Millennials and real estate

Debt, immigration and restricted housing supply is crushing the younger generation:

For the purposes of this study, Statistics Canada considered millennials to be between 25 and 34 years old in 2016. The agency then compared them with the same age group in 1999 (generation X) and young people in 1984 who are today's baby boomers.

The millennial cohort had a median after-tax household income of $44,093 in 2016, by Statistics Canada's calculations. That compares with $33,276 for gen-Xers and $33,350 for boomers at the same age. And those figures are inflation adjusted, which means it's an apples-to-apples comparison.

I was chatting with an older gentleman last month who was very surprised to find out that I don't own any real estate. He said that owning a house is one of the best financial decisions he made. I asked him, "How much did you pay for your house?"

"$54,000."

"Do you remember your annual income at that time?"

"Hmm, about $20,000."

"Did you have a mortgage?"

"No, I borrowed from family and paid them back in a few years."

Yeah. The average annual income today is roughly $40,000 but the average house price has skyrocketed to $600,000. If you want a nice neighborhood, then we're talking a million dollars in Ontario. That's a mountain of debt that no reasonable person would carry.