Millennials: Avocados or homes?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I'd love to see a poll of how many people are worse off than their parents at the same age?

Out of my family and group of friends, there are extremely few examples of this. Almost everyone is living in a nicer house, taking more vacations, driving nicer cars and going out more than their parents at the same age.

I would agree with this.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

This is just my theory, but Vancouver and Toronto are undergoing a transformation to alpa+ world cities. Places that not just people in Western Canada, or Canada want to move to, but people from all over the world. Wealthy people. It's happened before with cities like London and Sydney, most normal people there move far afield to the surronding suburbs and the real estate in the city core becomes prohibitvely expensive.

The government should be doing a better job by enacting a foreign buyer tax but I honestly don't think it'll ever be in the reach of 90% of people to own property in the core of either Toronto or Vancouver, its just too far gone reaching critical mass as a world destination. Real estate in the next tier of cities, the Calgary's, Edmonton's, and Ottawa's of the world, is within reach for most.

No.

Canada is one of the few countries in the world that does not properly regulate foreign investment in real estate. There are extremely large and well organized investment groups based in China that essentially move from country to country looking for soft targets to invest in. Canada is a very soft target.

Canada has responded to this by decreasing interest rates, which allows Canadians to borrow, but at the cost of huge personal debt.

Toronto and Vancouver are not "world cities". Go to London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, etc...those are "world" cities, and Vancouver and Toronto are nothing like them. There is no world economy, world class attractions, world class theatre and culture, etc...There's just a real estate market that isn't properly regulated.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by opendoor

The bolded is exactly my point. Talking about $4 coffees, or Netflix, mobile phones, or avocados is completely pointless when people today are spending less on non-essential goods than they did in the past. Just because people now spend money on mobile phones or coffee instead of cigarettes and alcohol doesn't mean they're more wasteful. Some people blow their money on junk but there were lots of people in the '70s that did the same.

Depends on how you define non-essential goods. As I noted in my earlier post, things like dishwashers, TVs, clothes, furniture, and stereos used to be much more expensive. However, I'm not sure I'd put that stuff in the same category of 'non-essentials' as meals outside the home and airplane vacations. If you have stats showing people don't spend any more on recreational food and drink today than they did in the past, I'd like to see them.

You also need to factor in marriage and work trends. A middle-class couple today has more disposable income than a middle-class couple 40 years ago because they're both likely to work, and because of assortative mating, if one member of the couple has a high-paying job, they likely both do. Conversely, the working poor are much less likely to belong to stable marriages today than in past, and single parents are even worse off.

So some people (the working class, single-income households) have less disposable income than their counterparts in the past. Other people (the educated and two-income households) have a lot more than than their counterparts in the past.

[peter12]

Speaking as someone who recently moved to Vancouver, I fully expect never to own a house. However, my life fits into that plan quite nicely. Vancouver, for better or worse, is a city that is wonderful for the privileged. I am 31, I make an income in the top 10%, and I don't have any children. I live in Kitsilano, and I have a view from my kitchen window that would probably fit into a top 100 kitchen window views Buzzfeed list.

I spend a lot on going out and having fun. After all, that is the point of living in the Vancouver core. I don't live like a pauper. Who wants that?

I also probably save 20% of my income into a TFSA or RRSP. I also have a defined benefit pension at work. I would really like to be safe and stable at retirement. I personally don't think that a house is a very good investment. The market does fluctuate over time, and regardless what our resident real estate propagandists on CP say, there is definitely going to be a correction here in the Lower Mainland.

If you can afford to get into that market, and reap some of the gains, well, good for you, but your behaviour is just making a bad situation worse.

The real problem here is affecting the bottom 50% of the income scale, and like some have said, this is a problem everywhere.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by blankall

No.

Canada is one of the few countries in the world that does not properly regulate foreign investment in real estate. There are extremely large and well organized investment groups based in China that essentially move from country to country looking for soft targets to invest in. Canada is a very soft target.

Canada has responded to this by decreasing interest rates, which allows Canadians to borrow, but at the cost of huge personal debt.

Toronto and Vancouver are not "world cities". Go to London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, etc...those are "world" cities, and Vancouver and Toronto are nothing like them. There is no world economy, world class attraction, world class theatre, etc...There's just a real estate market that isn't properly regulated.

Thats pretty much it. Try buying properties in London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, etc and see the hoops you have to jump through.

The Canadian Real Estate markets are being artificially inflated by wealthy groups that are trying to hide money and with enough of them operating in tandem they're not only succeeding at hiding their funds but actually growing them through artificial gains in property values.

Theres nothing real here.

If people loved living in Vancouver so much then why are most of the Foreign Purchased Homes vacant?

They're just a place to stash cash.

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by blankall

No.

Canada is one of the few countries in the world that does not properly regulate foreign investment in real estate. There are extremely large and well organized investment groups based in China that essentially move from country to country looking for soft targets to invest in. Canada is a very soft target.

Canada has responded to this by decreasing interest rates, which allows Canadians to borrow, but at the cost of huge personal debt.

Toronto and Vancouver are not "world cities". Go to London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, etc...those are "world" cities, and Vancouver and Toronto are nothing like them. There is no world economy, world class attractions, world class theatre and culture, etc...There's just a real estate market that isn't properly regulated.

I fully agree that we need to do a much better job of regulating the housing market. Much better.

Toronto and Vancouver aren't on the level of New York and Paris but they're going through that transformation now. And even with all the controls you cited real estate in those cities is still ridiculous, at a certain point it becomes unaviodable

[Locke]

Put it this way: if the manner in which these foreign property purchases were treated the same as most other off-shore investments it would tick pretty much every box for 'Fraud.'

Sounds like a healthy investment?

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I'd love to see a poll of how many people are worse off than their parents at the same age?

Out of my family and group of friends, there are extremely few examples of this. Almost everyone is living in a nicer house, taking more vacations, driving nicer cars and going out more than their parents at the same age.

Yo.

That said, even though they had better everything, I'm 99% sure I'm happier than my parents were.

My mom didn't even work and they had better stuff, and my education level is equivalent to my father's (and my wife's far exceeds my mothers).

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I'd love to see a poll of how many people are worse off than their parents at the same age?

Out of my family and group of friends, there are extremely few examples of this. Almost everyone is living in a nicer house, taking more vacations, driving nicer cars and going out more than their parents at the same age.

That's a hard question though. With technological improvements almost any newer house or car is nicer than most examples 30-40 years ago. Is my car better than the one my parents drove at my age? Absolutely, but it was also 8 years old when I bought it (it's now 12 years old) whereas they bought their cars brand new.

Same with housing. My house is much nicer than theirs was at my age (though that's partly because I have the skills to make it nicer whereas they didn't). But at the same time their house was on a waterfront lot and it only cost them about 1.5-2 years of a middle class family income to buy it.

And of course there's the longer term considerations that stem from cheaper housing. My parents were able to have their house (as well as a couple of rental properties) paid off in their 40s, were able to retire in their mid 50s, and are both currently living off of generous pensions that they barely had to pay any money into in their 20s and 30s. My mom is a retired teacher who for most of her career only had to pay about 5-6% of her income towards her DB pension. Current teachers have to contribute 2-3 times that amount and many of them actually take home less money while working full time than my mom does from just her pension.

So yeah we have nicer consumer goods now, but how viable is that kind of life path described above for most people currently in their 20s?

[shermanator]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I'd love to see a poll of how many people are worse off than their parents at the same age?

Out of my family and group of friends, there are extremely few examples of this. Almost everyone is living in a nicer house, taking more vacations, driving nicer cars and going out more than their parents at the same age.

Well, how many people are in the same situation as their parents were at the same age? I know I'm not.

When my father was 33 he had a stay at home wife and 3 kids a 1000 sq ft suburban bungalow on a single income. Meanwhile I have a similar sized bungalow in the inner city on two incomes, and am delaying having kids another couple years to get two more trips in while I'm young. But things will flip when I'm 50; my father had all the kids out of his house while I'll have some ####head teens drinking all my beer at that age.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

Honestly, no I did not. I realize that's not a situation everyone can enjoy, I'm thankful to my parents that they allowed me to live there and save a down payment.

It is nice to see that you know how lucky you were/are.

[OMG!WTF!]

One thing people really don't consider is the cost of a pet. If you're working it generally means thousands a year in dog walkers, vet bills and general care. A friend decided to save on the dog walker for a couple weeks and has since paid for it in Audi keys ($700) and baseboards ($500). They have a way of keeping you honest with your dough.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

I fully agree that we need to do a much better job of regulating the housing market. Much better.

Toronto and Vancouver aren't on the level of New York and Paris but they're going through that transformation now. And even with all the controls you cited real estate in those cities is still ridiculous, at a certain point it becomes unaviodable

A transformation towards empty and overprice housing units? What transformation is going on? Once again, I see few parallels between Vancouver/Toronto and real world class cities. Vancouver/Toronto have the prices but none of the attractions. As a tourist, you'd run out of things to do in either of those cities within 2-3 days. The major selling point to Vancouver would be exiting Vancouver and seeing the nature around it.

[V]

I'm way better off now than my parents are now, let alone when they were in their thirties. But I maintain that I'm a Gen X'er and not a Millenial, so I don't have as much to whine about.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by shermanator

Well, how many people are in the same situation as their parents were at the same age? I know I'm not.

When my father was 33 he had a stay at home wife and 3 kids a 1000 sq ft suburban bungalow on a single income. Meanwhile I have a similar sized bungalow in the inner city on two incomes, and am delaying having kids another couple years to get two more trips in while I'm young. But things will flip when I'm 50; my father had all the kids out of his house while I'll have some ####head teens drinking all my beer at that age.

That's the funny thing about this debate. It's actually people in their 20s in their 30s today who have a much better lifestyle than their parents did, and those in their 40s and 50s who are (or are going to be) worse off.

I sure wouldn't have wanted to have been raising three kids on a single modest income in a small bungalow when I was 28. But my parents had more leisure and money in their 50s and 60s than I'm likely to have, not to mention an earlier and more secure retirement.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

That's the funny thing about this debate. It's actually people in their 20s in their 30s today who have a much better lifestyle than their parents did, and those in their 40s and 50s who are (or are going to be) worse off.

I sure wouldn't have wanted to have been raising three kids on a single modest income in a small bungalow when I was 28. But my parents had more leisure and money in their 50s and 60s than I'm likely to have, not to mention an earlier and more secure retirement.

I am far and away in a better place than my immigrant parents were at my age. At the rip old age of 45 I think they had been in Canada 5 years. They had a hard life, not life Somalia hard, but hard.

[PsYcNeT]

It's almost like the human experience is difficult to categorize, and articles whining about people whining tend to amplify a minority of people within a diverse group, in turn feeding a 5000 year old zeitgeist of assuming that everyone younger than you is terrible.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

I am far and away in a better place than my immigrant parents were at my age. At the rip old age of 45 I think they had been in Canada 5 years. They had a hard life, not life Somalia hard, but hard.

I think a lot of people in this thread are speaking from the perspective of children lucky enough to be raised by hard working parents who were willing to make sacrifices.

Ironically enough, your comment speaks to the bigger issue here, which is social mobility. Your parents were able to come here as poor immigrants and were rewarded for their hard work. They've been able to pass that along to you.

Do children who were raised by parents who were not able to or unwilling to help them have the same opportunities? You're also 45. You were lucky enough to avoid the madness going on and are likely actually profiting from it. Would you be in the same position you are in now if property prices were 4x what they were when you entered the market? If the cost of tuition was 4x? If your job prospects were a fraction?

I'm also far better off financially than my parents were at my age. I'm 36 and own a rental property in downtown Vancovuer. I also don't have children. My worry is about the society I live in and my ability to take the next steps forward though.

[HockeyIlliterate]

Originally Posted by opendoor

My mom is a retired teacher who for most of her career only had to pay about 5-6% of her income towards her DB pension. Current teachers have to contribute 2-3 times that amount and many of them actually take home less money while working full time than my mom does from just her pension.

This inequity is, in my view, the larger issue that will have to be dealt with in the near future, and none of the possible solutions are truly politically palatable.

And it isn't just a teacher problem: plenty of ex-government and -union employees are in the same situation, where promises made years and years ago are finally coming due, and suddenly people are realizing that (i) the promises were never fully funded; and/or (ii) the promises cannot be fully kept.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by HockeyIlliterate

This inequity is, in my view, the larger issue that will have to be dealt with in the near future, and none of the possible solutions are truly politically palatable.

And it isn't just a teacher problem: plenty of ex-government and -union employees are in the same situation, where promises made years and years ago are finally coming due, and suddenly people are realizing that (i) the promises were never fully funded; and/or (ii) the promises cannot be fully kept.

New York pays more retired police than current police. Many counties and municipalities in rural Canada are so burdened with police and firefighter pensions that the government is essentially a mechanism for collecting taxes from residents and disbursing them to retired employees. They don't have the budget for anything else - including hiring new police or firefighters.

If there's anything Boomers have to answer for, it's the criminally-reckless pyramid scheme of the public pensions they've burdened succeeding generations with. With relentlessly increasing lifespans, it's absurd that public workers have been retiring with full pensions and benefits at 50 and 55.