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Comment by markdown | Hacker News Reader

> I read recently that Japan and new Zealand scrapped various regulations and this led to stabilization / lower of property prices.

I don't know about Japan, but that can't possibly be right about NZ. Nobody in our generation will ever be able to afford a home in Auckland.

Land Value Tax sorely needed.

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Same in Canada. I am in the top 3% of wage earners in the entire country and can not "afford" to buy. Average price is > 1 million. At > 1 million, a 20% down payment is required in cash. That would basically take my well balanced portfolio into pure real estate holdings not to mention a massive tax hit to sell 200k+ of my portfolio. I used quotes in afford because I could afford it, but I feel it would be a huge mistake

Sounds like you need to grow balls like your fellow Canadians and go “all in”. Most folks I know buying throw every dollar they have into a house plus a hundred thousand from the bank of mom and dad.

You’ll never be able to afford unless you do it.

I'll stick with never. Rents keep dropping. It's almost like it's... pure speculation with no fundamentals. Surely that can't be the case, otherwise rents would keep dropping! Oh no!

Rent is not dropping. It is going up, rapidly.

Oh you checked the numbers for me? Oh darn. If rent is rapidly going up and purchasing is more and more impossible, I guess the only natural conclusion is everyone making mid six figures will all be unable to live in homes any more. Maybe even homeless? I should probably just drop out.

Similar story here. We modified our expectations and bought a smaller home AND kept the well balanced portfolio. So far so good.

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