Canada is a great place to live for most people, frankly, probably better than the US.
It's not a good place for talent.
It's not a good place for talent.
No it's not. Most youth have zero dreams related to property ownership, as everything near the core and cities that are near the core are prohibitively expensive. There is a general apathy and malaise here.
"Just move outside of the city" they say, to suburbs that are also priced 500k+, and just far enough to only have to spend an hour and a half commuting to your city job.
You have clearly never lived in the Silicon Valley if you're talking about housing.
Housing in the Valley is beyond unaffordable. A choice job at Google and you still won't be buying a home.
You're probably young, and single. Your class has always struggled with home ownership. Most couples can afford to get in on the housing ladder by buying and apartment, and in some year, buy a home.
That said - Toronto and Vancouver are distorted markets right now. Everywhere else in Canada is pretty normal and home ownership is similar to most places in the US that are not NYC/SF.
That's just not true. Housing is very expensive, but a "choice" job at Google pays enough to buy a home. The same goes for Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and the other large companies. Their compensation for mid- and senior-level people is so good that it's difficult to convince them to leave, even for considerable startup equity.
That's like $7K a month mortgage payment. $82K/year. You need to be earning $200K to pay that.
There are surely a lot of people at Google earning $200K, but not that many in relative terms. Most devs with a few years experience won't earn that.
If you need to earn $200K to be able to afford a home, I would say that's ridiculous.
Most Google developers are very talented and educated, and will not be able to buy a home. That sucks.
You referred to "choice" jobs. Those aren't jobs for people with a few years of experience. Think 5-10 years.
Furthermore, I can assure you that a huge number of people at Google clear $200k per year in total compensation, which includes a high salary, stock, and bonuses. I know people at other companies I've mentioned who do so as well, with less than 10 years of experience in the industry.
There are also plenty of homes that cost less than the median -- in fact, half of them do...
How sure of that are you? I don't have a lot of data points, but 3.5 years of experience got me a 270k offer from Google. I find it hard to believe it was _that_ much higher than average.
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-google-programmer-blew-off-...
I'm not going to argue that's a reasonable set of requirements to get a house, but it's possible.
So what? If renting is a better financial decision than buying in a particular market, you rent. It's that simple, or else you're making an emotional decision based on value judgments rather than objective measures of benefit or cost.