Comment by waterlaw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by waterlaw | Hacker News Reader

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In the exact same position.

Live in Canada making $200k. After taxes and pension that's $123k, because I'm self employed.

After living expenses I have 90k left.

To buy a house without a loan (religiously I don't do loans with interest.)

That's 1.2M for a bungalow (that I don't even want for 400k.)

1.2M / 90k is 13 times my annual savings rate.

Not to mention lack of infrastructure, the mathematical impossibility of the economic system and a Healthcare system that cannot withstand the demographic pressure incoming. There's serious risk and uncertainty for debt ridden Canada. I don't care what anyone says. The future looks unreliable for this country.

Living standards have depreciated sustaintally. My income has tripled, but real estate purchasing power is a third of what it was 10 years ago.

I want to move back to the middle east, but people think I'm crazy. I think they're crazy.

TLDR; most in Canada became rich based on debt + assets, not labor, they prefer the status quo. The parasite is killing the host.

>I want to move back to the middle east, but people think I'm crazy. I think they're crazy.

It does sound crazy though. There are a handful of cities in North America where a bungalow costs 1.2 million. Rather than move to the Middle East, you could move maybe 20 miles away from city center and get that same house for $200k.

It doesn't matter. If you can't buy a house on leverage, you really can't buy a house.

Take a quick look at house prices in Ontario. The list prices are understated and they're still too high. Add 20 - 30% for the sale price depending on the city. I've seen houses sell for 150% over the list price. Moving 100 miles from the city centers still isn't affordable. Not even factoring in heating, gas and electricity costs.

I could move to Alberta... but it actually doesn't make much financial sense either. Buying a house doesn't make sense when your government needs to raise taxes in the future, because it's incapable of funding its social services and promises to an aging population.

Ignoring the USA, which I don't want to live in. In the middle east I'd have a 0% income, capital gains and a lower corporate tax rate.

Most of my relatives have Range Rovers and five story >4000 sqft houses. Healthcare is actually really good now. The highways are amazing. I fit into the culture there.

Yes. There's poverty. Yes. There are poor people. Yes. I'd be rich there.

But you know what's immoral. Letting asset holders accure all the wealth, have low to no taxes, while taxing the people that work to build your nation. Upwards of 63%. Taxing the middle class to its extinction.

I can't fix the middle east from here. Me moving to a wealthy country doesn't fix that. It'd be better for the country if I moved back.

The hard part is finding an income there.

Yeah pretty close to the numbers im looking at. To have a 5 acre home stead with a 2500sqft house im calculating i would need about 1.25m in most of the markets im looking at.

> Living standards have depreciated sustaintally.

Sounds wrong. By what metric?

If you judge by real estate prices it is probably true.

I would rather be making 100k 10 years ago then making 300k now in terms of housing prospects.

Interesting that's not what I'm seeing in my area. Here, houses doubled, maybe tripled in "value" over the last 10+ years. But that's from 200k to 600k which doesn't mean my salary has to double or triple, just that it takes longer to pay off. But working in tech, the last thing I do is complain since it's still quite doable. For a median income, true, not so much.

Real estate isn't everything though, definitely not enough to judge living standards. I might be wrong but though.

The problem is, you have spent most of that time saving in old salaries even if in 2022 your salary has caught up to 3x house prices. The house prices are there already, if you were planning on buying, you may still be in the game but you are probably looking at years of extra work.

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