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  • Chris Alemanychris@socialbc.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 3:52 PM

    @mike that would be good too. But without capping the amounts, it doesn’t make a lot of difference if something is tax deductible if you can’t afford the bill in the first place.

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  • Chris Routh (He/Him)Routhinator@tenforward.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 4:04 PM

    @chris $650k house requires a 250k income to pass mortgage stress test.

    I got an old fixer upper for $527.9k in 2021 and just passed the test with an income of $200k at the time.

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  • Chris Routh (He/Him)Routhinator@tenforward.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 4:09 PM

    @chris further to that, mortgage payments on a $527.9k home are $4000/month.

    A 65k income is $1295/month before tax.

    Even at this math the cost doesn't work. And the finances are too fragile. I got long covid and cannot work, waiting for LTD, but my EI will be about $60k a year, and that will not cover the mortgage, let alone anything else.

    One little life-gotcha, and that's it.

    Houses should not be more than $500k. The math doesn't work otherwise.

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  • Chris Alemanychris@socialbc.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 4:19 PM

    @Routhinator absolutely. It’s all about income. No different from food. How did government decrease the number of kids going to school hungry?

    They implemented a child subsidy to supplement the income of families. But if people without kids can’t afford bread, or their mortgage, or their prescriptions, then what?

    Capitalism/corporate capture has run amok, the pendulum is too far. We need guaranteed income and capped food and housing prices so every single person can feed and house themself.

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  • datum (n=1)datum@zeroes.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 5:42 PM

    @Routhinator @chris

    A 65k income is $1295/month before tax

    A 65k income is $5416/mo before tax though?

    I'm not suggesting paying 2/3 of income towards a mortgage is wise, just that your division is incorrect.

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  • Chris Routh (He/Him)Routhinator@tenforward.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 5:57 PM

    @datum @chris er, yeah I divided into weeks there, sorry. Bit of a PEM crash today.

    But after taxes, you aren't paying 4000/month in mortgage. After taxes that would be all of your income, I believe.

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  • Chris Routh (He/Him)Routhinator@tenforward.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 6:01 PM

    @datum @chris I'll add to this that with a family of three, (1 child).. Groceries are around $600/month if you are frugal and make from scratch, batched meals a lot.

    Hydro on a house this size runs around $200/month (we have no gas or working stove, all electric and as a result our hydro rate is maximum)

    Then you have phone, internet.. Clothes.

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  • Chris Alemanychris@socialbc.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 4:09 PM

    @Routhinator absolutely insane.

    and no offense at all meant to you but… hell, I’d love a $200,000 job!

    And yet we have politicians running around talking about “supply supply supply” while -by-definition- the average person can’t afford to buy a single one of those new ‘supply’.

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  • Chris Routh (He/Him)Routhinator@tenforward.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 4:15 PM

    @chris yeah, I bought a 1971 fixer upper on a street that used to be filled with crack-houses and is considered non desirable in Campbell River due to proximity to the low income housing. Which is bull.

    My house value has gone down.

    And that 200k job required me to burn myself out working round the clock for various timezones and do things I would never have done if not for the simple desire to have a stable roof over my head that doesn't get exponentially more expensive as I age. Renting and retirement are incompatible.

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  • Jasmine Liskajliska@mstdn.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 4:27 PM

    @chris Part of the issue is that wages have lost to inflation so badly, though, too. In your wage range for the 70s, the current equivalents would be about 57,500 to 115,000. We need more mechanisms for dealing with wealth inequality and wages that have stayed fairly flat.

    Also, looking at Stats Can's housing cost to disposable income information, the unaffordability of housing has been increasing since the mid-90s. Given that, it would help to look at the economic and policy changes our governments made starting at that point and find ways to reverse them so we had less corporate control over housing and more social housing (co-op- or public-owned/built) to keep prices in check.

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  • Jean-François Mezeijfmezei@cosocial.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 4:36 PM

    @chris The mortgage crisis of 2008 in USA is something you must not forget.

    If you buy a $100,000 house and mortgage for $95,000, and then a sudden influx of new housing drives value of your home down to $90,000, your bank calls in the mortgage because home no longer worth more than the balance on your mortgage. And then double whammy because bank puts your house up for sale and drives house princes down even more causing many more to go underwater and lose their homes.

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  • Jean-François Mezeijfmezei@cosocial.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 4:37 PM

    @chris Politicians are advised by bankers to not do anything to start driving price of homes down.

    So it is perhaps more realistic to push for rental housing first.

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  • Chris Alemanychris@socialbc.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 4:53 PM

    @jfmezei if only we didn’t have a banker for a Prime Minister perhaps we’d be able to get around that ‘advice’. ;)

    But seriously, the Canadian government would have to backstop people’s existing mortgages. The 2008 USA crisis happened exactly because there was no regulation to prevent it.

    The CMHC could take on any mortgage the banks want to dump, or the government would help the banks write off the difference. In the end, no harm should be done. No crisis beyond what we are already in.

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  • Chris Alemanychris@socialbc.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 4:54 PM

    @jfmezei the only crisis would be for the realtors who rely on every-increasing prices to fund and justify their ever-increasing luxury needs.

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  • Jean-François Mezeijfmezei@cosocial.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 5:09 PM

    @chris If you invested your hard earned money into your house, and Port Alberni were to announcee a rapid doubling of number of homes in Alberni resulting in halving of the value of your home, wouldn't you and all residents who own homes vote that mayor out to protect your own investment in your home?

    You can't solve the housing crisis unless you analyse and find ways around the reasons the marlet hasn't responded to the demand, and why govt don't act meaningfully.

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  • Chris Alemanychris@socialbc.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 6:05 PM

    @jfmezei “wouldn’t you and all resident vote that mayor out”

    no. Why should the value of my home have anything to do with whether other people have the opportunity to have a home or not?

    The price is not because of ‘demand’. It’s because real estate is treated as a growth investment.

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  • Jean-François Mezeijfmezei@cosocial.ca
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:23 PM

    @chris real estate treated as growth investment has always been the case. But when a house was worth $50,000, then 10% growth on it was just $5000 more. Generally speaking, a house is a person's largest investment so they (and the banks who loan them the money) expect its value to grow. WIth house worth $1m, year increases now rival a year's salary.

    Another problem is, especially in BC rising expectations. Below is the current entry level little shack people expect in BC 😉

    West Vancouver house with 2 story high glassed wall with a view of ocean west towards Bowen Island from West Vancouver.
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  • J.L. 1285CAWguy@thecanadian.social
    Oct 23, 2026, 10:32 PM

    @chris I can’t help but think that fixing the pension system would ease house prices as well. With private pensions diminishing, and the public one inadequate, it’s easier to just make the higher payments on a house, forego the RRSP, and hopefully downsize into some retirement cash.

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