People believe that renters are throwing their money away, and home owners are building equity when they make their mortgage payments. This belief is definitely wrong in Toronto. If you do the math, you stand a better chance building equity as a renter. Homeowners are the ones throwing their money away. The only thing that tips the scales is the fact that a future buyer may pay more money. Basically, you need a bigger sucker to buy the house.
The government in Canada has set up policies to make sure that the prices keep going up. Eventually it will become infeasible—the prices get too high and you run out of suckers.
Yes every time I do the math I come to the same conclusion.
And then I'm proven wrong by unexpected price appreciation.
The thing that tips the scale is a house has way more square footage. You're worse off solo paying rent vs mortgage, but with that extra space you can host an Airbnb and come out ahead.
> Eventually it will become infeasible—the prices get too high and you run out of suckers.
People say that.. but it hasn't happened, barely a lull. I think that's a very local-centric opinion. Visit other dense cities around the world. Demand to live in cities increases with time as the city offers more economic opportunity and tourism. And supply is mostly fixed (for a given unit area) due to zoning laws.
I'm still considering to be one of their suckers in Toronto.
Wait really? Can you start over?