Stop Complaining

I bought my first house in Vancouver for $75,000 with a 10% mortgage. I was working full time working in sanitation for the City and part-time on weekends in a mill just to pay the mortgage and keep food on the table. It was really hard on my wife and 4 kids. Those were tough time. I didn't have a high school degree so I had to work those kinds of jobs. So you young people stop wasting money on your lattee's and stop your complaining about housing because I had it tough too.

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Dude.....

Jul 16, 2017 at 5:12pm

you have to earn 300% of your current salary to make the mortgage payments now. Does that sound possible to you ?

Oh OK

Jul 16, 2017 at 7:35pm

Houses are now what $2 mill for the cheapest? At 5% interest after down,etc you're looking at $7k a month average interest. Your 10% on $75 k is $7500 PER YEAR average interest. As a sanitation worker from then till now,you can bet damn well the salaries have NOT gone up TEN FOLD like the interest payments have.....

Yeah, that's the problem...

Jul 16, 2017 at 8:07pm

..isn't it? Wasting money on lattes.

25 9Rating: +16

Lattee's

Jul 17, 2017 at 12:19am

Whatever I never liked lattes because I'm lactose intolerant.

Let's be real

Jul 17, 2017 at 6:18am

I too bought my first home for $85,000 at a 12.75% mortgage. My spouse and I both had to work extremely hard (I dropped out of college just to afford the house) to support our 4 kids too. However, in spite of all that, at least it was possible to do it, unlike the present situation where purchasing a detached house anywhere in the lower mainland has become so far out of reach for the average person that the lifestyle we were able to enjoy is no longer in the cards for our kids. Due to some unfortunate life circumstances that happened for me I am also no longer a homeowner and will likely never be able to get back on the property ladder again, so I really understand the feeling of hopelessness that so many people here are also experiencing. Time to leave.

Cash

Jul 17, 2017 at 7:41am

Will you sell your house to me now for that price? Cash in hand.

I do love the absurd view of some people, that I made it by doing this, why doesn't everybody else. How many job openings do you have and are you will to gives yours up to a young person? Facts don't seem to matter , like if everyone went into STEM fields wages would drop and not everyone would have a job.

The world has changed, get with it Grandpa.

Can I have your tough please?

Jul 17, 2017 at 9:39am

Houses cost a million dollars and my rent+student loans leaves me with $300 a month. I work 60+ hours a week at one job now but held down up to 4 jobs at a time during my 20s - and my student loans are for practical, work-oriented programs that have led directly to my employment, before you get all judgy. if I hadn't gotten some education, I'd be homeless right now. My partner and I both work around the clock. We have roommates. Despite being in our 30s and 40s. You bought a house for - inflation adjusted - way less than half what it would cost today. And, we all know salaries have done nothing approaching keeping up with inflation, so based on the purchasing power of young workers today, they would need four times what you paid - again, in present value dollars. What you are is an old whiner with no real perspective on what tough looks like these days.

Anonymous

Jul 17, 2017 at 11:29am

It's just a fact that housing prices have increased much faster than wages. Working part time on weekends and cutting out coffee would not make buying a house in Vancouver possible for the vast majority of people. You must know this. It's possible to acknowledge both that you've worked hard in life AND that the ability of young people to buy a home in the city has drastically changed.

Reality check

Jul 17, 2017 at 1:00pm

A Vancouver house would have been $75k or so in the 80's, and that's also when mortgage rates were roughly 10%. I'm guessing your mortgage payments would have been about $600 a month. In today's dollars, that's about $1150

The average Vancouver detached house is now $2.8m, which at a 4.5% interest rate is payments of $11,000 a month.

There is no comparison, absolutely none, between buying a house then and now. You got a windfall you did not earn.

@Oh OK

Jul 17, 2017 at 1:36pm

Keep in mind that he isn't a high school grad, so he's probably not terribly good at math. Good thing we have taxpayer-funded employment for people like him. Or had, anyway.

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