How hard is it to buy a first home in Canada?

How hard is it to get into the Canadian housing market if you're a first-time homebuyer?

For a lot of millennials and Gen Z would-be buyers, homeownership seems unattainable. And according to at least one survey, young people aren't just frustrated about it, they're furious.

CTV News Montreal anchor Maya Johnson spoke with Rob Carrick, a personal finance columnist for The Globe and Mail.

The interview has been edited for clarity and concision.

Maya: You put together a survey for young people between 20 and 40 years old through your column just asking about housing affordability, and over 1,500 people responded, more than half of them describing themselves as either angry or furious about the situation in Canada. What did you think of the results? Were you surprised?

Rob: Yes, I was. You know, I thought of the word furious as being an extreme word and it would only be a small minority of people who would be furious because that's extreme. And yet 40 per cent are essentially furious. And a bunch more were angry. And furious was the number one response. That really took me by surprise, it tells me there is true anger out there.

Maya: What are people saying about the article? What's the feedback been?

Rob: People are saying that it reflects that I'm angry too. I feel the rules have been shifted, I feel that I was sold this idea about the wonders of home ownership, and I don't see how I can afford to ever get in and I feel I feel ripped off.

Maya: So what are the factors at play here? What is making it so much harder to break into the market right now, as opposed to years ago, like for boomers, for example?

Rob: The big thing is this ginormous rise in prices over the past 15-20 years, but really most pronounced is in the 2021, late 2020 period after interest rates plunged in the pandemic. And it made financing a mortgage, so cheap. And then everybody thought, well, I gotta get a house, I want to have more space. And there was this sort of rush into the housing market. I feel like we had like 10 years' worth of price appreciation in the span of about 12-18 months.

And that created like these super high prices and interest rates went up and prices went down a little bit to a medium amount. But the cost of financing a home is actually the same as it ever was because interest rates rose. So although a price correction should have been good for buyers it never was, because the prices went down. But the mortgage costs went up and it sort of was it was a wash and there was no improvement in affordability. And now what we're seeing this spring, in some cities signs that the market is starting to turn around and prices are firming up again. So we still have the high rates and firmer prices. That says there's really no immediate hope for affordability.

Maya: So it's interesting, you're talking about the pandemic and obviously factors in more recent years. And earlier I was referring to boomers and that generation because we're talking about sort of a comparison, maybe even between Gen Z, millennials, boomers maybe like a generational shift. Is homeownership still that thing that you must attain to really become an adult? Or is that a myth? Is there something to just deciding to rent and that's okay?

Rob: Home ownership is such a Canadian value, and to try to tell people that you can have a great life as a renter, it's a tough sell. People just don't believe it. They don't want to believe it, they feel that they're wasting their money as renters. And I gotta say, I've defended renting for years. And I think that there is a way to build wealth as a renter. But the problem today is that rents have skyrocketed in price just like home prices, and well, home prices sort of went to their peak and retreated a bit. Rents have kept rising, which is logical. If you can't afford a house, you'll have to rent. And so the cost of renting is exorbitantly expensive. It's always, always categorically cheaper than owning a home. But it is still expensive in its own right. And so if I say, Oh, you can have a great life as a renter, people have been telling me, yeah, but rents are really expensive. And I have to agree that they are so we boxed ourselves into this world where all forms of housing are very expensive.

Maya: What would you tell someone in their 20s, for example, who's totally discouraged and feels like they'll never be able to afford a home?

Rob: I would say, wait, you know, what, in your 20s, the story of your life financially is far from over. You could spend the next 10 years building your career getting promotions, getting raises, putting yourself in a better position, your income could be far better than you think it is. And in your middle 30s you might be ready to buy a house and there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that. The book isn't closed if you're in your 20s.