drive through the older section of any town in Canada and you will find that the average sq. ftg. is about 1200. that was for a family of 4 or more. Your own room was a luxury and only lasted until the next baby arrived. Those homes are being torn down and replaced by 2000 sq. ft. plus that extend from lot line to lot line: no yards for the kids to play and no place for the BBQ. Greed has taken the place of common sense and the next generation will pay for it big time
My wife grew up in suburban metro Vancouver, one of the bedroom cities of the Lower Mainland. Nicer neighbourhood, older houses. Since she left about a decade ago we’ve returned regularly for visits, and have seen this playing out in the streets where she grew up. Modest homes from the 1960s, on pretty sizeable lots- the kind of lot you just can’t get for a new build anymore. These older homes are selling for 1.5-1.8 million. At any given moment, on any block there’s probably a house in the process of being torn down and replaced. The new houses are massive, very nice looking, and are often designed with separate suits to house relatively large multigenerational families.
She moved out east with me; most of her friends are still out there. The dream, for them, of owning a detached single family home like they grew up in is dead unless they inherit one. The ones who have done well in terms of jobs / romantic partnerships with a professional are living in nice two or three bedroom condos, or moving really far out of Vancouver to afford a townhouse.
We live in a newly built house in Ottawa, built within the past decade. Our neighbourhood’s been growing for about 15 years. Even in that time lots have shrunk a bit, and houses are filling more and more of the lot. Proportionately more of the neighbourhood is now being built as townhouses and more low rise condos are going in closer to the main road… I think this description could fit literally any growing neighbourhood in Ottawa right now. The detached houses are big- much bigger than anything I lived in growing up. Prices have skyrocketed too, since 2016- those of us who got in before they did are laughing, but at the same time we’re now just another city that’s pricing young adults out of single family home ownership.
Long term, something’s gotta give. A house is only worth what someone will pay, and eventually there’s gonna have to be downwards pressure on prices for the simple reason that there just isn’t enough demand from people with enough money, even with foreign capital flight being laundered through our housing market. I don’t know what that will look like. I do know that even we could not afford to buy the same house now that we did a few years ago, and we’re in a better position that most. I think this shattered dream of home ownership is going to be a potent political force for whoever can properly grab it.