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"wildfires, housing bubbles" ... happening everywhere I'm afraid. I don't see Canada as being worse at weathering these times than other countries.

@mcld it was close!

Yes because they measure the happiness of the average person who owns 65% of a home worth $1,000,000 and rents 35% of a home for $2000/month.

@sziner I like this framing, but I think those 65% of home owners need to be split into the ones who own it outright and the ones with mortgages at or renewing at much higher rates.

Combined with inflation, wildfires, and the recent signs of decline of the public health system, many doctors retiring without replacement, this could be enough to cause happiness to drop — even among the $1M home owners.

I’d also add, ‘24 will be the wind-up year to the 2025 election. I think we’re likely to see a lot of effort going into painting a very negative picture of the country by the other parties.

@MitchellButler not really. Net worth is assets - debt so that is taken into consideration.

"For those nearing retirement age (55 to 64), the median net worth of homeowners was $952,100, compared with $40,000 for renters."

You need to remember that appreciation goes to the borrower not the bank. If you bought a $250k home and it goes to $1M, that $750k gain is yours no matter how much principal you've paid off.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/201222/dq201222b-eng.htm

The Daily — Survey of Financial Security, 2019

The median net worth of Canadian families was $329,900 in 2019. Net worth was lower for younger families, lone-parent families, renters, and families without an employer pension plan. On an annualized basis, the net worth of Canadian families was up 1.8% per year from 2016 to 2019.

@sziner That’s a good point, and it makes me a bit less confident in the position I took.

Ultimately, though, this question is about happiness which is very different from net worth. Especially in an asset like housing where prices have gone up proportional to your own asset so you’ll only experience that wealth if you downsize or move to a less attractive market. Maybe my intuition is wrong here since I’m not a homeowner.

From personal experience I’ve seen a drop in satisfaction with healthcare, affordability, and quality of life in the major cities that will have the largest contribution to this survey. I guess the list is a relative ranking though, and I have a bit of a blind spot in other countries which I’m sure could be seeing similar problems.