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[StreetsofBeige]

1 bed/1 bath places at either 0-500k or 0-600k

That is f'ing insane. If I read that correctly, that is 500k to 600k for a 1 bedroom/1 bathroom place.

Taking a look at the map, I saw Toronto and it starts making sense lol. (If that is Toronto Canada)

Yup it's TO. I'll guess Vancouver is probably worse.

But after these two metro areas, prices of homes drop a lot. Problem is shit loads of people who want to live in Canada seem to mostly skew hard to these two metro areas. So prices ramp up fast as there's low supply. And most of the supply are glass condos because the city greenlights them as they provide the most units the fasted building 40 floor towers. So anyone wanting a house or townhome with a nice yard fight for them at jacked up prices and bidding wars. New developments for these kinds of homes are often few and far away.

Just to give you an idea how fast prices drop in other areas, the typical stuff on thse links in Calgary and Montreal are probably about 50% cheaper than Toronto. They look no different than any condo or house in Toronto. Of course these are just whatever front page listings shown, but it still gives an idea on pricing vs Toronto. But one city among the 3 is probably around 2x the price of the others.

There's lots of people who live in the Montreal and Calgary Metro areas. They got jobs and hum along fine. But you got some mentalities that it's all or nothing Toronto, every other place stinks for jobs and houses, so they got to force themselves to live here despite incredibly high real estate prices.

Check out the links for interest.

8,853 Toronto Real Estate MLS® Listings & Houses for Sale | REALTOR.ca

Find 8,853 houses for sale in Toronto, ON. Visit REALTOR.ca to see all the Toronto, ON real estate listings on the MLS® Systems today! Prices starting at $1 💰

www.realtor.ca

3,494 Calgary Real Estate MLS® Listings & Houses for Sale | REALTOR.ca

Find 3,494 houses for sale in Calgary, AB. Visit REALTOR.ca to see all the Calgary, AB real estate listings on the MLS® Systems today! Prices starting at $59,900 💰

www.realtor.ca

7,629 Montréal Real Estate MLS® Listings & Houses for Sale | REALTOR.ca

Find 7,629 houses for sale in Montréal, QC. Visit REALTOR.ca to see all the Montréal, QC real estate listings on the MLS® Systems today! Prices starting at $32.50/sqft + GST + QST 💰

www.realtor.ca

 

[Lasha]

Depends what people go after. Just to prove its affordable, here's all the available and sold 1 bed/1 bath places at either 0-500k or 0-600k the past 90 days. These are the kinds of units I lived in for like 7 years before I bought bigger places. And my zoom range isn't even including the farther out surrounding cities in the metro area. (ignore the yellow star markers as those are paid promotions)

Ok fine, instead of living at home for a year scraping up $20k at a $40-50k salary, someone has to scrape up $50-60k at a modern day higher salary.

Trying to amp up to something bigger and better is a lot tougher to do now. But hey, I started small too

Did you also pay 400-1000 for condo fees like many of the units there? The condo fee for some of those units is probably more than your mortgage was.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Did you also pay 400-1000 for condo fees like many of the units there? The condo fee for some of those units is probably more than your mortgage was.

Yup. My starter condos were around $350. The last condo I lived in was $800. I'm pretty positive from what I remember my monthly maintenance fee was never more than my monthly mortgage payments.

 

[Lasha]

Yup. My starter condos were around $350. The last condo I lived in was $800.

These starter condos average out at double the fee of your starter and double to triple the asking price. Talking in circles though. It's a lot worse for people now. Especially if your parents aren't around for free rent in the area where money is earned. I think it's weird to act like people are entitled when you would literally be in the same boat had your career started 20-30 years later. You would probably be listening to others telling you are entitled for not moving from GTA to Florida to live in a trap house in the swamp

 

[Durien]

Depends what people go after. Just to prove its affordable, here's all the available and sold 1 bed/1 bath places at either 0-500k or 0-600k the past 90 days. These are the kinds of units I lived in for like 7 years before I bought bigger places. And my zoom range isn't even including the farther out surrounding cities in the metro area. (ignore the yellow star markers as those are paid promotions)

Ok fine, instead of living at home for a year scraping up $20k at a $40-50k salary, someone has to scrape up $50-60k at a modern day higher salary.

Trying to amp up to something bigger and better is a lot tougher to do now. But hey, I started small too

Thanks for the info

 

[StreetsofBeige]

These starter condos average out at double the fee of your starter and double to triple the asking price. Talking in circles though. It's a lot worse for people now. Especially if your parents aren't around for free rent in the area where money is earned. I think it's weird to act like people are entitled when you would literally be in the same boat had your career started 20-30 years later. You would probably be listening to others telling you are entitled for not moving from GTA to Florida to live in a trap house in the swamp

I agree that's its harder now. Especially with rates back up to 5 or 6%. But it's not exactly impossible to buy a place here. Just got to save money and aim low. I aimed low when I first moved out. As I said, the only other kind of unit smaller than what I lived in were studio apartments. And most condos dont even have those kinds of units. So for most apartments/condos I basically started from the most rock bottom unit you can get.

As you can tell by my posts (which you appreciated my frugalness, which I appreciate back noticing it), I'm the type of guy... if I cant afford it, I aint doing it. That's me. I;m not forcing myself into a stranglehold of finances. I'll do my research and the last decision I will make involves me going broke.

If I started out now and things were out of reach, I'd pack my bags and move to another city. Vancouver would be a big no as thats just as expensive (maybe worse?) than TO. I'd try to find a job in a cheaper city. Just got to have initiative to do it. Before covid even happened WFH, one of my old coworkers (with his fiance) moved to.... Grimsby. Probably took the guy an hour and half commute each way 5 days a week. But he slogged it because for the budget he and his girl could afford they preferred getting a a decent sized place there, instead of cramped condocity. So while he didn't move out of the province, he still made a calculated decision. As I said in another post, you cant have it all at age 30. He and his fiance realized it too.

 

[Dr.Guru of Peru]

I agree that's its harder now. Especially with rates back up to 5 or 6%. But it's not exactly impossible to buy a place here. Just got to save money and aim low. I aimed low when I first moved out. As I said, the only other kind of unit smaller than what I lived in were studio apartments. And most condos dont even have those kinds of units. So for most apartments/condos I basically started from the most rock bottom unit you can get.

As you can tell by my posts (which you appreciated my frugalness, which I appreciate back noticing it), I'm the type of guy... if I cant afford it, I aint doing it. That's me. I;m not forcing myself into a stranglehold of finances. I'll do my research and the last decision I will make involves me going broke.

If I started out now and things were out of reach, I'd pack my bags and move to another city. Vancouver would be a big no as thats just as expensive (maybe worse?) than TO. I'd try to find a job in a cheaper city. Just got to have initiative to do it. Before covid even happened WFH, one of my old coworkers (with his fiance) moved to.... Grimsby. Probably took the guy an hour and half commute each way 5 days a week. But he slogged it because for the budget he and his girl could afford they preferred getting a a decent sized place there, instead of cramped condocity. So while he didn't move out of the province, he still made a calculated decision. As I said in another post, you cant have it all at age 30. He and his fiance realized it too.

This is the problem - Grimsby has gotten to be unaffordable in a span of less than two years because smaller markets simply do not have the capacity to accommodate the flight of people from Toronto and Vancouver. The same thing has happened in other markets like Atlantic Canada and Alberta, and not everyone is able to find employment by moving out of province. You can pick out other affordable markets, but if people were to actually move their en masse like you suggest then they would get unaffordable quickly as well.

By and large people's success has been a factor of when they started their careers - people who started even 10 years ago or earlier should have done well. Anyone who started during the pandemic is kind of screwed unless they have their parents around to gift them a large down payment. People in the middle it would depend on individual factors.

 

[TylerD]

Quick and dirty:

- Graduated and had modest amount of student loan. Not a lot. But worked PT during some of the year, so I always had money on me
- I also sourced free money by scoping out the Financial Services office looking for grants the school gives out and hope you get something. I got like $5000 filling out a form
- I requested to get student loan reduction by applying. I actually didn't desperately need it but applied anyway. Got approved for $2,000 reduction out of the blue
- Got my first job making around $40k. Then rose to maybe $50k. Moved out around a year after working and put down approx. $20k for my condo. A 1 bed/1bath. A mortgage at the time was around 5% I think
- Sold it years later and banked money because the new condo I bought was the same price as my first one (it was actually $1000 cheaper) by moving to the burbs. Another 1 bed/1 bath. I pocketed about $30k after all closing costs
- Sold it years later and put all the banked profits (about $60k net of closing costs) into a newer bigger condo whose price I budgeted for used it all up. So no real gains or out of pocket swings in money. I basically just got a new mortgage and transferred the equity over like it's a wash
- By this time, I was making around $100k (around $90k + bonus)
- Had my trusty Honda Civic I bought in early 2000s and sold it after around 7 years, got lucky with a company car for 3 years (a Sebring). Then got a new job and car.... a modest Mazda 3. So not exactly kicking ass with a luxury car. Drove that till I was about 40. Finally got a nice car now
- During this entire time, aside from the first bunch of years I broke even, my money grew because my standard of living was basically the same. So my money grew fast. Add in making some modest money in the stock market and that helps too, but I've never had one of those giant (if you bought Amazon at $10 20 years ago you'd be a millionaire)
- I even remember analyzing the costs of buying furniture. When moved out, I had to buy furniture, a bed etc... I cant pay $3000 worth of crap in one monthly cycle paying 20% interest. I'll just find a place I can score a deal where you pay zero interest for 18 or 24 months. Pay it off then. All you got to do is pay like a $100 admin fee. Ok, so the deal is I pay $3000 of crap later and all I do is pay a $100 fee. That's 3% extra cost over close to 2 years. I'll take it. Some other people would buy shit and be paying VISA or Mastercard 20% at some other store. Saved up money and paid it off lining up at their customer service desk when full payment was due
- Around 10 years ago, I sold my place and sunk it all into a house. My mortgage went up since its way more than the equity I had selling, but thats ok. I can float it
- All the investment properties I've dabbled with over the years need anywhere from 15-25% down. Over time, you save up money and can do it. By the time the mortgage comes due, all you need to do is have a tenant in place with proof of agreement to cover most or all of it as that counts as income to the bank. So getting another mortgage (basically covered by the tenant) is easy. Now if the tenant leaves and I cant find a new one, then ya I'm fucked. But at this point of life, my car is paid off, my mortgage is X, and even if a tenant leaves, my monthly disposable income can cover that too
- So you can see with the way I buy my primary residence and inv properties (everyone has their own strategy), I never go too big into stuff I cant afford. And I try my best to just shift over gains with as little out of pocket cash outlays as possible. I'm more of the incremental gainer. Some people are more like the stay at home with parents, load up cash, and try to buy a big pricey place in one shot. I'm not that kind of guy
- I also got emergency funds from stocks, RRSPs and company contributions I can extract (which I wont)
- As a total desperation play, a line of credit can cover costs. I got like $50,000 LOC approved 15 years ago. Banks give it away like candy. Anyone in a weird CC debt hole is doing it wrong. Rates have gone up lately, but a LOC is like prime +3% (or whatever someone qualifies for). A CC is like 20%. Why pay 20% when you can 8%. And before rates shot up a LOC was probably 5%
- Now I make around $150k, so I just coast

You are simply out of touch with the current situation and you are an exceptional example now taking full advantage of the special circumstance that you had with your investment properties, 150K salary, etc... You aren't at the level of Fools Idol or something but you are up there.

"Just scrape together 50-60K for a down payment on a 500-600K property or move somewhere where you can afford something". No big deal. Cheaper places to live are probably going to have lesser paying jobs as well and moving is not exactly cheap either.

How much has the cost of higher education increased over time for those people to likely need to make good starting money? I know my state school in Oklahoma cost of attendance has more than doubled since I graduated in 2008.

You are in accounting/finance/money related industry right?

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Toyota RAV4, Honda CRV, Toyota Camry are as middle class as you can get IMO