Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:05 on 2019-04-13 Permalink Reply  

• Ian 18:02 on 2019-04-13 Permalink

  While most of this article is of the “well, duh” variety, the observation about Vaudreuil is worth noting. A lot of people with quaint notions about how West Islanders and beyond are all rich French-hating types don’t realize there are lots of very working class folks in the west end and living just slightly off-island in the west in very mixed French & English communities. This last week I was delivering a package to someone in Rigaud, 20 minutes from Sainte Anne de Bellevue, and drove through a fairly extensive trailer park about 10 minutes from the île-aux-tortes bridge. It’s almost as if class divisions cross ethnic boundaries and may actually be the real root of inequality, wowzers.

• Chris 23:17 on 2019-04-13 Permalink

  And those in the ‘upper’ class take full advantage of the squabbling between ethnicities, sexes, religions, etc. to keep the ‘lower’ class divided and weak. Diabolically clever really.

• Ephraim 12:00 on 2019-04-14 Permalink

  The question is… why don’t they? And it would be interesting to know what happens with those Habitat for Humanity homes after they become fully vested properties. Polls have shown that the poor often think gold is a good investment, when in fact, it’s a horrible investment. It’s often thought that if times are bad, you can always sell gold…. it may have value, but of dubious value when food is scarce, you get pennies on the dollar. And it’s, of course the reason that engagement and wedding rings and expensive jewellery sell… the idea that you can always cash it in, that it’s security.

  But you would think that property, and the fact that you don’t have to move, that you aren’t beholding to anyone would be foremost in many people’s minds. It’s tough to start. Heck, when I got my first house and managed to put down just the 5% (or maybe it was 10%) with the help of my parents, I still feared making my mortgage payment each month. By the time I got my second house, I managed to put down the full 20% and I never worry about my payment. My parents bought a duplex for the same reason, they couldn’t afford the full mortgage and having a tenant meant that they could get help paying the mortgage. Duplexes are exactly what they should consider, especially if they can rent out the larger apartment… but with the assurance they will be paid… which is difficult with the rental board rules.

• Kate 12:26 on 2019-04-14 Permalink

  Why don’t they? All kinds of reasons, Ephraim. Biggest one is that people often have unpredictable jobs and incomes. The bank is not going to listen to you if you don’t have a regular job, and you don’t have a down payment and you don’t have parents willing to chip in. You can’t start from $0 and that’s where a lot of people begin, or at less than $0.

  You sound like the writer of the article – I’ve run into this tone before in real estate writings – goodness, why don’t those poor people smarten up and buy property? Because the answer is: they can’t.

  A lesser reason: if you’re a property owner, you need to know how to fix stuff. Not everyone does.

• Ephraim 13:25 on 2019-04-14 Permalink

  @Kate – Take my word for it, when I started, I couldn’t fix a thing. And my parents were even worse… even if my father did repair TVs.

  Many of the working poor do have fixed jobs. There are a lot of things that need more education. One of the things that I would love to see is a course within the school system that as part of mathematics taught home economics (ie how to budget, how to buy, how to understanding pricing) and how to judge value…. like low income families that spends hundreds a month on smart phones… when they find it tough to pay rent and buy food. YES… it’s real… I’ve seen it.

• Uatu 15:42 on 2019-04-14 Permalink

  It is possible. A lot of the staff I work alongside in the MUHC are property owners in the plateau. In fact I knew of one guy who sweeps floors and was the landlord to doctors. Of course there are mitigating circumstances: these folks had steady, unionized employment. The family members were also co-workers and they would pool the cash for a down payment on a building. Some of them had plumbing, carpentry skills from working abroad and extra capital from those jobs. But that’s harder now since unions=bad mindset of neoliberals. The steady paycheck of unionized jobs that results in reinvestment ruins their bootstrapping narrative….

• Ephraim 16:39 on 2019-04-14 Permalink

  @Uata – Banks like people with steady employment, doesn’t matter if it’s union or not. The fact that you are steady is important. Get a high paying job that’s contractual… they ask a LOT more questions. A tax return with steady employment… golden.

• Ian 17:57 on 2019-04-14 Permalink

  Ephraim, I know you’re speaking from a good heart, but the way you’re talking about poor people is really tone deaf. Being poor affects the entire way you look at getting by, and investment is not part of that. All that aside, good luck getting a reasonable mortgage without any money down. In many cases you really are better off renting if all you can afford to rent is a 2 bed next to the light industrial neighbourhood for your whole family within bus distance from work and garderie.

• Blork 18:08 on 2019-04-14 Permalink

  I agree with Ian. Even if a working class person (or family) has steady employment and would qualify for a mortgage, that doesn’t mean they are mentally prepared to make the commitment. It can be daunting to commit to that level of debt if you’re accustomed to always struggling financially (especially recently, with prices rising so much). The spreadsheets and cost/benefit analyses don’t mean a thing if long-term investing is not part of your social or personal culture.

  The first time I went out to buy property was about 20 years ago. I come from a working class background, but in a place where everyone was a home owner because houses were so cheap. That did not create in me a sense of long-term investment because there was never any talk of investment or mortgages; in that time and place you just got a house when you were ready because they were cheap.

  I was a poor student in my mid-20s and a very poor graduate for the first four years out of uni. That shaped me more than my upbringing. By the time I went condo shopping in 2000 I was finally settled into a career and had a well paying job. But the idea of committing to a $100,000 mortgage almost made me sick in the stomach. I ended up putting off the search for two years while I wrapped my head around the concept.

  I cringe now. $100,000 for a condo on the Plateau? Ha ha ha! In my first search I had a line on a place that was asking $110,000 and I talked him down to $105,000 but he wouldn’t go lower. But I could not bring myself to go over $100,000 so I called it off. That was 2000. I saw the same unit listed five years later for $269,000. Gak!

• Ian 18:17 on 2019-04-14 Permalink

  Well you can still rent a 2 bed within walking distance of the Fruit District on Acadie for $615 but it’s not very nice, and there aren’t any condos for sale around there unless you count the luxe places the speculators are putting up on Beaumont in advance of the UdeM invasion, kicking out long-term tenants in the process.

• Ephraim 18:54 on 2019-04-14 Permalink

  Ian – My parents started out with nothing. And growing up, we struggled. I know poor. I was scared as hell when I bought my first house. I had nightmares about how I was going to pay it off. But as a teacher, I also noticed how much of real life we don’t teach people…. basic things, like how to divide the price into servings or kgs… or worse, to gauge effectiveness by price (for example, bargain dish washing soap versus name brand and the amount you have to use). Or even how to save, where to save, how much to have in an emergency fund. And heck, most of the middle class doesn’t even know how, when or why they need to buy life insurance, never mind what kind, etc. (And even though I don’t have life insurance, I know exactly how to calculate how much I would need, what kind to buy, etc…. and know to never trust an insurance agent’s advice, because when they earn over 100% commission on a certain type of policy… they sort of push that one, rather than then one you really need!)

  And I’m fully aware that it’s more expensive to be poor than it is to be rich. That not having a kitchen or not knowing how to cook are expensive propositions and that buying prepared food is so expensive. But some of these money skills need to be taught before people go out into the world…. kids in school can learn that 5x+y=10, but they also need to know that $X/10 = Y and that if Y > Z then they should be buying Y. Not to mention knowing how to read a damn label to know where something is from, what it’s nutritional value is and how to judge things like the cost of a prepared meal versus preparing 4 portions. It’s real math applications… more important than knowing simple quadratics.

  Some of the lessons are even harder. Because people really don’t know how to save. Seriously, it’s a lost skill. Never mind investing. Sit a kid down and having him calculate the cost of a pair of jeans bought on credit and paid for at minimum monthly payments, so he knows the cost. I’m talking from experience… I taught a class where I made them calculate savings for retirement… because as a teacher, I couldn’t look these people in the face if I sent them out into the world to find jobs and they didn’t know these things. It’s life skills that schools should be responsible for… but we rely on parents to do it… and they aren’t equipped.

  What I really want to know is how effective programs like Habitat for Humanity is at getting people into houses and staying in houses. How we can set up these programs that will help people get this stability and maybe we need to improve these programs, because it’s the base of the pyramid.

• JaneyB 07:46 on 2019-04-15 Permalink

  I’ve done some housebuilding with Habitat (in another city). The families who are chosen go through a rigorous screening process. They are very often responsible, hardworking poor people who just cannot get ahead plus they had enough gumption to apply. HfH requires them to work alongside the volunteers and skilled tradespeople not just on their new house but on many subsequent houses (‘sweat equity’ idea). They are effectively being acculturated to a different style of thinking about money and community. I’m pretty sure it is HfH that holds some kind of no-interest mortgage on the house for a period of time and so the owners payments go into a kitty for subsequent houses for other families. It is one of the largest homebuilders in North America. Default rates are very low.

  @Ephraim – I agree people have little sense of how money, savings, interest etc work. Householding skills appear largely untaught or transmitted at this point in our culture. Still, getting parental help to buy a house is impossible for a huge chunk of the population – or even just non-harm. For example, I had a student once who had to work 2 part-time jobs in addition to struggling at Cegep, mostly to pay the bills for her parents who drank and gambled. She was 17 years old. Worse, it was impossible for her to see that this was not her responsibility. For many, many people, parents are not only not helpful, they are an enormous additional financial burden/health concern/drama-vortex. They often have bizarre financial ideas that they harangue their kids with. This is normal for so many people but those enmeshed have no idea they are trapped in anything and outsiders can’t imagine it, for the most part so…unaddressed.

• Kevin 11:20 on 2019-04-15 Permalink

  The Globe and Mail had a feature about upward mobility several years ago, and if you grew up in and around Montreal you are more likely to be better off than your parents than people born and raised elsewhere. If you grew up in Laval your upward income mobility is among the best in the country.

  The exceptions are Vaudreuil and Chateauguay, where you have less mobility.

  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/a-tale-of-two-canadas-where-you-grow-up-affects-your-adult-income/article35444594/