>If a new grad wants a starter property in the city then perhaps start with the purchase of a studio/1-bed.
This lacks the history on what people used to be able to purchase, not just in Toronto but in all of Southern Ontario, and now even as far away as the Maritimes.
The purchasing power for the average Canadian to afford things that actually mater (like housing), is dropping like crazy.
Allow me to give you my own anecdote. 12 years ago, I purchased a "starter home" in Waterloo for $249,000 in the neighborhood I grew up in. Detached with a single car garage, on my "new community college grad" salary of 47k/year with 25k of savings that I had.
Today, with say a 60k/year salary, a new grad in my city could afford to live in a small "starter condo", a huge downgrade to ones expectations who wants to raise a family. The standard of living and affordability has objectively dropped for young people today.
Last week a house on my street that is actually smaller than mine just sold for $780,000. I wonder what their mortgage is like?
But according to some people, hey you can still get into the market! Just buy a condo!
Now lets get to the meat of the issue. Why is this happening (and in many Western countries)?. Economic crashes are literally a built in guaranteed feature of our money system, but our government has found a way to kick the can down the road through mass immigration. As long as they can bring in half a million people in every year willing to take on debt, they think they can avoid a market correction, and they aren't wrong, they have avoided a correction for 12 years now thanks to the people they bring in on a daily basis in Canada. But this was not without a great cost, even if they can continue this nonsense for another 10 years, they have destroyed the purchasing power of your average Canadian to afford things that actually matter, like housing.
I would argue that they found a way to avoid a crash by substituting that with a gradual decline of our standard of living. They stole from the young to pay for their pensions and nest eggs to avoid facing the music.
Unfortunately, in many forums you can't bring up the elephant in the room if you are against mass immigration for its many downsides (including wage stagnation), you get denounced as a racist, or you get attacked by people who want this ponzy scheme to continue because after all, the economy now depends on it! They would rather you blamed the city for not building more condos (that noone wants to live in), and NIMBY's. But don't you dare bring up mass immigration.