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Comment by 3pt14159 | Hacker News Reader

Housing isn't that expensive outside of Vancouver. You can buy a one bedroom condo a 2 min walk from the CN Tower for $230k to $260k USD / 300k to $350k CAD, and salaries here are lower than SF or NYC, but not by that much. Vancouver, yes, pays very poorly and has unreasonable housing prices, but that is far from all of Canada.

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<300k gets you 500sqft bachelor pad. Rent is about 1500$ for bachelor, goes up to 2k for 1bed+den. I think the 30 rent rule is a great benchmark for living affordability, renting a 1bd+den is around 1700$ for downtown in a decent building.. with utility, internet etc .. make that 1800$.. ((1700+100)*12)/0.3 = 72k a year. If you're making that dt toronto, you're doing okay.

The housing market in Toronto is skewed.

Yes apartment prices can be considered reasonable but actual houses are approaching the same levels as Vancouver.

Also those $250k apartments usually have $500/month maintenance fees attached. Not all, but some.

I feel like I say this all the time, but... Real houses should be expensive in a city. The whole point of a city is densification. I don't want to live around a bunch of (usually detached) houses as far as the eye can see. I want to live where everything is happening. If you want a real house with an nice mostly quiet neighbourhood with a Canadian Tire and a Boston Pizza live in Georgetown and take the Go Train.

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