RE: A Choice Between Eating or Having a Roof Over Your Head
I think the 28% rule seems fair, what happened was buying power decreased and like you say the things you used to be fine with paying your various living expenses, insurance etc started to take a bigger piece of the pie.
Then we add to that the constant flipping of homes and leveraging them as an income stream for banks and in turn, putting pressure on homeowners to rent out passing it on to the consumer sees prices inflate way higher than the actual value.
I can't pretend to know what it's like to live in a first-world economy, from what I read and heard it seems fast-paced and frantic. I think here we're not really feeling the effects as badly but it is starting to become unattainable to keep up for some and the numbers grow each day.
I do also think there is an element of blame to be placed on the consumer for not educating themselves. Yes, some of these car loans and home loans and student loans are bordering on predatory lending, we also need to learn to say no. When the market says no the product either adapts or dies.
We're hooked on this system and only once it collapses do I think we get off and say hey we needed some better checks and balances in play
!ENGAGE 40
To me it is frantic and most of my Steem time is at the expense of sleep as I have more than one job. I live 20kms outside of Vancouver Canada and it is the high cost of living on top of Million dollar homes for a fixer upper house. The rapid appreciation of home values also raised Rental costs sky high with a vacancy rate of less than 1%. A professional working family could barely afford a fixer upper (40 to 5o+ year old house) taking 60 to 70% of their income and the bank still loans to them. Crazy.
I live frugally, don't own a car, and installed a rental suite for Passive monthly income added to my Nurse's salary and I can barely get by, recently an inheritance I got paid some debts off and kept my head above water. But it's those taxes, those property taxes that go up far faster than the official inflation rate, 2%, and that's the start. My gas heating bill, lol... 20% is the cost of the actual gas use and the other 80% are taxes; Carbon taxes, Value Added Tax, Distribution levies, User fees, rate rider levy and Public Bus Transportation levy.
A Steemian I know was homeless for quite a while, he now has a decent place away from the expensive coast. I'm thinking of selling and moving into the cheaper rural regions myself.
Wow reading your comment I had to read it twice and just like take it all in that’s mind blowing! I don’t know how the city is planned but in my mind 20kms like here you would be in the suburbs out of the main city and you could still find something affordable!
I’m actually fascinated by the situation you painting right now because this year I had two job offers in Canada one in Ottawa and one In Toronto and i looked at the salary and I was like x 10 compared to our money so it sounds like a lot of money
Then I started doing research on the tax, transport, food and living and stuff like gas, i didn’t know about we don’t have that because it’s not cold here and then when I was done adding it all up I was like it doesn’t leave much money for me to A explore Canada while I’m living there and B have something saved up to bring back home
It know a few friends that made the jump to Canada and I haven’t heard from them since, they paint quite the picture for immigrants I do admit but I was like the cold would already be hard for me you have to give me something to want to really leave
I think that’s crazy that a family can’t even afford a fixer upper like I don’t get who is owning all the property if so many people are renting? Is it foreigners? Large companies?
I don’t know if I’m crazy but I feel like a country should do enough to allow people to find a safe affordable place to stay and place to work and the rest the people can sort out for themselves
Seems we’ve lost sight of that it’s all about funneling profits! Humans are just factory farmed animal
I don't live in BC but from articles I've read there is a large number of the property there has been bought up by Asians. There have been fees applied to properties which are not occupied in an effort to force more rental space into the market. So, looks like the property is being bought up as an investment on the expectation the value will rise and then it can be flipped.
I'm just outside the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Close enough that if I didn't mind a 90 minute commute I could work in TO but far enough away for a quiet way of life. I did the commute for ten years. Am quite happy that my commute is bed to desk by way of coffee pot now.
As for the cold. It can take a bit but you do adjust. For the most part winters these days are milder than when I was a kid. January is usually the most frigid month of the winter.
While Cape Town isn't to that extent a lot of the prime property in the city is owned by investors, firms and foreigners.
Some sit on it as swallows, so leave their winters in their own country to come here. Others rent to turn a profit because of the large tourism here (biggest in Africa). Very few average South Africans could afford to stay there, though the prices are starting to deflate rapidly in the high-end market.
What I wonder about say Toronto and Vancouver these highly-priced cities, flipping is based on there's always another sucker willing to take on that debt after you but surely there has to be a point where theres, not another investor or person willing to take that offer/risk?
I don't mind commuting really I used to do it when I had a job in the city the only problem as we don't really have reliable public transport, the trains and busses show up when they feel like it.
Happy I was able to work from home now and can't see giving it up unless theres some offer thats insane.
We just had our winter and the min temp is like 11 and to me thats already too cold lol!
I have many Asian neighbors, and some of the homes are idle/empty. Yes our BC government set up an expensive bureaucracy that EVERY resident had to comply with to zero in on the absentee owners, frankly I don't know if they can collect enough to make it worthwhile.
Twelve years ago I could afford it comfortably but I saw the housing and living issues outpace my salary. I was fortunate to live close to a transportation hub and an opportunity to move my job to a location within 6 km from my home. A shopping center was located not to far from me now, and a Auto Coop was established nearby, I planned some of these such that most needs are a mere short bus trip away and I can finally disposed of my car that was the biggest after tax expense and put the savings into my home.
Gosh things really doo change at a rapid pace over there! 12 years is not a long time! It just seems like the government doesn’t actually know what these policies are doing to their citizens and setting things based on macro factors and not looking at their actual effects
You clearly did your research and even though you made sure you covered all your bases it still not as comfortable as you would like which to me is scary! What about the people who didn’t plan or have the foresight, or a lower income they would have to deal with it a lot harder
I know the feeling of having to live in areas that aren’t well supported with facilities it really sucks
So for me personally we’re still coming to terms with being part of the economy you see before 94 we (peeps of colour) couldn’t vote, work in certain places, work certain jobs, couldn’t study further except for a few roles and had our homes taken away and then once everything become a democracy and we started over it’s been quite the uphill battle to attain economic parity with those who were not discriminated against.
I don't think that the land speculation is as prevalent in Toronto as it is in Vancouver. I suspect in Vancouver it's proximity to the Asian markets makes it a place for them to move money offshore and into safe investments. So they are not necessarily incurring debt to buy the properties. Which is also why they can afford to let them sit idle and avoid the hassles of being a landlord.
As for the Toronto market, the first time home buyer struggles to find something affordable. Those who have managed to a few years ago are able to sell in TO and move to the suburbs or into the country and buy substantially more with their gains.
Public transportation where I am, which is very rural, is pretty much non-existent. I can catch a train into TO or other locations along the Windsor -- Montreal corridor by travelling into a community about 20 miles away.
I'm assuming you are talking about 11C? I may be Canadian but celsius means little to me. However I know enough to be able to chuckle at your idea of cold. As it happens it is currently about 11C outside. My windows are open and have been all night. It's a bit chilly in here but hardly what I'd call cold.
So if your major cities have become so inflated has their been a big migration to maybe your other cities or provinces with more reasonable pricing?
Are there any plans to build new cities that could house people more affordablely? Or is it just a fuckit let’s just ride this till the wheels fall off
Lol well this is Africa, cold is foreign to us our normal temp is around 25 and can go up to about 45 degrees Celsius in the summer!
I met a Candadian girl hiking on a trial last summer and we had to carry her down the mountain she collapsed from the heat and it was a pretty mild day.
I guess our bodies are just used to different elements! Not that I enjoy the extreme heat it’s unbearable at times and I’ll wish for cold or well my definition of it, lol
over the years many have moved away from the cities and choose to commute into work rather than deal with costs.
Also there is a different lifestyle away from the city. It tends to be quieter and less stressful way of life. For the most part doors can be left unlocked without fear.
As for heat. I don't handle it well but that has a lot to do with humidity and lung damage. We get temps well into the 30s along with high humidity here in the summer time. It's not like we're cold year round. Winter is only 3-4 months. It just seems like forever some years.
I think it is to late for first world economies to fix, so collapse is likely to happen one day again. People do not remember the past the housing markets and bank boom and bust cycle still runs, the only way off that is for the governments to learn to just say no to bail-outs, there should be no such thing as "to big to fail".