Mayor can’t afford to buy a house in her own town
Mayor can’t afford to buy a house in her own town
Waterloo Region’s red-hot housing market hits close to home for Wilmot Township Mayor Natasha Salonen.
Time to loosen zoning restrictions and say no to NIMBYs Ms. Mayor. *
Despite earning around $90,000 a year between her work as mayor, regional councillor and with the local electric utility, she says she can’t afford to buy a home in the municipality she leads.
* yeah, she's still paying off student loans, and I don't know what zoning restrictions are like in her community. But still.
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Now what happens when teachers, nurses etc can't afford it either.
Home owners loving those paper gains and won't realize it destroys the social fabric of their communities until it's too late.
Home owners loving those paper gains and won't realize it destroys the social fabric of their communities until it's too late.
Most home owners I know either
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Don't want the gains, because they can't afford to buy a nicer place even if they sell their current place.
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Are unhappy about growing mortgage payments.
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Are worried about their kids being able to afford a place.
The gains only benefit people who can cash out and move away. Most homeowners (I know) wouldn't want to borrow against the house value because repayment is so expensive.
That is true. The value of my home doesn't mean much to me. If it is worth $1 tomorrow, oh well? Who cares?
But it is troubling to think what will happen when most other homeowners are underwater and their debt gets called. That is going to hurt all of us.
Yeah homes being viewed as an investment is stupid and only came to be for those that could afford to buy lots.
Homes became an investment when living near your workplace became a necessity. Any tool which facilities an income is going to naturally become an investment. That's what investment is.
The COVID thing decoupling some jobs from location has helped marginally – seeing a small decline in home values (although perhaps moving it to places where jobs were previously less commonly found) – but that can only get you so far. The vast majority of income sources are still location dependent.
HELOCs may burn some folks. They were gaining popularity while interest was low. That is going to add to the burden of those who loaded up on debt.
I might actually be happy if my home was suddenly only worth a dollar.
That would cut my property tax way down
Well someone should tell them to vote that way. There's a reason no party other than the greens will even dare speak of the fact that prices need to come down to increase affordability.
I'm guessing the next federal election will be on pocketbook issues. I don't know where home ownership will fit in there.
- Still don't support re-zoning their area to allow denser mixed-use housing (in my experience).
And interest rates are at least 2x what many homeowners currently have.
AKA the boomers win again, like fucking always.
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That isn’t as bad as when minimum wage earners won’t be able to rent
Teachers and nurses make enough to warrant a commute and they have skilled jobs (required off site learning), a minimum wage earner can just go anywhere with and not only earn as much but also has way more job flexibility
Also Ontario already pays private nurses double (though it costs the province way more than that because of the ‘Ford friend fee’ I mean agency fee