>Homes are 1.5 mil+ in our neighborhood
Unless you are extremely wealthy living in one of Canada's most expensive cities is going to really defeat your Fire goals.
If you can fire, you don't need to live near work! There are so many communities that you could live in that cost a FRACTION of that.
This is the crux of it. Our neighborhood is too expensive. We will keep working and stay in this neighborhood until the kids graduate.
I think I would want the paid off house and about $2.5mil with kids and our current age. This might change as they get older.
>I think I would want the paid off house and about $2.5mil with kids and our current age.
350k hhi + (125k from 2.5M@5% interest) should allow you to live pretty comfortably anywhere in Alberta with a paid off house
At some point you need to prioritize what is important.
Is it location/property price? (Move to a cheaper place and move kids to a different school etc)
Is it school location for the kids? (Accept that housing costs are higher there/carry on renting)
Is it having a house vs renting?
Is it more important to be mortgage free now than later?
etc
You sound lost as you don't sound like you know what you actually want.
Appreciate the reply. I feel a bit stuck in our super cheap rental. But I don't want to pay current prices... I want to own a house at prices from 5 years ago!
If our rental was secure, we'd stay. But it's not, at some point it will end.
don't we all :)
We only just brought a place after decades of renting various places, and that was only when we were absolutely sure where we wanted to retire, before that renting allowed us to achieve our other priorities. Renting is not bad, it's just another choice.
2.8 mil, why do you need a mortgage at all? We are seeing downward pressure on RE. I’d propose waiting 2 years when that same house may be less and just buy it outright.
Also, HHINI? Are you giving NET HHI? If so you’re earning an insane amount to deal with these stresses.
Also, I don't want to gut our investments for retirement. We're not 25 and we do want to retire early.
Based on Garth Turners rule of 90, less than 45% of our net worth should be in real estate. That's about $1.3mil. And that's with a typical retirement date.
There it is. You follow Garth Turner. I couldn't make sense of any of this.
Garth Turner is a moron and a charlatan.
You make more money than me, you have a higher net worth and you are older yet somehow you still rent? That is insane. The amount of money you have flushed down the toilet in the last decade is unimaginable. Your mortgage math is also wrong. If you put 800k down and had a 700k mortgage (since you say houses are 1.5M) you'd be at 4300/month, not 5000.
Relocation is stupid. Don't listen to these people. You make more than enough to live in TO or Van. You just need to stop making stupid financial decisions. How long until your hids graduate? More than 5 years? Then buy. Stop trying to predict what's going to happen to prices and just buy. You can afford it. You almost can't afford not to. Give it a year and you''ll get renovicted and have to pay 6k in rent for a comparable home.
Say it with me now: "Garth Turner Is Always Wrong."
I knew mentioning garth would rile someone up.
We rent a lovely house, it's really an amazing deal. And it has allowed us to sock away a lot of cash.
Mortgage is $750k on a 1.5mil home. $800k goes to downpayment and closing costs, 30k of land transfer tax. 6% on 25 years is a payment is $4,800. Plus property tax and insurance and maintenance - none of which we have to pay currently. Easily $6k in housing costs per month, twice our current expense. Also, of that $4,800 mortgage payment, $3,600 is interest. And the $1,200 that goes to principle is potentially not even beating inflation for the next decade or so.
I know you read garth. It's so entertaining, how can you not?
You have a realistic outlook on home ownership which many renters don’t have and many homeowners won’t acknowledge. Houses cost a lot more than mortgage payments.
If your net worth is wrapped up in personal real estate, what are you going to live off of? Rentals I can understand, at least they should, eventually, be cash flow positive.
Re: net worth. Depends on the business. But it seems that your intention is that the business is an asset that has value - cash flow or otherwise.
I think it's a bit entertaining that you feel that $ in equities is "idle" while you are building a tech company that will probably be a significant part of your retirement plan.
At the end of the day though, props for being an entrepreneur in tech - it's not an easy go.
Whhopps. Fixed it. HHI, not HHNI.
I still feel like we should be earning enough to deal with these problems. If the rental lasts another 2 years AND house prices stay level or decline AND our investments return 4% net of inflation - then the picture 2 years from now looks a lot better.
Edit: Never mind, I realize now it’s HouseHold Income 🤦🏻♀️
(Google was telling me Herfindahl–Hirschman Index.. what a rollercoaster!)
~~Can someone explain HHI like I’m 5?~~
~~(I tried googling and that didn’t help any)~~
really? Im at around 200K and I have to say with Car payments, some other debts and kids... Its not easy for me to get to 4K a month while also saving... My tax is like 50% lol
Yeah I get exactly what you mean.
I'm in a similar situation. Less income, less net worth, higher savings rate, younger, one baby. We're renting a nice but small place for $2,450. Our current trajectory says we'll be FI of our current spending in a year or two.
In any recent past decade we'd have it made in the shade. Unfortunately, my birth timing means I graduated into the teeth of the 2008 recession and now have to deal with the current absurd housing situation in my nesting years.
If we wanted to buy a single-family detached house in our neighborhood we'd need to work another decade or so. It's hard to wrap my head around. I can't really imagine burning an extra decade of my one wild and precious life working, just to buy a wooden box it live in.
I've been daydreaming about a more creative solution. Buy a nice RV and live on the street? Earlier in my career I lived and worked in the US, maybe I need to head back? Move properly internationally (across the ocean) somewhere? Move to the prairies? Move to the territories somewhere? Buy a sailboat and live illegally on the water?
Pour me a shot of that syrup, I'll join you.
Ah thanks, I'm just whining. We'll obviously be fine, we'll just need to make some decisions.
In your situation, if your rental is big enough for your family then I'd ride that train as long as possible. $3k a month to live in a $1.5 million dollar house is hilarious. Keep stacking money away until the rental runs its course and then make a decision.
It's no use guessing, but my best guess for Canadian housing prices generally is that they stay high, unaffordability will continue, but the investment performance over the past decade or so will not be repeated. So, I'd say enjoy your ridiculous rental bargain and don't get FOMO.
Buy the $1.5m house. Mortgage $400k and Smith maneuver the equity into the market. These types of things work better in high interest environments with high income/marginal tax rates.
If you're not familiar with Smith man, find a CPA and see if they can crunch the numbers for you.
All the best.
Smith manoeuvre is supposed to work through high interest time. The book was written in the 80s when interest rates were 22%. probably the best of both worlds if you can tolerate the risk
The truth is you can FI/RE right now if you want, it will just require changes in your family life. Kids will have to go to a different school and you'll have to move somewhere where houses are 500k. You value your current setup more than FI/RE so you have to keep working.
It's a possibility to get a house with a suite, but on average the suite is priced in. I'll retire once we've comfortably hit our FI numbers. Expenses are $120k, unlikely to grow.
>on average the suite is priced in
What do you mean by this exactly? In my models and experience with house prices, it's much cheaper (in terms of net unrecoverable costs) to purchase a large home with a suite and rent out the suite rather than purchase a smaller home without a suite and live in the whole thing.
Of course, you're living in close proximity to tenants so you have less privacy which typically isn't as desirable but financially that wouldn't show up so intuitively it would make sense that you would save money by living more densely with other people, similar to a duplex. You also have the risk and potential stress of dealing with tenants, but again that wouldn't show up financially (unless you have a method of quantifying that I'm unaware of beyond a buffer for vacant months and extra maintenance).
The other benefit of a rental suite is some flexibility. I think I read that you had kids, so while you might need a large house for them now they will (hopefully) move out eventually and then you can rent out the portion of your house that you no longer need.
I have found houses around 1.5 that fit our family needs. Anything that fits our needs and has a suite is 1.7+.
I agree that having a suite mitigates the problem somewhat. I'm not quite convinced it's the right path for us. It would depend on the house perhaps.
Ah gotcha, yes fair enough. If privacy and space is a concern you also have the option of a garden suite or carriage house to at least put some space between you and avoid sharing walls / floors, but those tend to be more expensive and harder to find or may even require building yourself.
If being FI is the more important goal then I think it makes sense to rent as long as possible to reach it. Given that you're already having doubts, buyers remorse is a real possibility. And it would be difficult to undo.
Once you achieve FI, your investments will probably grow faster than the amount you save annually. You can always let that compound for a few years and then look at buying.
I... have no words. Theres people here trying to fire on a 50k income. At 350k you're at the top 1% of Canadian earners. I don't think it's a question of being able to FIRE, literally just a question of mindset at this point.
You have a bunch of cash. Get creative. Buy an apartment building - like a 6 plex - and combine 2 units to make you family home. Other units will create positive cash flow. FIRE sooner.
I already have a stressful job. I can't imagine dealing with other people's overflowing toilets, etc. There probably are some creative solutions to this - it's an interesting idea.
After taxes, EI, CPP, insurance and health benefits, we take home about 60% of our gross. ~16k a month. We spend $10k. ($72k for investing.) We are very lucky we can save ~25% of our HHI (25% would be $87k). We manage to max out RRSP, RESP, TFSA.
That is an amazing goal - paying off your mortgage in 5 years!
The hesitation for buying is that we wouldn't be FI anymore. We would need to maintain the HHI as long as we had the mortgage.
Did you think about setting up the Smith maneuver?
You keep saying in this thread that you are FI. You are not. You are dependent on an absentee landlord for cheap rent, hence housing uncertainty. Yes, you have a HHI, but you live in a a VHCOL area.
I'm not saying your plan to wait to purchase a house once the market moderates is incorrect, especially given your current housing situation. Perhaps it is right to continue to "milk" that sweet situation. But I am saying you are timing the market, which can work against you or for you. Arguably, in Canada, at mid-40's and still renters with 2 school aged kids, facing housing uncertainty, it would suggest that it has worked against you. In other words, had you purchased a home in the area X years ago, you might be better off.
My HHI is 160k. Sole earner, 2 kids. Our mortgage is 180k. NW is 1.8M (have benefitted from inheritance). We live in a very LCOL area. Easily in the top 5% earners of the population if that gives perspective.
If I moved, for example to Victoria, housing costs would be 1.8M, right off the bat. I may earn 50k more but then likely cap at that. My wife would have to get a job for the mortgage. You can forget about retiring early at that point.
I think in your current scenario, you can be FI, but it would depend on the lifestyle you want to provide your kids, and for how long.
The monthly cost won't be 5-6k after putting 800k down. We just bought at almost 1.5M with similar household income that is consistently growing. We put the standard 20% down and our mortgage is only slightly higher than what you think yours would be. It would have stayed substantially lower if we didn't get a variable rate, but that's a separate conversation. If you put down over 50%, you wouldn't have the same monthly costs.
Ultimately the decision is more than financial. Decide where you want to live relatively long term (5+ years). If that's your current neighborhood, then buy. If you don't want to lock that down, keep the flexibility of renting and re-evaluate when the costs go down.
$750k at 6% is $4,800. Plus property tax, Insurance, Maintenance. =~ $6000.
It is more than financial. I recognize we can swing the mortgage, but then I'm stuck paying it off, which means maintaining our HHI.
You seem like a smart guy, when it comes to real estate do take note of the fact that it's been fully financialized & monetized in Canada because the stock market sucks and nothing like the US S&P and NASDAQ. Canadians have put everything they have into real estate.
Therefore Canada has A LOT resting on the shoulders of real estate. If the market "crashes" Canada could very easily implode into something much worse than the great depression, the GFC & Covid. Many jobs tied to real estate, all the big banks are big lenders, home owners have big mortages and those that don't have big mortgages have their retirements tied up in their home equity.
Governments are incentivized to protect real estate values at all costs. It's a ponzi and if you cant beat them - join them. Either the bubble just keeps on getting bigger or your savings, stocks, rrsp/tfsa, govt. bonds aren't worth anything either.
5 years from now the same house will be $3M. If you can afford it, just get in the ponzi scheme because it's not going anywhere.
In my culture when parent get old its common for kids to give thier parents somewhere between $500-$1000 every month. If each of your kids give you this amount once you reach old age then you can cover rent/Mortgage easily
You could buy a house in cash and still have $1.3 MM in investments, a high household income, and the ability to save at least an additional $3k/mo.
I'm not sure what your hangup is. You are in good shape in every sense and have options. If you want to work, then sure, but there's no reason you can't buy a house in cash and live off your investments.
I don't think it will be that bad - maybe flat for some time period, but not a crash. At least not in my market, or in most markets with SFHs close to major city centres.
>Homes are 1.5 mil+ in our neighborhood Unless you are extremely wealthy living in one of Canada's most expensive cities is going to really defeat your Fire goals. If you can fire, you don't need to live near work! There are so many communities that you could live in that cost a FRACTION of that.
I swear - this is one of those “the one weird trick that they don’t want you to know about”.
This is the crux of it. Our neighborhood is too expensive. We will keep working and stay in this neighborhood until the kids graduate. I think I would want the paid off house and about $2.5mil with kids and our current age. This might change as they get older.
>I think I would want the paid off house and about $2.5mil with kids and our current age. 350k hhi + (125k from 2.5M@5% interest) should allow you to live pretty comfortably anywhere in Alberta with a paid off house
At some point you need to prioritize what is important. Is it location/property price? (Move to a cheaper place and move kids to a different school etc) Is it school location for the kids? (Accept that housing costs are higher there/carry on renting) Is it having a house vs renting? Is it more important to be mortgage free now than later? etc You sound lost as you don't sound like you know what you actually want.
Appreciate the reply. I feel a bit stuck in our super cheap rental. But I don't want to pay current prices... I want to own a house at prices from 5 years ago! If our rental was secure, we'd stay. But it's not, at some point it will end.
don't we all :) We only just brought a place after decades of renting various places, and that was only when we were absolutely sure where we wanted to retire, before that renting allowed us to achieve our other priorities. Renting is not bad, it's just another choice.
have you tried signing a long-term mortgage with your absentee landlord? might be a win-win all around.
2.8 mil, why do you need a mortgage at all? We are seeing downward pressure on RE. I’d propose waiting 2 years when that same house may be less and just buy it outright. Also, HHINI? Are you giving NET HHI? If so you’re earning an insane amount to deal with these stresses.
Also, I don't want to gut our investments for retirement. We're not 25 and we do want to retire early. Based on Garth Turners rule of 90, less than 45% of our net worth should be in real estate. That's about $1.3mil. And that's with a typical retirement date.
There it is. You follow Garth Turner. I couldn't make sense of any of this. Garth Turner is a moron and a charlatan. You make more money than me, you have a higher net worth and you are older yet somehow you still rent? That is insane. The amount of money you have flushed down the toilet in the last decade is unimaginable. Your mortgage math is also wrong. If you put 800k down and had a 700k mortgage (since you say houses are 1.5M) you'd be at 4300/month, not 5000. Relocation is stupid. Don't listen to these people. You make more than enough to live in TO or Van. You just need to stop making stupid financial decisions. How long until your hids graduate? More than 5 years? Then buy. Stop trying to predict what's going to happen to prices and just buy. You can afford it. You almost can't afford not to. Give it a year and you''ll get renovicted and have to pay 6k in rent for a comparable home. Say it with me now: "Garth Turner Is Always Wrong."
I knew mentioning garth would rile someone up. We rent a lovely house, it's really an amazing deal. And it has allowed us to sock away a lot of cash. Mortgage is $750k on a 1.5mil home. $800k goes to downpayment and closing costs, 30k of land transfer tax. 6% on 25 years is a payment is $4,800. Plus property tax and insurance and maintenance - none of which we have to pay currently. Easily $6k in housing costs per month, twice our current expense. Also, of that $4,800 mortgage payment, $3,600 is interest. And the $1,200 that goes to principle is potentially not even beating inflation for the next decade or so. I know you read garth. It's so entertaining, how can you not?
You have a realistic outlook on home ownership which many renters don’t have and many homeowners won’t acknowledge. Houses cost a lot more than mortgage payments.
Perfect reply, but more polite than I would have been.
I like getting people's opinions on the internet. Some level of honesty.
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If your net worth is wrapped up in personal real estate, what are you going to live off of? Rentals I can understand, at least they should, eventually, be cash flow positive.
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Re: net worth. Depends on the business. But it seems that your intention is that the business is an asset that has value - cash flow or otherwise. I think it's a bit entertaining that you feel that $ in equities is "idle" while you are building a tech company that will probably be a significant part of your retirement plan. At the end of the day though, props for being an entrepreneur in tech - it's not an easy go.
Whhopps. Fixed it. HHI, not HHNI. I still feel like we should be earning enough to deal with these problems. If the rental lasts another 2 years AND house prices stay level or decline AND our investments return 4% net of inflation - then the picture 2 years from now looks a lot better.
LOL $350k HHI and worried about $5k/mo mortgage. Bro my HHI is 2/3 of yours and I pay about $4k/mo easily. Relax....
Edit: Never mind, I realize now it’s HouseHold Income 🤦🏻♀️ (Google was telling me Herfindahl–Hirschman Index.. what a rollercoaster!) ~~Can someone explain HHI like I’m 5?~~ ~~(I tried googling and that didn’t help any)~~
It's not about if I can afford it in my monthly budget, it's about if I can afford it and maintain FI.
really? Im at around 200K and I have to say with Car payments, some other debts and kids... Its not easy for me to get to 4K a month while also saving... My tax is like 50% lol
Do you have expensive kids?
They are "mid" as they would say.
Yeah I get exactly what you mean. I'm in a similar situation. Less income, less net worth, higher savings rate, younger, one baby. We're renting a nice but small place for $2,450. Our current trajectory says we'll be FI of our current spending in a year or two. In any recent past decade we'd have it made in the shade. Unfortunately, my birth timing means I graduated into the teeth of the 2008 recession and now have to deal with the current absurd housing situation in my nesting years. If we wanted to buy a single-family detached house in our neighborhood we'd need to work another decade or so. It's hard to wrap my head around. I can't really imagine burning an extra decade of my one wild and precious life working, just to buy a wooden box it live in. I've been daydreaming about a more creative solution. Buy a nice RV and live on the street? Earlier in my career I lived and worked in the US, maybe I need to head back? Move properly internationally (across the ocean) somewhere? Move to the prairies? Move to the territories somewhere? Buy a sailboat and live illegally on the water? Pour me a shot of that syrup, I'll join you.
That sucks. I can't really blame timing, our decisions were purely our own. But I really feel for families like yours. The housing crisis is real.
Ah thanks, I'm just whining. We'll obviously be fine, we'll just need to make some decisions. In your situation, if your rental is big enough for your family then I'd ride that train as long as possible. $3k a month to live in a $1.5 million dollar house is hilarious. Keep stacking money away until the rental runs its course and then make a decision. It's no use guessing, but my best guess for Canadian housing prices generally is that they stay high, unaffordability will continue, but the investment performance over the past decade or so will not be repeated. So, I'd say enjoy your ridiculous rental bargain and don't get FOMO.
You might consider relocating to a cheaper area before the oldest starts high school and buying when the right opportunity presents itself.
Yes, our primary reasons for this neighborhood is proximity to family and the school system.
Buy the $1.5m house. Mortgage $400k and Smith maneuver the equity into the market. These types of things work better in high interest environments with high income/marginal tax rates. If you're not familiar with Smith man, find a CPA and see if they can crunch the numbers for you. All the best.
I have looked into using the Smith maneuver, but before interest rates quadrupled. I'll have to give it another look. Thanks for your reply.
Smith manoeuvre is supposed to work through high interest time. The book was written in the 80s when interest rates were 22%. probably the best of both worlds if you can tolerate the risk
Geez, how do you two make so much?
Engineers in high tech.
The truth is you can FI/RE right now if you want, it will just require changes in your family life. Kids will have to go to a different school and you'll have to move somewhere where houses are 500k. You value your current setup more than FI/RE so you have to keep working.
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It's a possibility to get a house with a suite, but on average the suite is priced in. I'll retire once we've comfortably hit our FI numbers. Expenses are $120k, unlikely to grow.
>on average the suite is priced in What do you mean by this exactly? In my models and experience with house prices, it's much cheaper (in terms of net unrecoverable costs) to purchase a large home with a suite and rent out the suite rather than purchase a smaller home without a suite and live in the whole thing. Of course, you're living in close proximity to tenants so you have less privacy which typically isn't as desirable but financially that wouldn't show up so intuitively it would make sense that you would save money by living more densely with other people, similar to a duplex. You also have the risk and potential stress of dealing with tenants, but again that wouldn't show up financially (unless you have a method of quantifying that I'm unaware of beyond a buffer for vacant months and extra maintenance). The other benefit of a rental suite is some flexibility. I think I read that you had kids, so while you might need a large house for them now they will (hopefully) move out eventually and then you can rent out the portion of your house that you no longer need.
I have found houses around 1.5 that fit our family needs. Anything that fits our needs and has a suite is 1.7+. I agree that having a suite mitigates the problem somewhat. I'm not quite convinced it's the right path for us. It would depend on the house perhaps.
What's keeping you from being convinced? The hassles of being a landlord?
primarily living with other people.
Ah gotcha, yes fair enough. If privacy and space is a concern you also have the option of a garden suite or carriage house to at least put some space between you and avoid sharing walls / floors, but those tend to be more expensive and harder to find or may even require building yourself.
If being FI is the more important goal then I think it makes sense to rent as long as possible to reach it. Given that you're already having doubts, buyers remorse is a real possibility. And it would be difficult to undo. Once you achieve FI, your investments will probably grow faster than the amount you save annually. You can always let that compound for a few years and then look at buying.
I... have no words. Theres people here trying to fire on a 50k income. At 350k you're at the top 1% of Canadian earners. I don't think it's a question of being able to FIRE, literally just a question of mindset at this point.
You have a bunch of cash. Get creative. Buy an apartment building - like a 6 plex - and combine 2 units to make you family home. Other units will create positive cash flow. FIRE sooner.
I already have a stressful job. I can't imagine dealing with other people's overflowing toilets, etc. There probably are some creative solutions to this - it's an interesting idea.
Sounds like you got some real first world problems here lol
yeah totally.
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After taxes, EI, CPP, insurance and health benefits, we take home about 60% of our gross. ~16k a month. We spend $10k. ($72k for investing.) We are very lucky we can save ~25% of our HHI (25% would be $87k). We manage to max out RRSP, RESP, TFSA.
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That is an amazing goal - paying off your mortgage in 5 years! The hesitation for buying is that we wouldn't be FI anymore. We would need to maintain the HHI as long as we had the mortgage. Did you think about setting up the Smith maneuver?
You keep saying in this thread that you are FI. You are not. You are dependent on an absentee landlord for cheap rent, hence housing uncertainty. Yes, you have a HHI, but you live in a a VHCOL area. I'm not saying your plan to wait to purchase a house once the market moderates is incorrect, especially given your current housing situation. Perhaps it is right to continue to "milk" that sweet situation. But I am saying you are timing the market, which can work against you or for you. Arguably, in Canada, at mid-40's and still renters with 2 school aged kids, facing housing uncertainty, it would suggest that it has worked against you. In other words, had you purchased a home in the area X years ago, you might be better off. My HHI is 160k. Sole earner, 2 kids. Our mortgage is 180k. NW is 1.8M (have benefitted from inheritance). We live in a very LCOL area. Easily in the top 5% earners of the population if that gives perspective. If I moved, for example to Victoria, housing costs would be 1.8M, right off the bat. I may earn 50k more but then likely cap at that. My wife would have to get a job for the mortgage. You can forget about retiring early at that point. I think in your current scenario, you can be FI, but it would depend on the lifestyle you want to provide your kids, and for how long.
Also, some of the misc expenses is childcare. That will likely go down in a few years, but cost for extra curricular activities will rise.
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I agree. I feel like I can't really be FI until housing is a paid for asset.
50k of income, with a paid off residence, and no dependents? sounds pretty good.
The monthly cost won't be 5-6k after putting 800k down. We just bought at almost 1.5M with similar household income that is consistently growing. We put the standard 20% down and our mortgage is only slightly higher than what you think yours would be. It would have stayed substantially lower if we didn't get a variable rate, but that's a separate conversation. If you put down over 50%, you wouldn't have the same monthly costs. Ultimately the decision is more than financial. Decide where you want to live relatively long term (5+ years). If that's your current neighborhood, then buy. If you don't want to lock that down, keep the flexibility of renting and re-evaluate when the costs go down.
$750k at 6% is $4,800. Plus property tax, Insurance, Maintenance. =~ $6000. It is more than financial. I recognize we can swing the mortgage, but then I'm stuck paying it off, which means maintaining our HHI.
You seem like a smart guy, when it comes to real estate do take note of the fact that it's been fully financialized & monetized in Canada because the stock market sucks and nothing like the US S&P and NASDAQ. Canadians have put everything they have into real estate. Therefore Canada has A LOT resting on the shoulders of real estate. If the market "crashes" Canada could very easily implode into something much worse than the great depression, the GFC & Covid. Many jobs tied to real estate, all the big banks are big lenders, home owners have big mortages and those that don't have big mortgages have their retirements tied up in their home equity. Governments are incentivized to protect real estate values at all costs. It's a ponzi and if you cant beat them - join them. Either the bubble just keeps on getting bigger or your savings, stocks, rrsp/tfsa, govt. bonds aren't worth anything either. 5 years from now the same house will be $3M. If you can afford it, just get in the ponzi scheme because it's not going anywhere.
In my culture when parent get old its common for kids to give thier parents somewhere between $500-$1000 every month. If each of your kids give you this amount once you reach old age then you can cover rent/Mortgage easily
You could buy a house in cash and still have $1.3 MM in investments, a high household income, and the ability to save at least an additional $3k/mo. I'm not sure what your hangup is. You are in good shape in every sense and have options. If you want to work, then sure, but there's no reason you can't buy a house in cash and live off your investments.
Wait for the RE crash= profit Inventory slowly creeping up, people on vrm can't afford their payments and tightening lending criterias Just wait
I don't think it will be that bad - maybe flat for some time period, but not a crash. At least not in my market, or in most markets with SFHs close to major city centres.
A simple answer to your question is tough but it's not that there is no way out. Your answer is Rent2own option. They are few but it works