Metro Vancouver home down payment now takes 23 years of savings

Incomes of young adults have dropped further in B.C. than in any other province

It now takes 23 years for a young adult in Metro Vancouver to save up for a 20 per cent mortgage down payment on a home, compared to the five years it would have taken their parents.
 
That’s the finding of a new report by Paul Kershaw and Anita Minh, two UBC academics who founded Generation Squeeze, a project dedicated to researching generational inequality in Canada.
 
After adjusting for inflation, the average home price in Metro Vancouver has more than tripled between the late 1970s and 2014. Even if young adults can scrape together a down payment, they still face the ongoing stress of steep monthly payments, which have risen from $1,991 to $3,555. (Prices since 2015, the report notes, have risen even more.)
 
But in addition to well-publicized housing price increases, the dream of buying a home for young adults in Metro Vancouver is significantly complicated by falling incomes. In B.C., the drop in full-time earnings for a typical Canadian age 25 to 34 is worse than any other province, with incomes down more than $9,000 since the late 1970s. “Such changes reflect an alarming deterioration in the standard of living for younger Canadians,” says the report, “compared to when today’s aging population was starting out as young adults.”
 
The report makes 10 recommendations for measures that governments could take to address the increasingly expensive cost of housing, including a “speculation tax” on homes sold within 24 months after they were originally bought.

Read elsewhere
Universities in Vancouver and Toronto are struggling to attract professors, given staggering housing costs in the two cities. (The Globe and Mail)

Considering the obstacles like First Nations land claims and other court challenges, B.C. is the worst place in the world to try to build a pipeline or an LNG plant, says Jeffrey Simpson. (The Globe and Mail)