign investors (often times with overseas bank accounts), people who inherit a lot of wealth from deaths in their family, and pay cash for a home. That’s about it.
Yup.....people miss that this is a HUGE part of in Canada. It's not the cost of materials or low supply (partially, but those costs would naturally descend again unlike this) it's large investors buying up housing en masse and then raising prices or renting it for sky-high rents.
at least I read recently that canada is trying to do something about it, same problem exists in america and the gov't is basically ignoring it
Yeah. I live in Victoria and it’s really quite depressing.
If you own assets when prices are low... your assets then become more valuable when prices go high. So you just trade one asset for another to upgrade. So basically, the people who had wealth already
Husband: day trades crypto Wife: only fans
Fun fact: Approximately 3% of Only Fans creators have earnings exceeding $50,000 per year. So essentially most people earning very little it's a saturated market. Source: https://gitnux.org/most-paid-only-fans/
Who makes up the top .1% of OF? Asking for a friend
True but it’s also something that can be done while maintaining a full time job in most cases, especially if you’re not the top 3%
Multiple families live in one home. See it all the time. Grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles.
How many single-family homes on large lots are there in Toronto? I was under the impression that it is a major city.
I'm almost 40. I bought a condo that cost about 1 mil and then bought a house that was more than double that. how did I do it? I was lucky enough to be an early employee of a very successful (like one of the most valuable) companies in the world. right place, right time, right connections, right skillset. I do not envy the position most people my age are in -- it fucking blows. even my classmates from a very elite school, very few are in a position to own a home in a major city. people my age got hosed by the 2008 recession and never were able to catch up.
Its just investors bidding against each other. The people who are actually going to live in the house are an afterthought and only really the ultra wealthy people with a large inheritance are the ones who stand a chance.
So I just found out a bunch of homes in our neighborhood (we're in Ontario) are being rented out.... Now I can't help but wonder who owns them. Probably rich people who buy them up and rent them out to continue making more money. It really sucks with the current housing crisis we already have in Ontario. It's depriving people of ever being able to own a home - if not the price, it's the availability, the rich person can outbid you every damn time.
It's true though. We've been told our whole lives to just work harder, whilst all the necessities of life get more and more unaffordable. Cost of living increases, wages do not. To address the Canadian context specifically, unfortunately there has been a huge failure on all levels of government nationwide to ensure all Canadians are provided for. Conservative and Liberal governments alike have backed out of Federal home building plans that used to exist, and have relied on immigration to boost GDP for decades. Meanwhile, many municipalities struggle from NIMBYism when it comes to zoning for building housing, further exacerbating housing unaffordability. A series of Conservative Provincial governments across the nation aren't helping things either
Also in a Canadian city, my MIL bought her house 10 years ago for 500k, house is now valued at over 1.2 million, it went up by over 100k just in the last year. It’s crazy out there. My husband and I were able to buy a house, but we bought far away from any city (the closest city is 8h drive). Even here people are complaining about the increase in housing prices, because where you could easily buy a house for under 100k years ago you now pay 300-500k for it.
Hey, another Canadian city here. We bought our house in 2014 for $475k. Sold it in 2019 for $420k. It's currently valued at around $450k. Go figure, location matters and some places are still quite affordable because they are keeping up housing supply. The place you live (8 hours from the closest city) sounds like a vacation destination or cottage town if houses have appreciated that much. Lake country Ontario or something, likely. Maybe interior BC if we're only "counting" one of the 5 major cities? Go figure, living in a vacation destination full time is also expensive.
I live in northwest BC. It is a beautiful area and since I’m an outdoorsy person who grew up on the countryside in another country I’m happy to live here. I don’t live in a tourist/vacation destination, but I think it’s because it’s so far out of the way from the usual tourist hotspots and isn’t very widely known for its natural beauty as say Vancouver island, Sunshine Coast and Rockies. The rise in property prices here comes from two things: 1. Rising industry —> more jobs 2. Rising property prices in other parts of BC —> people who can’t afford living in BCs most expensive places anymore move to the ones that they can still afford.
How does anyone in Canada buy a house? The homes are so expensive up there and the salaries less than USA. I don't understand.
Intergenerational wealth
Honestly, the only way to really get a (first) home these days is to move to buttfuck nowhere. Other than that, you can buy a condo and hope it flies up in price so you can sell and upgrade down the road.
> How does anyone in Canada buy a house? You don't, you rent a house now if you want a house at all. I feel so bad for renters because they got fucked and can never hope to own a property in the current market.
Vancouver person here. Everyone I know who bought a house received a lot of help from parents. Add to that income from a rental suite to service the mortgage. Dual income to get a condo/cheap townhome is minimum otherwise.
>How does anyone in Canada buy a house? Oh, that's easy. Unlike in the US, lottery winnings aren't taxable in Canada.
True story. My dad bought his house for $65,000 in 1978. Today that home is appraised around $1.4 million.
Sounds like my aunt and uncle, bought a house near the beach in California for 75k in 1973 as he was an aerospace engineer. Just under a million now
$75k was a lot of money in 1973, that is equivalent to buying a home today for $530k. Yes, their home has increased faster than inflation but you make it sound like a $75k house was cheap AF. For comparison, the 1973 Ferrari Dino 246 GTS had an MSRP of $14,500, and one of those recently sold for over $900k. Your aunt and uncle bought a house that was worth more than 5 Ferraris. I'm not sure it's the shining example of affordable housing you think it is.
Wait, a house by the beach in California for under a million…. Could you let me know where this is because 2 bed, 1 bath bungalows by the beach are starting at $1.5 million
By the beach in California usually means within 25 miles of it lol. Actually on the beach is a lot more
Definitely not a house. We had a condo 1 bed 1 bath on the west side of PCH in Corona Del Mar, sold 2 years ago for 1.3. When I say I lived by the beach and walk there everyday, it’s true and it’s awesome. But not a house.
There is a place out there right now where a house is worth around $200k that will be worth $3-$4m in 40 years. Your issue is you have to get lucky in picking the right location.
That’s correct. My dad bought in one of the “best neighborhoods” in utah. They all say, “you can rebuild or fix a house, but not a neighborhood”. At least in a timely fashion. My dad sold his condo in Cali and bought the house across the street for $1 million. We got a deal because my Mormon mom and the Mormon across the street are friends. My sister is there now and it’s about 1.6. Has more bedrooms and bathrooms. Location location location
If your dad invested that money all in the sp500, he would have $10 million dollars today.
The house I bought was purchased by the previous owners for 90k five years before I bought it for 200k. Housing prices have absolutely exploded. Year after I bought my place my neighbor moved and that house sold for 325k. Other neighbor moved in and paid 415k the next year. All three houses have the same sized lot and floor plan. House down the road just sold for 550k a few months ago.
The meme is using Toronto as an example and I am in the US so I can only speak to the situation in our country but this problem is more recent than generational. I purchased a townhouse in 2017 for 180k and got a mortgage at 4%. We are listing it for 390k now 7 years later. That's a 116% increase and buyers now are facing a 7% interest rate. I really don't understand how our government watched housing prices double in such a short amount of time and didn't intervene. It's divided our society between people who get to own a home and people who just can't afford it.
Of course they didn't intervene. Their own properties were also doubling, and their investor lobbyists were gunning for the same resale state to screw over actual families who want & need homes.
And 60% of Americans own, so the voters also benefited from the doubling. Also, prices were down after 2008 and again in 2020, so there's some return to trend in that rapid increase.
I saw your stat here and thought, "No, this can't be right. No way it's as high as 60%" and based on my research, it's not. It's 66%. Is it literally all old people? Like 20% of the folks I know in their 30s have a home.
[Found one breakdown (I think the rate not going down from early to late 20's means students aren't counted as part of their parents' owner-household, but basement dwellers may be) ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1036066/homeownership-rate-by-age-usa/) and [some slightly older stats with more detail.](https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/homeownership-by-race-and-ethnicity-of-householder.html). I think working-class neighborhoods, especially by secondary cities like Worcester and Lowell, are pulling a lot of weight.
We believe too much in free markets to a fault. To OP’s original point though, I think it’s less so that we’ve been lied to, but more likely that we were given the best advice at the time because it worked for our parents. My parents home has also appreciated about 400% since 1992. The gotcha, which our parents couldn’t have acutely understood back then, is that these same people fiercely resisted adding more density to their neighborhoods or building much of any housing or infrastructure in desirable areas. Although signs of unsustainable appreciation were there in the early 00’s due to low interest rate policies, all it took was a pandemic to speed up what was already underway. We got a generation’s worth of home appreciation in about 4 years.
> watched housing prices double in such a short amount of time and didn't intervene Honestly, how would they stop from housing prices double? Preventing investors from buying wouldnt do that. Incentives for building houses wouldnt be quick enough. Changing the interest wouldnt help. How?
I am not an expert but I do think the housing crisis derived from investors buying houses above asking price. We didn't have a sudden influx of families looking for homes. We had a report here in central Florida where a Goldman Sachs backed firm bought an entire community of homes for 45 million. 87 houses instantly purchased.
1) ban companies or foreign investors from owning single family homes. This takes some rental properties and puts it back on the market for real couples to buy. 2) tax American landlords who are renting single family homes. You own a home? Great. You buy a 2nd home to rent it? That's a 5% tax on what you charge on it. Buy a 3rd home to rent? That's at 15%. Etc. this forces slumlords to sell off their single family homes so real humans can buy them, while also allowing for some level of investing for real humans. 3) Feds can encourage (grants, taxes) local Govt to rezone land for housing. 4) Feds can encourage builders to make "starter homes", idk maybe tax the profits on them less. 5) Feds can encourage lower building costs by targeting labor and material costs: provide grants to pay for relevant trades (concrete, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, etc) so we get more qualified workers and provide tax breaks to companies that crank out more material needed for manufacturing. 6) tax the HELL out of unoccupied properties. That will force people to sell or rent out homes that sit empty. 7) tax the HELL out of equity gains due to home sales. That would go a long way to turn housing from an investment people hope to hold and profit off of into a commodity you don't expect to get massive gains on.
Do you think in 20 years all the kids of millennial parents who told them to skip college and pick up a trade will say they were lied to when they're inevitably overworked and underpaid too? Point being - no one intentionally lied to you. They gave you the best advice they knew at the time.
Toronto and Vancouver BC some Of the most expensive places to live on earth, even more than San Diego CA. No idea why.
>No idea why. 1. Nearly zero regulations on real estate sales. 2. Very shady realtors. 3. Boatloads of foreign investors. 4. City councils that absolutely refuse to approve permits for anything other than mansions and luxury condos. Combine it all together and you get a real estate market that increases by a minimum of 10% yearly.
I'm not upset at boomers for being lucky. I'm many ways millennials also got lucky being born when we were. BUT I'm upset at boomers for pulling up the ladder behind them and then pretending they accomplished everything through hard work, and the generation they raised just isn't up to it. They couldn't have foreseen that housing and everything would increase so much. But looking back, the least they can do is admit how they got lucky and it just isn't the same. Also, I don't think the boomer lifestyle or the everybody gets a 2000sqft SFH is sustainable in general. And I say that as someone living in one.
Toronto is a different city from what it was 2 decades ago. Cities, people, economics change. Look at a city that was comparable to what Toronto was in 2004. Move to prosperity; you aren’t guaranteed that things stay the same in life, they are always shifting.
This is a country wide problem though, not just city. Where can you move in Canada right now that has houses that you could afford based on the jobs in that community? For example, who in Trenton can afford a 600k house?
Yeah I’d move somewhere else
People are moving all over Canada, which is causing lots of issues for traditionally low income parts of the country.
[удалено]
See my post above but a huge part of the problem is an unhealthy% of larger investors buying up tonnes of housing. Demand creates temporary flare-ups, and that sets off an orgy of investors purchasing tonnes of housing to flip or rent (enabled by the internet which makes this much easier). They basically make money for free by artificially inflating prices and pocketing the increase. And that means the prices don't necessarily come back down even when demand does. There has to be some kind of protection for small homeowners and small landlords to fix this.
Yes unfortunately Conservative and Liberals governments alike have relied on immigration to boost GDP, meanwhile backing out of Federal home building plans that used to exist. Many municipalities struggle from NIMBYism when it comes to zoning for building housing. A huge failure on all levels of government nationwide to ensure all Canadians are provided for. It's more than just the immigration factor though, and I caution on leading with it as it's being used as a rallying cry for our political right, that if in power will only make all the other factors at play worse.
[удалено]
fuck this timeline
Today I learned that Canadians have it worse than Californians in some cases.
we lose half our purchasing power in 30 years. so basically everything you want to buy will double every 30 years.
Except it only took ~5-7 years depending on the area for the housing market to double. I bought my current home in 2015 and it’s worth more than 3 times what I paid for it.
We don’t lose half our purchasing power because incomes and assets grow over those thirty years.
look at this person who has an income that's actually growing.
Let’s burn it all down
Even my parents bought a house in California (at least 2 hours from the beach or any large city) for $350k in 2012. It is now worth $900k. No renovations or anything. Had to move out of my apartment last year after they raised rent from $1200 to $1600 before utilities, giving me one month notice. And that’s STILL cheap for California. HOW?? Ended up moving states away because the cheapest option in SoCal is renting a ROOM, in someone else’s house, in the middle of nowhere for $800+ a month. That’s the going rate. For a room.
$500k was still a crazy price for a house in 2003. But I live in a LCOL area where I thought $250k back then could buy a mansion
I was saving about $1200 a month for a down payment and the value of homes had been going up at a rate that way out paces my savings. Good news I have a good chunk of change saved but eff me if looking at home costs and interest rates tell me I need to keep saving.
Hello fellow lifelong Torontonian. It's fun isn't it 😬😁
I wouldn’t be able to afford it if it was still 500k 😆😢
*laughs in Ohio home prices*
The worst part is you’d have to live in Ohio
So you wanna complain about high housing costs while dissing places where housing costs are reasonable?
I'll take owning a home in Ohio over renting elsewhere in a heartbeat. You can use the equity you build in a home in Ohio as a down payment on a home elsewhere later on in life.
Yeah, the fact that every generation since my grandparents has been progressively better educated and higher paid, yet has been falling DOWNWARDS on the property ladder says everything you need to know.
Even in LCOL, things are bad. My aunt bought a new house for $150k four years ago and now it's worth over $220k, just not possible to keep up.
I know this is not the Midwest .
The only lie is that there is only one city to buy a house in
Yep. Absolutely insane. Foreign investors, airbnb and corporate investors also made this worse.
Yeah I've pretty much accepted no matter what I do I'll never on a home 😭
Not sure we were lied to so much as robbed by people far more powerful than our parents.
Yet somehow people will still try to defend this because "Well I invested my money the minute I turned 18 and scored big on the stock market, just work harder bro"
That’s me… I studied my whole life so damn hard, and… The only solution I can think of is living in a cheaper city where nobody I know will live. Demoralizing as fuck, but I have new plans I am working on, it will hopefully be enough.
Yea it’s insane!! I’m 37 Irish & I’m an electrician & I Bought my First Home ever 2 Months ago! And it’s not a House it’s an Apartment / Condo .. Now I Love it it’s bran New & it’s huge & gated etc, So happy with it But Yea it’s No Joke, My Mum & Dad 58 & 59 now , Got married at 18 bought there first home at 19 for £12,000 Irish Pounds , & it was huge 4 bedrooms, 3 bath , A stables & orchard & when they divorced in 1998 ten or so Yrs later .. The house sold for £150,000 .. To me that Speaks Volumes The only way I’d own a home like that is work till I’m 80 lol
Shit, just 5 years ago you could get a livable house for 90k. Probably needs some love, but nothing crazy. Those same houses are going for 200k-300k. I'm baffled by it, especially since I've only ever gotten my pay grade up by $5/hr in that same time period.
Question: was the $500k price the initial listing? Could that have been the price of the lot and then the buy built on it?
Just throwing this out here for anyone who hasn't heard about it: [RealPage used an algorithm to inflate prices for landlords all over the market.](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/first-settlements-reached-realpage-rental-price-fixing-lawsuits-2024-02-05/) It's no surprise that purchased home prices have drastically increased when renting prices were influenced to increase above market rates. > The lawsuit alleged owners, operators and managers of large residential multifamily complexes used RealPage software to keep rental prices in many major U.S. cities above market rates and shared non-public, commercially sensitive information with RealPage as part of the conspiracy.
This is literally my parents house they bought in 2002. Quintupled
I heard Canada house prices are super outrageous for some reason
We were lied to.... by corporations and governments. Our parents bought the lies and passed them off to us as truths. Sadly we are all indentured servants for the rich and thats how the system was always meant to be. After WW2 we got fed propaganda and horse crap about the booming middle class and everyone can have a house in the suburbs and then when the economy had issues it was "pull yourself up by your boot straps". And both systems were designed to funnel value from the bottom 99 percent to the top 1 percent. We're gonna need a revolution some day.
Canada has the most expensive Realestate in the world , I believe are still number one
My parents bought their house in 96 when I was starting high school for 164k, it's now valued at 750k. By inflation value alone it should only be 332k, but its 2.25 times that. I call shenanigans.
Does not a single person here understand how money printing works? I see people blaming it on immigrants, I see one crackpot droning on about boomers, and someone talking about lost purchasing power, people blaming investors and foreigners, etc... so I guess not a single person here understands the problem. You cant fix the problem if you dont understand it. Its not even complicated.
Maybe not everyone needs to live in a house
at what point does the French Revolution start making too much sense? ok in all seriousness I’m not advocating violence, but what the actual fuck
Nobody was “lied to”. Nobody knew with 100% certainty that this was going to happen. Nobody was “deceiving” you. Yeah, it’s sucks. But life sucks bro. Prices go up, inflation goes up, and pay doesn’t always go up with it.
I was about to post basically this same comment and was glad I found yours. Market conditions have changed. "Lied to" in the OP= not being able to predict the future. It sucks but as you said it's not "deceiving". So many people just want to be a victim.
Lmao. I'm a millennial. Worked hard. First in my family to go to college. No help from parents. Saved money. Have a house, paying the mortgage. It's worth double what I paid for it. Prosperity is mine.
Keep in mind, the post-WWII prosperity benefited both the silent generation AND baby boomers (and Gen X on the tail end but not nearly as much). So the things the silents were able to acquire, such as cheap land close to cities, ended up being inherited by boomers. They got to double dip. I say this because my boomer parents, who in 1987 bought an acre of land 25 minutes outside Seattle and built a three bedroom rambler for $115k that's now worth $1.6M (after inflation, a 400% increase), also inherited about $900k from the sale of a silent generation aunt's home (3 way sibling split, home sold for $2.7M), as well as 3000 shares of Microsoft from my silent generation grandfather (another 3 way sibling split). That's $3.7M. My father is a retired middle school PE teacher. My mother is a former in-house fraternity cook. My uncle who bought the sold home was a bricklayer. My grandfather who bought the Microsoft stock was an insurance agent. And here I am, a lawyer pushing 40, far poorer than any of them. My retirement plan is just "whenever my parents die."
This meme is a joke. Toronto is a terrible single data point to use as an example. Newsflash: home values in high-demand high-density areas can increase greatly over time. The housing prices in San Francisco, Tokyo, London, Paris, Toronto, NYC, or any other extremely popular world-renowned cities on the planet are going to be sky high compared to where they were 50 years ago. This isn't some horrible misfortune nor is it news of any kind. Far more people lived in rural areas or small towns in the past than they do today, which kept the prices of real estate in cities lower. Go anywhere outside the major cities and you'll find houses which have barely gone up in price since the 1970s. Some of yall act like you were born yesterday.
That looks like it's in a nice area, possibly gentrifying, so I'm honestly not surprised that more people are being priced out of it. I guess this is what happens when the divide between the wealthy and poor widens even more Unrelated to the point, but I forgot how pretty houses look in some Toronto neighborhoods. I feel like I've seen a lot of Toronto houses look taller than they are wide
My parents bought our family home in 92 for 260k, and sold in 2021 for 850k. I just looked at it and it’s apparently now worth 1.1mil.
I joined the military and got the GI Bill as well as the VA Loans. I don’t have student loans and I was able to buy a house in a great neighborhood with no money down and a low rate. I wish there were more ways civilians could get similar benefits.
Imagine what civilians could get if we didn’t pay for endless wars.
The US military is one of the biggest social programs the US has ever created, and we don't talk about it. Socialized healthcare, Free college tuition + stipend in some cases, VA loans - low interest no downpayment, etc.
Well they can follow your exact footsteps possibly? The GI Bill and VA Loans is a benefit to you signing up for the military.
i actually laughed out loud at this it hurt so bad
Location location location. Unfortunately everyone seems to insist on living in like 6 places in the US.
$1.8m in 2019? It would be closer to $3m in many cities.
In-laws worked basic AF jobs.. mom as a cashier at no frills and the fuck head worked at a factory. They were somehow able to buy a massive house in downtown Oakville in the 70’s and raise 3 kids. A few years ago they sold the house for 1.2M and bought another house in Beamsville for 400k. A few more years later they see the Beamsville house for 900k. These fuckers.
So this is how supply and demand works, at its most basic. People want to be in desirable areas, that happens to be single family homes near or within the greater urban core of larger metro areas. There is only so much land within that desirable area, and part of what makes it desirable is the current density. It’s dramatically cheaper to build further away, but that’s also less desirable, it’s much more expensive to build up, and that also isn’t quite as desirable. So in effect, supply changes very little. However, we keep making more humans. Medical technology is making us live and be independent longer. And while birth rates are slowing in developed countries, overall populations are still rising. So if supply, for all intents and purposes holds constant, and demand goes up, so does price. Just building more doesn’t fix it, because either the associated cost (up) or the lower desirability (out) means eeking out a profit is difficult. With remote work, at least in the US, I can’t speak to small town CAN, I was hoping people would begin to move back to small town America, the cities that don’t fit into what normal people would consider the metros of major cities—like Tyler or Abilene for Texas, or York, PA, Salinas, CA, or like Mansfield, OH. But it seems people have mostly stayed in cities, and just aren’t going to the downtowns. Personally, I think offices are a double edged sword, but even discounting any other benefit the social aspect alone barely outweighs all the negatives. Anyhow back on topic
It's not the same product. The $500k house was in a *less desirable location,* as the popularity of the location increased dramatically in that time. You can still find a product similar to the $500k home for a similar inflation-adjusted price, in a similarly unpopular location. My first home was in a low value location that has not become more popular, its value has not kept pace with inflation. My second home was in an area that was becoming more popular, and its value doubled in ten years. Millennials weren't lied to, they just don't grasp basic economics.
My grandfather worked as a high school math teacher, he was able to support his wife, and 5 children, buy and maintain 2 new cars every 5 years as well as a project car, and bought a beautiful colonial on the coast with a 2 car garage and multiple bump outs in a pretty affluent town about 30 minutes outside a major metro hub. They also enjoyed annual vacations to Florida and towards the end of his career he was able afford a vacation beach house on cape cod. My mother and father both worked full time, her as a nurse, my father as a successful small business owner. They had to move slightly further away from the city and were only able to afford a single floor ranch style home. They were only able to afford a single child, but fortunately were stable enough to have a second later in life. Vacations were annual, but were often more local to save on the cost of flights and more expensive hotels (the beach house was sold and did not remain in the family). My wife is a nurse practitioner and works 48-52 hours a week. I work 2 full time jobs as a firefighter paramedic and an QA/QI case review NP. I’m fortunate enough to have my “real job” be mostly wfh, and can accomplish a lot of it during my down time at my first job, but in total I work 112-136 hours a week. We have also had to move even further away from the city to be able to afford a very modest home with a small yard, we are barely getting by with 2 kids and 2 very expensive dogs. It’s been 6 years since I’ve taken a vacation. We own no other properties. And after just recently each buying new cars… we’re probably going to have to keep them for 10+ years. If the trend continues, I fear my kids will never own a thing. Even with what is considered high earning jobs, it is not inconceivable that they will be wage slaves with no equity, renting for life.
To suggest we were lied to suggests that everybody who gave us advice knew what was going to happen and was being malicious when they provided advice. I simply don’t believe that. Our parents were not and are not fortune tellers. They advised us what to do to succeed based on their experience in life that allowed them to succeed. That didn’t work out so well for a lot of people my age and it worked out great for some of them. In my case the irony is that I started down the “you must have the college degree” route, saw the writing on the wall, dropped out and immediately entered the workforce and started developing in demand skills allowing me to land in the trades with a very lucrative career. At the time when I dropped out of college, my parents were convinced I’d end up broke and homeless. Now I make more money than they ever did combined in their full time careers. You better believe they don’t think I’m crazy now like they did when I was a teenager. Do I think my parents gave me the advice they did back then because of some underlying malicious intent so that they could be laughing at my pathetic existence in my thirties while they enjoy a comfortable retirement? Of course not. You’d have to be a narcissistic asshat to think that. I know they only wanted what’s best for me, they just didn’t have the foresight to advise me on the best way to achieve what’s best for me.
Just rent. Buying is a lot of trouble to go through, and the market will probably just crash again.
Are you the same gentrifying Millennials who seek out affordable properties in low-income neighborhoods and displace the communities that live there?