Canada

Without writing out my whole life story: student loans, unexpected vehicle issues (public transit isn't an option where I live), out of pocket medical costs not covered by benefits or gov't, long commutes with expensive gas and no feasible alternatives and few job opportunities closer to home in my field. Can't afford to move due to high rents so I'm stuck driving.

There's more but I'm hungry and wanna eat dinner and don't feel like going into it. We save everything that isn't essential and barely go out for fun, anything extra goes towards a down payment but the way things are going right not it doesn't look like we'll be able to buy for years unless we can put away like 2k a month.

When people say pay cheque to pay cheque in this type of situation they're still putting money away into savings typically but are out of reach of where they need to be. There's usually large debts, medical costs or other financial burdens that aren't mentioned like maybe taking care of a family member. Their pay cheque to pay cheque situation is a bit different than someone working minimum wage and will be out on the streets as they still have money going into some sort of savings

The issue is that investors are buying houses 100k over asking price same or next day because they don't plan on living in them, they just want to make the investment and prop up the housing market bubble for as long as they can.

I bought a townhouse that was 1700sqft (~150m^2) in Markharm, a suburb of the GTA (1hr to the center of toronto by car, 1.5hrs by bus), in a pretty bad area for 800K CAD during a slight market crash during covid. By all accounts this was an exceptionally good deal, by realtor didn't think we could get anything for under 900. I sold that townhouse for 1.1 mil in 2023.

She does have an iud so I could before, but her Dr put her on medication for her rheumatoid arthritis last year that causes birth defects so at the moment we gotta double up. Even if that wasn't the case, still couldn't afford to have a kid right now.