The Age of Entitlement: “Let Them Eat Cake!” —-> “Let Them Have Houses!”

*Foreword: by no means am I against affordable housing options.  I think it would be fantastic to find a way for families to live close to dt.  The point of this is that there are other options to raise a family than buying a detached home & that tradeoffs have to be made.

 

I fundamentally do not understand what this #donthave1million campaign is trying to achieve. I’m proudly biased when I say this, but Vancouver is the best city in the world. That’s why I moved here. That’s why millions of people are moving here. It’s what happens in great cities & is going to happen more & more unless humans stop reproducing. With that in mind, what exactly is the solution the #donthave1million rant is all about? If everyone deserves to own a detached single family home within the city limits, where are they supposed to go?

This argument of being entitled to own a house with a yard within a bike ride of downtown is naive. It neglects the basic laws of supply & demand, & confuses needs with wants. The price of real estate has risen in Vancouver because it’s a great city & people want to live here, just as they have for generations before, albeit at a rate not quite as rapid as today. Do you know who deserves to live in that lovely west side house, minutes walk from the beach & drive from downtown? Those who can afford to do so, those that have worked hard, saved & have enough money to pay for it. That’s life. That’s the world we live in. If that’s a hard reality to consider, then readjust your priorities & accept that, like all things in life, it’s a question of trade offs.

Want to buy a house for under $600k? Great! You have a ton of options in Metro Vancouver. Don’t want a 30+ minute commute to work? Great! Buy a condo or town home. What’s that? You don’t want to live in a condo or town home? Ok then, rent a house. Oh, I’m sorry, you want to buy a place? Ok then, figure out what’s most important to you & make a decision.

The reality is you don’t need a cool million to own a home with a Vancouver address. You need about $20k. If you feel that owning a house with a yard is your right, then stomach a longer commute to work, or join the millions of families around the world who live in condos. Trade offs – if this is your first time encountering them, then you’ve lived a very privileged life, my friend.

Let me ask you this: when you start arguing that you deserve a house with a yard in the city, where does it end? When is it enough? At what point is the line drawn where it becomes too much? Do you need a house? Do you need 2000 sq ft? Do you need a yard big enough for kids to play hide & seek in, just as you did when growing up? This is a confusion of needs & wants. It’s an argument that exposes a spoiled generation where we all get medals just for showing up.

You don’t need a million to live in Vancouver. You need to quit thinking you deserve something that millions of others would love to have.