James and Tina - “Today, any starter home in the Lower Mainland is far out of our financial reach. We didn’t ever think that we’d be 35 years old having never lived above ground level.”

“James and Tina live in Point Grey, in a two-bedroom basement suite in a Vancouver Special. Tina, 34, a former music teacher, is now a stay-at-home mom. James, 35, teaches music and directs the 260-student Dr. Annie B. Jamieson Elementary School string orchestra. He also gives private cello lessons to bring in extra cash. Their twin boys were born last May, and their challenge as a new family of five is how to afford not groceries but space. The search for a larger home has not gone well. Real estate, they say, has been “a continual source of depression” for seven years. “We feel fortunate to be healthy, have three wonderful children, and have jobs that are mostly satisfying and interesting,” James says. But they’re tired of living below ground. “Our dehumidifier and industrial mould-spore-removing air filter are playing too large a role in our lives.”
On their combined income—at around $80,000, it’s well above the regional family median of $68,000—they’re still knocking their heads against the subfloor of the real-estate boom. While in their 20s, they saved for a down payment and made offers on six houses in Vancouver and Burnaby. Despite bidding over the asking price almost every time, says James, they always lost out. “Today, any starter home in the Lower Mainland is far out of our financial reach. We didn’t ever think that we’d be 35 years old having never lived above ground level.” They love Vancouver, and want to stay close to their families and their roots. But, like many middle-income earners here—web designers and police officers, young architects and teachers—they find themselves rehashing halfhearted talks of packing everything into a moving van. “Maybe we’ll head to Victoria,” says James, “somewhere we can realize our dream of living above ground.”
Tina and James are part of what, real-estate-wise, might be called Vancouver’s Generation Fucked. As the city becomes a global “lifestyle destination,” tens of thousands of middle-class households are getting a hard lesson in diminished expectations. Unless the members of Gen F want to raise their children in a one-bedroom condo, their salaries will qualify them to be no more than permanent renters in Vancouver.”
- anecdote and image from ‘Going, Going, Gone’, by Tyee Bridge, Vancouver Magazine, 1 Nov 2011