Nursing home attendants and dump-truck drivers can still buy homes in small-town Canada

Yes, we certainly have a housing affordability problem in Canada. Big picture, we’ll be having one till supply meets demand, and don’t worry, experts are busy studying that right now. When you zoom in from the macro to the micro level, things look a bit different. Friends of ours recently sold a tidy three bed, one bath, on a modest lot in Wiarton for a price in the mid 300s. I remember having Italian neighbours in Guelph who got an entire year’s worth of tomato sauce out of their gardens, who lived in smaller houses on smaller lots. According to the TD mortgage calculator, the monthly freight on a 300k mortgage runs $1,600 per at the just-raised rate of 4% plus. That means the young couple applying for that mortgage is going to need a combined annual income in the 70k range. How hard is that to achieve in a place like Wiarton? Wiarton is a twenty minute drive to Owen Sound. Punch “Owen Sound” into the Canada Job Bank and you get over three hundred replies. What kind of jobs are available to the “most vulnerable,” ie the least educated applicants? Here’s a shocker. PSW jobs that pay $18/hr in Toronto pay the same locally. Dump truck driver jobs that pay $22/hr in Toronto pay the same here. In short, anyone who came within a whisker of a high-school diploma and is willing to work can make 40k a year. When the dump truck driver marries the PSW, they’ll qualify for that 300k mortgage. I get not everybody wants to live in Wiarton, but if home ownership is important enough to you, you’ll give up your big-city dreams and take a closer look at the small towns you never noticed before.