Home Ownership Strain

by Shawn Lackie

I don’t know about you, but I am looking at the numbers and thinking it just gets harder, with every passing year, to buy a home. Why is that? I did some number crunching. On a personal level, I looked at just what it would take to buy a house, based on our personal history. Let me say, it was pretty odd.

Back in the mid 1980s, if you had a good (not great) job, you’d be earning somewhere in the mid 20 thousand dollar range, and living comfortably, with no excess. Really, back then, there wasn’t the need to dine out at least four nights a week. However, you could buy a home in Toronto for under 60K.

Really? Oh yeah, if you were willing to live in one of the many ungentrified neighbourhoods, you could have bought for even less than that. Then, the late 1980s boom came along and changed all that.

The point is, you could live with a mortgage which was more than manageable, based on income versus outflow of dollars. You could survive whatever crazy sudden expenses came your way; such as a dead water heater, leaking roof, or any other regular household expenses. There was a good and realistic income to expense ratio.

Sadly, such is not the case these days. The house we bought in 1983 was a four bedroom semi in a good area. It was less than 60K, believe it. The last time this place traded hands it went for over 1.2 million. Don’t think I don’t cry about that every day. Woulda, shoulda, coulda.

Back to the present. Look at the wages for regular folks. The average wage, to live in the “Comfortable” range in Ontario (Outside of Toronto), is in the 80-90K range. So, compare that to what the average house price is these days. Right? The ratio is not even close.

I used to cringe when grandparents would talk about spending five cents for a loaf of bread. I promised myself I would never compare prices in an inter-generational way, but you can’t help it. Especially, with the way costs have far exceeded the increase incomes have. It’s crazy.

It is kinda like, when you read about the latest ticket price increase, for the beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. There IS a parallel here. I had a season ticket in the early 1980s. I had a pair of centre ice Grey tickets. Now get this, the price was $320 for the season, for two seats! That was $4 per seat. Now take a look at what they charge these days. Consequently, the average fan is further and further away from going to a game. Just like today’s aspiring home owners appear to be further and further away from achieving their dreams of home ownership.

However, prices have started to moderate, thanks to the softening market. Sellers have started to realize they are NOT going to get the big bucks their neighbours did in 2020. I know, reality sucks but that’s where we sit these days.

However, like life, things go in cycles. It may be a matter of weeks or months before interest rates drop and the buying frenzy starts once again. Only time will tell, but let’s hope common sense reigns supreme and wild and wacky bidding wars don’t start again. We will see.

Feel free to check out this story and more on my blog site, at https://slackie14.wixsite.com/buy-sell-and-more