You're spot on about the 5 year difference. I never thought I would see my shit box I bought a few years ago for more than I ever thought it was worth triple in value. It's literally the difference of 5 years as you said. I want to be part of the pray for the collapse team but I know good honest people who would be devastated by it. People who are just victims of the system.

This is well written and is something I noticed too during my own house hunt: houses owned by teachers, plumbers, and car mechanics were getting fought over by engineers, doctors, and lawyers.

A fun thought experiment is trying to imagine what career an 18 year old today should work towards if they want to own one of those homes. VC or Onlyfans? How can anyone plan for the future when prices might double between the start and end of a degree? They did for me…

I think the only option left is moving away. Everyone in tech is already doing it

Moving away is and always HAS been the response; the only reason Seattle is a hotbed of real estate activity is because of the huge influx of people over the last 30 years, escaping rising Californian prices. Currently Arizona and Texas are seeing influxes, and there are other areas, too.

It's not like major cities don't exist except on the coasts.

> It's not like major cities don't exist except on the coasts

Canada is a lot smaller. There are only 2 major English speaking cities, a few smaller cities in the prairies (200k to ~1M ppl) which are still affordable, and some dying rural provinces on the East coast with horrible economies. It’s more like moving to Nebraska when California is unaffordable.

Most people in BC and Ontario have no affordable cities within a few hours drive of their home town. The affordable cities are over a thousand kilometres away. At that point, it’s easier for most people to try moving to a nearby state across the border.

House prices are greatly artificially inflated by zoning restrictions, and this is seriously hurting western people going forward. However, a smart 18 year old can still work towards making $200k/yr compensation as a software engineer within a few years, even remote, where single family homes on an 8k sqft. lot are $400k across the US.

> VC or Onlyfans?

Well for men that's usually an easier decision

Essentially young people will probably need to migrate and start a fresh in some underdeveloped city. I'm a millennial and this seems like it will be the case for me too. The older generations essentially rode a big wave to prosperity, our generations will essentially be riding the wave as it is collapsing, while not quite as bad as the great depression generation, millenials, gen z, alpha will need to build a new. It is futile to compare our lives to boomers who essentially had it pretty easy.

I often wonder if we could start a movement of young people to start afresh elsewhere. We are the workers and the lifeblood of the cities we can't afford. Could we pick a city and move in on it?

yes as long as you don't need to stay where the old generation is order to access capital. I think in the future people will be able to secure capital even without meeting in person.