May 25, 2016

Code Red and the Housing Crisis

UBC prof Paul Kershaw has been organizing and speaking on ‘Generation Squeeze’ for some time.  But now, with Code Red and the housing crisis, it seems to have broken through.

Code Red

Youth across the country are bearing the brunt of sky-high real estate prices and are forced to squeeze their families into smaller spaces, said Paul Kershaw, the organizer of a movement called Generation Squeeze.

“These are massive deteriorations in the standard of living,” Kershaw told CTV News. “We need to take this seriously. It’s urgent, like there’s a code red problem in a hospital.”

His “Code Red” campaign features videos made by young people that show a family putting beds for three kids in a cabinet, under a desk and in a couch – and another woman offering rent to “students” in kitchen cupboards.

They’re meant to be a humourous take on how a broken housing market has forced young people to make more and more desperate living arrangements – but they often hit too close to the bone, said Kershaw.

“When did having a child and being able to have a bedroom for it become the equivalent of a Ferrari in your driveway? It’s become a status symbol to afford a bedroom,” he said.

Story here.

 

Here’s the guessing game: How long will it take the provincial government to come forward with something that says, ‘We care.”?

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Leave a Reply to AnonymousCancel Reply

  1. Pretty much says it all when the Ad you are forced to watch before the video play is Employee Mortgage Pricing from RBC. Don’t underestimate the Banks desire to feed the drug addicts.

    Kudos to Tom Davidoff on calling out COV for the “Snob” Zoning of the Westside banning working people from those neighbourhoods. The Westside should be like infill houses built at and adjacent to 315 W 15th Ave in Mount Pleasant, large manor homes housing 4 separate units and a laneway house, or pockets of attached Brownstones.

  2. Lane way homes, as they currently exist, are a bad idea.

    1. They are so expensive that it takes decades of rental income just to recoup the construction costs. When you factor in maintenance, periods between tenants when you’re earning nothing, and the income tax on all that extra money and you’re probably looking at 30 years just to break even. No sensible home owner is going to put him/herself through all that hassle to end up with zero profit.

    2. Many lots are too shallow to accommodate a lane way house without demolishing the main house. The “greenest” house is often the one that’s already standing.

    1. Hmmm.

      At $300K all construction costs in, and $1,500/mo rent, you’ll break even in 17 years.

      At $350K and $1,800/mo, you’re looking at 16 years.

      In doing the math, third party money is paying the mortgage or line of credit payments and it’ll be paid off in less than a standard 25-year mortgage amortization period. This assumes you already own the backyard land it will be built on.

      1. With double principle-only payments on the mortgage in the first half of the amortization period, every dollar will save two at the end. One could supplement the rental income to kill the mortgage at the half way point and save $~100K in interest.

      2. OK, you’re right. I was basing my statement on the misguided assumption that the homeowner would have to pay income tax on the rental income.

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