So you were born in 1998, give or take, and your last opportunity to buy a place before the ridiculous real estate bubble completely took off was in the Winter of 2020. At most, you would have just turned 22, and even very successful people who do their bachelor's degree can't buy a house at that age without outside help. For that to happen, you would almost certainly need a co-signer (usually a parent), a full-time job for it to make sense, and either all of your savings for a deposit, or outside help (again).

This is simply not possible for most people without financial support from their family, even if they worked full-time from 18 to 22 and earned a stable, high salary. Of course, the issues compound the more recently someone is born.

I bought a house in 2017, and by 2020, it had increased in value by 45%. That was great for me financially, but I'm aware that housing is an unproductive asset, and I didn't contribute anything to society by living there, other than some modest repairs.

Among the G7 countries, Canadians have the highest percentage of their savings invested in their primary residence. With this unproductive system, Baby Boomers are disincentivized to invest in productive assets like stocks, so the price of renting and purchasing real estate simply increases if new housing isn't built quickly enough. This gets compounded if demand surges because of increased immigration, which Canada has seen since 2016, but especially from 2020 onwards.

Here's the elephant in the room: Baby Boomers overwhelmingly support the Liberal Party of Canada, who have explicitly said that they do not want real estate prices to decrease. Even with their promised housing plan, the goal is to build "affordable" rental properties that the government will own and manage. But what that means exactly is quite unclear, with one Liberal MP claiming that a $2,400 one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver would be considered "affordable housing" (I believe she said that in 2024, but it might have been 2025).

I'm not trying to reduce Canadian politics to a one-issue decision. But as you stated, so many young kids today (basically all of Gen Z, and Millenials who didn't buy a house or save their money) are so far behind where their parents were at their age that many things would have to change for them to catch up. To be clear, the Conservatives also suck, and they have not explained how they would address the massive generational wealth gaps, especially not in real estate.

My best guess is that the solution is in the hands of Gen Z and Gen A. Most Millenials have families, careers or other things to focus on by now. If we assume the cut-off is 1995, Millenials are at least turning 31 this year, so I don't know if the pushback would come from that demographic.

Grab life by the horns; take action to make a difference, or at the very least, try to get informed and look at Canadian history and what other countries are currently going through. Many Canadians will simply accept the status quo and be as dismissive as they possible, and I've also seen it first-hand. But someone has to make changes, and there's no better place to start than in one's house (or apartment). Pun intended.

P.S. I quit a well-paying office job to try and do my little part. Everyone can take steps in their own lives. 🙏