Why I Can’t Afford a House?

Hello, it’s me and I’m going to complain about the affordability of a house. The above photo that I chose for my cover demonstrates an average looking house. Assuming the kitchen is updated and the bathroom, this will cost me around 700,00 - 800,000 in Canadian dollars. In US that’s 518153.00 to 618153 ish dollars. I would like to eat please, so paying for a house is very hard to do. And we can applaud Trudeau for raising the carbon tax.

As a Canadian I need to stay warm during winter, it’s vital to survival. At least I have a nice electric blanket to keep me warm. I have a decent job, it pays me fairly well. I would not be able to afford rent if I lived by myself though as an Administrative Assistant I would probably earn enough for groceries and to live with a roommate. My husband is an electrical engineer he is the main money maker that contributes to our income. However, we just bought a car that is enough for a down payment for a house, we needed a larger car though for long road trips and adventures. Groceries are expensive, gas is expensive, used cars cost as much as a down payment on a house. We all make money, but some of us can’t afford a house and are barely affording groceries. Cutting out luxuries such as a vacation is a must when it comes to saving for a house, but we all need a vacation from time to time.

Hypothetically if I wanted to buy a house in 1997 the “average house price in Canada of $154,620 was about 4.9 times the average pretax annual income ($31,484) of an individual with a full-time job.” According to Globe and mail.

The average income currently in Canada is about $59,300 ish and when you compare that to the home price of $719,400.00 that’s more than half of your income on a mortgage. The only key thing to do here is to keep on saving, my husband and I save about $2,000.00 each month because we found an affordable rental to live in. However, that price is only going up and our inflation increase at work is only cents. We are trying to build up an emergency fund and vacation fund while trying to save for our perfect house.

The other reason why Canadians cannot afford a house is because wages have not grown as fast as housing, sure wages have grown approximately 60% in 17 years, which pretty reasonable…but when it comes to housing it grew to a booming 270% so that’s why I can’t afford a house, but it could be that our priorities are different at the moment. We bought a car which is now referred to as our down payment, but it dipped our savings way down because we were not willing to finance it. So while we are rebuilding our savings the inflation is just climbing. The next reason is because everyone is moving to Canada so there’s a higher demand for houses which results in the increase of house prices. Construction is happening rapidly but not as fast as people moving to Canada. We cannot keep up with the demand for houses.

Only 26% of people are affording houses in Canada right now. That’s right 26% of Canada’s population can afford a house. This is why I’ve been trying to get my Amazon affiliate account to help out with some of our finances and there’s no extra cost to the buyers. Also, I recently learned that you can buy a house on Amazon:

So should I just live in a tiny home? I could. Also full disclosure I earn from Amazon as an associate:) anyways I’m hoping that I’m able to afford a house soon.

Thanks! For reading please subscribe if you’d like.

Resources:

https://www.thestar.com/business/only-26-per-cent-of-canadians-could-afford-a-single-family-home-right-now-report/article_4b2c7c68-9f7d-11ee-80fd-635897c6b2e0.html. Web. 2024

https://albertaworker.ca/news/why-gen-z-canadians-cant-afford-to-buy-a-home/#:~:text=Wages%20have%20indeed%20grown%20over,over%20the%20last%205%20years. Web. 2024

(https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/mortgages-and-rates/why-canadian-homes-are-more-unaffordable-than-ever/article15588053/#:~:text=Back%20in%201997%2C%20the%20average,with%20a%20full%2Dtime%20job.) web. 2024.