Anyone live in a condo?

[Fatty Liver]

 

If I could give my 20 year old self some advice, it would be to buy all the property you can when it was so damned cheap.  What do young people today do when they need to buy their first home?  Are they renting until their well into their careers and marriage and can finally afford it?  Are they borrowing down payments from parents?

That would be some damn good advice. I was lucky enough to by my house in 2007, and not long after that the housing prices in Winnipeg really took off. Not the nicest place but it's in a great neighborhood (Portage/Ferry area, south side of Portage). Now, after a little bit of work the house couldn't possibly go for less than 180k if it hit the market. I can remember feeling gouged when I paid 91k. Had no idea how lucky I really was.

 

My brother is buying his first home now, same area roughly but north of Ness. He has to borrow from my folks to get the 10% minimum he needs for CMHC. He's lucky to have that luxury, I have no idea how the next generation of home buyers are going to make it work, especially if their parents can't help them out.

 

 

Truth be told the value of your asset has probably only increased in "real value" 5-10% during that time period if at all.  The degradation of the currency by printing non-stop bank notes is the main cause for the staggering inflation in house prices.  It's a classic bubble scenario.

 

As for the next generation of home buyers, salaries should have doubled or even tripled in the same time period to match the currency devaluation but in fact they have been falling in real purchasing power since the early seventies.  They just need to convince their bosses to pay them in gold or platinum rather than paper and they should be okay.