Rent or buy? Most people get to choose only one of these housing options.

Tanis Morrison is an exception. She owns a Coquitlam apartment unit, which she rents out, and she lives in downtown Vancouver, where she and her boyfriend rent in a Robson Street luxury condo and hotel tower.

For the 27-year-old woman, downtown living is a lifestyle she wants to experience while she’s young.

“I just want to try out the nightlife in Vancouver a bit more,” Morrison told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview.

She likes the benefits of living in the city centre.

“I can walk everywhere,” Morrison said. “I park my car when I get home from work, and we just walk. We love to go to restaurants and ride our bikes. And we walk our dog on the seawall. There’s a lot more access to different things in Vancouver than there are in Coquitlam.”

She considers herself fortunate that she’s able to do these things.

A grandmother passed away several years ago and left Morrison and her brother an inheritance. The matriarch’s dying wish was for the siblings to put the money toward purchasing their own homes.

“It’s a challenge, I think, for people to get started, and you either kind of get lucky or…you have to stay at home until you can afford to pay a down payment,” Morrison said. “So it’s a bit tough.”

A recent global study released by the HongKong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) indicates that rapid increases in home prices and the slow growth in salaries make it difficult for many millennials in Canada and elsewhere to buy a home.

The Canada factsheet included in the study (released in February this year) relates that average property prices in the country increased by 7.4 percent in 2016. However, wages in real terms are forecast to rise by only 0.9 percent in 2017.

Citing results of a survey of 1,000 Canadian respondents, the paper states that financial support from parents can make a huge difference.

“Thirty-seven percent of millennial home owners have used the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ as a source of funding,” the document states. “Additionally, more than one in five (21%) millennial home owners moved back in with their parents to save for a deposit.”

Parents have also come to the rescue after home purchases. According to the paper, 21 percent of Canadian millennials reported borrowing from their family to meet the unexpected costs of ownership.

In Morrison’s case, she invested her inheritance in a lot in the village of Anmore in 2012, where she and her partner at that time later built a house.

The two are no longer together, and they sold the property. Morrison used her share of the proceeds in 2014 to purchase her Coquitlam condo.

According to her, she relied on realtor Dave Jenkins in all the property transactions she has done so far.

“He [Jenkins] lives and breathes his job, so he’s always working,” Morrison said.

She was living alone in Coquitlam when she met Brock Gooyers, and the two have been together for two years now as downtown Vancouver renters.

With the $1,400 rent she collects, Morrison is able to cover her mortgage, strata fees, and property taxes.

With her income as a self-employed hairstylist in Port Moody, Morrison can afford to live to her heart’s content in downtown Vancouver.

For many other millennials, owning or renting a condo doesn’t make much of a difference, leaving them with almost no discretionary money, a situation illustrated in a study released in May 2016 by the Vancouver City Savings Credit Union, or Vancity.

According to No Funds City: Why Vancouver Millennials Have the Lowest Discretionary Income in Canada, a millennial couple with one child and renting a three-bedroom condo that is ideal for a growing family will be left with only $771 for discretionary spending for the entire year after rent, other household expenses, and childcare.

Morrison figures that she’ll be renting in Vancouver for two or three more years. She and her boyfriend may try another part of the city before moving out to Port Moody or another suburb to buy a townhouse.

Morrison said it would be great if they could stay in the city, but she added, laughing: “I can’t afford to own in downtown Vancouver.”