Quote:
Originally Posted by whatnext
I suspect many younger Canadians have just given up on the idea of owning a house and are resigned to apartment living.
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Part of it I guess is that for a certain cohort in Vancouver at least, any life plans involving owning a house have already been derailed. Does it make sense to take on debt to move from a condo to a house when you're 40 or 50 years old? Not unless you really really want a house.
I own a condo and it's hard to imagine a scenario where it would make sense to upgrade my housing just for the sake of it. Even a modest upgrade from a 2 BR condo is very expensive in metro Vancouver.
The apartment thing doesn't bother me so much and I don't think we can have high immigration, the ALR, and detached houses for everyone. But we should be able to have 1,500 square foot 3 BR condos in a good area that don't cost $1M+. Unfortunately, Vancouver has affirmed over and over that artificially maintaining stable detached housing neighbourhoods for Baby Boomers is much more important than letting the market provide more than 400 square foot per person for middle class younger people.