Canada

People where I live regularly sell trucks on FB for 60-80K, and they are used with 100,000 km on them

I read just a few days ago that the average price of a new car in Canada is $66k.

And a good used bike is $150.

People, we need to start looking for alternatives that won't make rich people richer. Buy a *used *car if you must have a car, but don't keep filling the pockets of these greedy bastards by buying new.

Don't forget the cost of insurance, maintenance, fuel, etc. According to TechAltar it costs about half a million euros to own something like a VW Golf at the low end, 1.5M euros on the higher end. It's estimated that the average person spends 30-40% of their lifetime income on their car.

People only see the initial purchase price (which is often ignored because of various deferred payment offers that further increases the price), and the price of gas. Gas alone is starting to reach the price of renting an apartment, yet somehow people still can't see themselves living without a car.

Insane.

I'm super confused, why is everyone bringing up such ridiculous car prices? Both Canada and the US have cheaper cars too. For example a KIA Rio (5 door) is around $17-23k new in Canada. It's $16k in the US.

Are Americans only considering massive SUVs when they talk about new car prices?

Some people have good incomes, but cannot anymore changes houses every 5 years because it's out of control, for the price and interest rates, so they use their income to buy cars/RV.

Also some are leasing even if it's like 800$/month just to show their car, I know people who lease big Volvo, Porsche, etc.

Me I keep my 10yo Sonata, and if it dies/crashes, I don't think I'll be able to buy anything more than 15k :-/ What's available for 15k ? a 2006 Sunfire?

True. I don't own a car so this completely escaped me.

I'm already in so much physical pain, might as well lump economic pain in there as well...

Depends on where you are financially. If you have a fixed rate mortgage that is getting renewed in the next year or two - you'll see a big jump in payments if you aren't able to extend your mortgage.

If you're still on variable, no real change.

If you're renting, rents will continue to climb if interest rates go up or plateau - but don't ever expect prices to come back down, if you're lucky they'll stagnate for a year but that's unlikely because landlords are greedy shits.

Businesses are cutting jobs as there's less money in the market (all going to shelter and food plus general Greed of making less people do the same/more as a larger group), so if you're unfortunate enough to have a mortgage that's renewing soon and you lose your job and EI can't cover the difference, you'll probably have to sell or lose your home... And still be unable to afford rent.

This has been the goal of every level of government for a while, municipalities refused density, provinces refused to prioritize any public housing (Doug in Ontario is sitting on 22 Billion as education, healthcare, and housing are floundering, so he gifts developers billions in prime Greenbelt lands for single detached millionaire homes) and the Feds can't really do much with provincial and municipal governments running interference - aside from use their own central banks to get essentially interest free loans and build federal public housing. Which they should but certainly aren't.

Oh, and the Bank of Canada is crushing developers with interest rates so they're cancelling or pausing projects because they're unprofitable with these interests rates - or they're colluding and holding us over a barrel because our government cannot successfully accomplish anything without overpaying a private business who underpay their workers to do it for them.

If you keep your job and bought a home within your means, it'll be lean times but not impossible to overcome. Don't be afraid to use food banks or anything to keep yourself afloat. Times are tough af and there is little relief on the horizon.

The way I understand it, there are two main implications. First, the higher the debt load, the less people will spend in a rising interest environment. As their (our) mortgage payments go up, we'll spend less on anything else. The larger the effect, the more significant it is for the rest of the economy. Second, the higher the load, the more people will default or sell in a rising interest environment. The consequences of this one are more varied.

@sadreality @avidamoeba

Kind of hard to blame the victims here when it's not their fault successive Canadian gov'ts failed to stop illegal money coming into Canada in the 90's -- which, once washed through BC casinos, went straight into property purchases that started the housing bubble we're in now.

I'm not sure it's a mistake, tbh. It was a shit sandwich any way you sliced it.

Rentals are being sold out from under people often enough that renting anything privately owned is an eviction lottery.

There are no 3BR apartments available, so families mostly want houses, which are largely privately owned.

At the time, mortgages were cheaper than rent, and interest rates had been dropping fairly steadily for 40 years. We can look back with hindsight and say people should have predicted interest rates quadrupling, but I don't think that's fair.

Sure, people should have known rates would go up, but that's what the extra qualification "stress test" was for, right? (Or, I image something like that was a common refrain.)

I'm house poor and overextended, personally, but I'm fortunate enough to be able to work more than full time to pay it. It sucks, but it's still better than being forced to move my kiddos 4 times in 5 years, like my friend.

Maybe this house will be worth half what we bought it for in a few years, but we gotta live somewhere, and the stability of owning is worth quite a bit.

I think the government has been whispering to banks to extend amortizations on variable mortgages. They could play with amortizations of distressed fixed mortgages too upon renewal. Keep people in their properties, paying only interest?