Who are we kidding? Canada is addicted to high-rising home prices — and that’s the problem

Episode 121 of Down to Business podcast

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When it comes to Canada’s rising housing prices, some people blame home flippers, some blame foreign buyers, and some blame developers.

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But this week on Down to Business, Paul Kershaw suggests that ‘regular folks’ who like the idea of buying a house and one day selling it for a huge windfall may be part of the problem.

Kershaw is a professor at the University of British Columbia’s school of population and public health, where he founded a university-community think tank/laboratory of sorts, called Generation Squeeze, to analyze the generational divide.

Compared to 1976, people aged between 25 and 34 today earn lower salaries — $53,000 on average vs. $58,300 — even though way more of them have advanced secondary degrees — 70 per cent vs. 30 per cent, according to Generation Squeeze’s numbers. Young people today also face an average housing price of $568,000 vs. $224,000 in 1976.