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In addition to thinking that banks should be smart and act in their own self interest of not lending money to people who can’t pay it back, there are government

In addition to thinking that banks should be smart and act in their own self interest of not lending money to people who can’t pay it back, there are government mandated stress tests for qualifying for mortgages at higher interest rates. While rates are historically low and a return to the rates of the 80’s would cause a lot of defaults, I think the market has tuned itself for maximum extraction of labour from those buying houses. You will pay as much as you can afford out of the income of your career to live in a desirable place. There are many undesirable places with cheap land, few jobs near by, no amenities, schools, restaurants, etc. so everyone pays as much as they can afford because it is worth it. But they are only allowed to afford what they can pay off with a 30 year amortization and meeting the stress test. I’m considering moving to the Yukon.

wnolens 5y ago
Yes, I think that's it. There's not many places to actually live in Canada, so demand is sky high anywhere within a few hours of the major city centres. Then long stretches of nothing. Yukon is cool, but it's not super cheap if you were hoping so. Rent is high compared to home prices though, so being a landlord is easier.
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  Nonsense. There's hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of places to live in Canada, it's primarily a humid temperate climate (in Ontario and southwestern Quebec) no different than the midwest or other parts more like the US northeast and with huge sections that are prairie or poplar "parkland" like the Dakotas etc. You have to go really far north to find anything "uninhabitable." Southern Ontario (where almost half of Canadians live) alone is 139,931 km² -- about the size of all of England (130,279 km²), or half of all of Germany -- and almost all highly arable land with copious fresh water and developed highway and rail networks. And it's further south than most northern US states, sitting at about the same latitude as southern Oregon. There's lots of room to build. Stereotypes of Canada as a barren northern land are laughable products of American ignorance or Toronto-centric myopia.
  - liketochill 5y ago
    How many hours are you willing to drive to get to a crappy grocery store with no fresh produce?
  - wnolens 5y ago
    I didn't mean it's literally barren land or that it's impossible to inhabit. I meant there are few desirable places to reside (to me and anyone I've ever known) on the basis of access to jobs, culture, major hospitals, higher education, etc. Yes some people can live full and happy lives in Timmins, Ontario. But is anybody moving to Timmins from Vancouver because they're tired of housing prices? Not really. Thus, demand to live in places like the GTA are sky high (and I argue, deservedly so) In the US there's at least one city in every state that I'd voluntarily live in. Most have several. The amount of choice there is insane.
    - cmrdporcupine 5y ago
      No, I still think you're wrong, and the thing you're saying isn't happening (people relocating from major cities to remoter areas) is clearly happening in pretty much all Ontario and BC. At least right now because housing prices have skyrocketed everywhere, not just in the GTA or lower mainland. The pandemic actually drove people out of urban areas and drove up prices all over the province. Especially places like Squamish or Collingwood that already had cachet for upper middle class people (but were previously affordable because of the difficulty of commuting from them). While this is most obviously the case for southern Ontario, I think you'll find actually Timmins or Sault Ste Marie, etc. have gone up at precipitous rates as well. And elsewhere in the country:. Lots of people relocated to Nova Scotia during the pandemic, because housing was cheaper there, they handled COVID better, and they figured they could work remote forever. Housing prices have skyrocketed there, too. The only place where this didn't happen is in Alberta, where low oil prices and other factors. caused a bit of a net emigration and lower housing prices for a bit and things were quite affordable there. That's now changing as the price of oil goes up. In the end, there's boatloads of places for people to live in Canada, those places are growing, in some ways regaining a bit of the demand they had prior flattening out in the 1990s & 2000s. The problem is in general that industry and good paying jobs aren't necessarily coming with the people and they're creating an affordability problem for the existing "locals". In the past people concentrated in the GTA and the lower mainland BC because of jobs jobs jobs. Remote is changing that a bit. For now.

wnolens 5y ago

Yes, I think that's it. There's not many places to actually live in Canada, so demand is sky high anywhere within a few hours of the major city centres. Then long stretches of nothing. Yukon is cool, but it's not super cheap if you were hoping so. Rent is high compared to home prices though, so being a landlord is easier.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago
Nonsense. There's hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of places to live in Canada, it's primarily a humid temperate climate (in Ontario and southwestern Quebec) no different than the midwest or other parts more like the US northeast and with huge sections that are prairie or poplar "parkland" like the Dakotas etc. You have to go really far north to find anything "uninhabitable." Southern Ontario (where almost half of Canadians live) alone is 139,931 km² -- about the size of all of England (130,279 km²), or half of all of Germany -- and almost all highly arable land with copious fresh water and developed highway and rail networks. And it's further south than most northern US states, sitting at about the same latitude as southern Oregon. There's lots of room to build. Stereotypes of Canada as a barren northern land are laughable products of American ignorance or Toronto-centric myopia.
- liketochill 5y ago
  How many hours are you willing to drive to get to a crappy grocery store with no fresh produce?
- wnolens 5y ago
  I didn't mean it's literally barren land or that it's impossible to inhabit. I meant there are few desirable places to reside (to me and anyone I've ever known) on the basis of access to jobs, culture, major hospitals, higher education, etc. Yes some people can live full and happy lives in Timmins, Ontario. But is anybody moving to Timmins from Vancouver because they're tired of housing prices? Not really. Thus, demand to live in places like the GTA are sky high (and I argue, deservedly so) In the US there's at least one city in every state that I'd voluntarily live in. Most have several. The amount of choice there is insane.
  - cmrdporcupine 5y ago
    No, I still think you're wrong, and the thing you're saying isn't happening (people relocating from major cities to remoter areas) is clearly happening in pretty much all Ontario and BC. At least right now because housing prices have skyrocketed everywhere, not just in the GTA or lower mainland. The pandemic actually drove people out of urban areas and drove up prices all over the province. Especially places like Squamish or Collingwood that already had cachet for upper middle class people (but were previously affordable because of the difficulty of commuting from them). While this is most obviously the case for southern Ontario, I think you'll find actually Timmins or Sault Ste Marie, etc. have gone up at precipitous rates as well. And elsewhere in the country:. Lots of people relocated to Nova Scotia during the pandemic, because housing was cheaper there, they handled COVID better, and they figured they could work remote forever. Housing prices have skyrocketed there, too. The only place where this didn't happen is in Alberta, where low oil prices and other factors. caused a bit of a net emigration and lower housing prices for a bit and things were quite affordable there. That's now changing as the price of oil goes up. In the end, there's boatloads of places for people to live in Canada, those places are growing, in some ways regaining a bit of the demand they had prior flattening out in the 1990s & 2000s. The problem is in general that industry and good paying jobs aren't necessarily coming with the people and they're creating an affordability problem for the existing "locals". In the past people concentrated in the GTA and the lower mainland BC because of jobs jobs jobs. Remote is changing that a bit. For now.