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Can't speak for whole of Canada but Toronto is definitely on track to become a city where it is impossible to buy a house and rents are so high that for a famil

by m23khan 10y ago

Can't speak for whole of Canada but Toronto is definitely on track to become a city where it is impossible to buy a house and rents are so high that for a family - both husband and wife need to work and one of the spouse has to have a side gig for making the money to feed and clothe the family along with some meagre savings. Canadian government keeps stating that inflation rate is less than 2% but reality is, in Toronto, it is probably running in excess of 10% for last 10+ years. However, the companies keep pretending that for their existing employees, if they are lucky to get a raise, that raise should be 3% or 4%. In Toronto, even modest vacations feel like luxury and entertainment options seem to be leave you with a feeling that your pocket is on fire. Now before my pro-Canadiana countrymen come here and lecture me on how great Canada is (and yes, the free healthcare!!), let me tell you: I like Canada and definitely feel it is the place to be. I am just stating in context of the article, that is all.

antoniuschan99 10y ago
Toronto Real Estate thread on Reddit is very informative. Houses are commonly being bought ~25% over asking price at the moment apparently. And it's because Agents are using it as a tactic to drive up offers. Also, a lot of people here are agents nowadays.
badsock 10y ago
I understand the argument for excluding housing, food, and fuel from the official inflation stats, but at this point it's making that number a complete departure from reality. Canada right now is basically getting divided into two classes: those who happened to own real estate a decade or two ago and their children, and everyone else. That's not success based on how hard you worked, or how much you contributed to society, or proportionate to the amount of risk you took. It's just (mostly) Chinese money randomly landing on some of the population, and causing real issues with quality of life and serious opportunity costs for the rest. That is not something we should be happy about, and it's something that we should have better numbers on.

by m23khan 10y ago

antoniuschan99 10y ago

Toronto Real Estate thread on Reddit is very informative. Houses are commonly being bought ~25% over asking price at the moment apparently. And it's because Agents are using it as a tactic to drive up offers. Also, a lot of people here are agents nowadays.

badsock 10y ago

I understand the argument for excluding housing, food, and fuel from the official inflation stats, but at this point it's making that number a complete departure from reality. Canada right now is basically getting divided into two classes: those who happened to own real estate a decade or two ago and their children, and everyone else. That's not success based on how hard you worked, or how much you contributed to society, or proportionate to the amount of risk you took. It's just (mostly) Chinese money randomly landing on some of the population, and causing real issues with quality of life and serious opportunity costs for the rest. That is not something we should be happy about, and it's something that we should have better numbers on.