this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2026
21 points (100.0% liked)
British Columbia
2040 readers
74 users here now
!britishcolumbia@lemmy.ca
News, highlights and more relating to this great province!
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
People can't afford houses. Im one of them I'll never afford a house because wages are too low for the cost of housing.
It costs me about 30k a year for a 2 bedroom apartment. I don't live in a large or fancy place.
I'm 45 and was never good at school. Im doing better than most. I don't have kids, I don't go on vacation, I basically stay home because I can't afford anything. Finding a better job than the one I hate has been impossible for me.
I'm single and I'm barely able to save anything . I need a new car which I can't afford. It shouldn't be like this, I need to make over double my current salary to be considered self sufficient.
More houses means absolutely fucking nothing to me and again I'm doing better than most.
This is NOT a supply issue, I should be able to buy a place at this point but I can't.
In 2010 I was paying 900 a month for an older 2 bedroom apartment. Now I'm paying over 2.5 times as much in rent in less than 15 years. I was making 15$ an hour then. I'm not even making 29$ an hour now. I would have to work 80 hours a week if not more to be able to afford to buy a place.
Until there is a program or help for people to be able to afford to live in the places they can find work more housing is just making money for people with lots of money.
The only way out of this is to give help to hard working people who just want a place to call their own. It's fucking rediculous
Sounds like you need a new job -- at $29/hour you're making about $55k/year, while the average Canadian income is $67k/year. Funnily, in 2022 you'd have been making average. The big spike upwards between 2022 and 2024 (where the $67k is from) was largely government and union workers getting significant bumps -- while in the past, public sector was lower pay in exchange for job security, it now beats private sector gigs in most ways. Under Trudeau/provincial NDP govt, more than 1/5 workers are public sector workers, skewing the salary averages. In Vancouver specifically, the average salary is closer to $72k if I recall right. Edit for context/evidence: bus drivers in Vancouver start at $29/hour, increasing to ~$40/hour (~80k/year) based on seniority, and require no specific educational background. So a 20 year old kid that becomes a bus driver is making as much as you today, and will be earning far more than you in a couple years.
So to your "I'm doing better than most", no, you're not -- you're earning about ~20% less than the average person. Also, most/many people who are buying properties are dual-income family units -- you're behind on that front as well, as a single-income person. Compared to other potential home buyers, you earn far less than half what they can put up for their income numbers ($120k-$150k for average dual income buyers). Also, as a single-income person, you're saying you have a two bedroom place -- so you're paying for more space than a single person theoretically needs.
My guess is that you haven't really tried to aggressively find other employment/work over the past 10-20 years, and you have an employer that gives you piddly increases that don't keep up with cpi. It's just a guess, obviously, since I don't know your specific situation -- but a statement like finding a better job has been impossible for you, is unlikely/improbable, especially without more context.
It is a supply issue, If there was tons of houses available, prices drop, those in a 2 bedroom that could now afford a house move to it, your rent on 2 bedrooms drops, so you can save more. The cycle continues as more houses come on the market... Renting looks less attractive at some point. Eventually landlords sell because rentals aren't desired
Rent/housing prices have generally been coming down ever since the fed changed its approach to immigration and capped things / international politics took a shit on immigration in general. Presales are tanking very publicly. All sales activity is significantly down, with large gluts of supply on the market. Supply has a role to play, sure, but the cut in demand has pretty explicitly changed the direction of the housing market for the past few years now. Claiming its primarily 'supply', is basically denying the data that says otherwise.
Its still supply as in surplus brings prices down. Whether that is less people coming or more being built, it translates to surplus units.
In BC the law change to disallow second residence airbnb put a lot of homes on the market at once. This also stunted the never ending increases.
Supply and demand are connected, sure, that I wouldn't contest. But we've had over-supply for an extended time now, resulting from cratering demand. Even the BC law change you reference, is something that cuts demand for 'income'/'investment' properties, which's why they got dumped onto the market in some areas. The change removed that 'demand' category from the market, stunting prices. But suppliers/developers kept on building at the high-cost of ownership rates.
On the market, there's been like 5000+ homes just sorta sittin there, with about 400 sold per month in Vancouver, with that imbalance growing for years. There's a ton of supply, but there's no demand at the prices they're being listed at. So on the supply/demand mix, especially seeing as its been a 'buyers' market for years now, it's demand that's missing / absent. Even if it's missing/absent, as a result of there being few locals who can afford the prices things are listed at -- that things are 'available', there's plenty of supply.
I mean, in some ways the core issue facing govts is that they need to have homes at a far lower price point, so that there's more local demand for it.... while also maintaining existing housing prices, so that current home owners don't all go bankrupt. They essentially need to freeze the housing prices, to allow local wages to catch up for a decade or so.
You are saying the only way to lower the price is to build more housing than is needed. Which is an insane way to plan how to effectively house everyone
Not the only way, but having enough units for people, instead if people dividing their living room with a sheet to make a rentable space (like Vancouver). The problems we have is no surplus, actually a high negative, that needs to get closer to zero.
Look up Car Wizard on FB reels or YouTube. He has many excellent suggestions involving used cars that are likely to be absolute gems as well as being easy to repair.
Top of his recommendations tends to be the 1998-2012 Grand Marquis, Crown Vic, and Lincoln Town Car. In my region the 2000-era versions of these trend around $2k-$6k, depending on condition. So long as you avoid the ex police vehicles, these can be bulletproof.
Thanks I'll check it out
Heh. 😜