Source
r/vancouver•
ElementField

At what income do you feel you’ve “made it” in Vancouver?

Ask Vancouver

We all know Vancouver is insanely expensive. We’ve probably all heard stories of people “not making it” and having to move away. Some people do it just because that’s better for them. Some do it because they want to start a family.

For those of you trying to get there and for those of you who have made the climb, at what income level, individual or household, do you think you have or will “make it”?

And further, what lifestyle do you see for common income levels?

$60k?

$100?

$150k?

$200k?

What do these levels afford? What kind of home, what kind of car, if any? Children? Vacations?

None of this needs to be anything more than a generalization, and only answer what you think makes sense to answer :)

Posted Dec 15, 2023, 6:33 AM UTC

2129
Beneficial-Oven1258•

It depends so much on your family situation and background.

If you grew up poor, have big student loans, have to support parents or other family etc., then you need to have a massive income.

If you grew up in Vancouver, have no student loans, lived at home until you were 30 and then moved into a condo your parents helped you buy, then you can get by on a much lower income.

147
Kooriki毛皮狐狸人•

This is very accurate. I’m high income but with no financial family help and a slow start to get into education/career. I’ll never catch up to my middle income peers from high school who were given money for school, down payments, a few of them were straight up gifted houses. Much easier to have a decent standard of living on a mediocre salary if housing isn’t a concern and you have a safety net

30
ElementFieldOP•

I agree, and created my post the way I did to spur this sort of conversation on.

My wife and I together are at the start of our careers and make about $240k annual. We don’t think we’ll have much of a hope of ever owning a house, a detached one. Though because we don’t ever want kids, that’s maybe okay.

We are EXTREMELY lucky to not have huge student loans (mine was only $50k, hers was $30k) and EXTREMELY lucky to not be supporting our parents, at least not yet.

But I completely agree. It seems to have way, way more to do with your net worth, or more specifically, the 40+ years of net worth your parents had a chance to build. If I had 40 years of working, especially 2 people working (so 80 years) I’d have millions and millions in the bank, instead of starting from 0, trying to pay student loans off, and trying to build a basic savings setup to get going lol

8
Beneficial-Oven1258•

Haha yeah its a bummer. But I still feel lucky that I'm not living hand-to-mouth and am warm and healthy. Need to keep reminding myself of that to not get too frustrated about the situation.

3
ElementFieldOP•

Me too, absolutely. It’s like we need a “you make a lot but you live in the place where you’re playing the game on ultra nightmare mode so just doing okay is absolutely excellent” support group haha

6
Beneficial-Oven1258•

🤣 Absolutely!

The "You worked your ass off and did everything right and by the book but the rules changed halfway and you didn't find out about it until too late" group.

3
Himeros_on_top•

I've shared this sentiment before, and I'll share it again. There's two halves to wealth-building. Earning it, and keeping it.

If you can earn a quarter-million dollars a year in Vancouver, you can do it elsewhere. Go find somewhere cheaper to live, with cheaper houses to buy. That means you're going to have to sacrifice the "Vancouver" lifestyle, but there's a whole world beyond your front door and it doesn't suck. There's even pockets in BC that are "nearby" to Vancouver so you're not feeling terribly disconnected from your extended family.

1
pepperonistatus•

Some of us have family that is not poor but they won't help anyways.

At least my parents won't. They cut me off right after high school.

I may inherit something in my 60s.

8
stupiduselesstwat•

Sounds like my family.

Apparently I'm not inheriting anything but my sister and brother are. Wheee.

1
pepperonistatus•

WTF!

My parents learned from law suites in the extended family that you need to split inheritance equally.

Morbid as it sounds, you can sue for your fair share.

4
stupiduselesstwat•

Honestly, at this point, I'm not interested.

For whatever reason I've always been the unwanted and neglected child and I'm used to it.

Good thing is, I don't get harassed over holidays like Xmas.

1
TransCanAngel•

Bingo.

1
TiredinVancouver•

It's not an income level here, it's your total amount of assets.

You could make $180k here but feel extremely poor trying to save for a down payment on a $2 mil single family house, and then having to afford the mortgage payments after that.

38
JoshL3253•

This.

If you didn't buy a place before 2017, you need to make extra $$ just to catch up to the housing price increase.

Those who already rode the wave of RE appreciation of the last 6 years can be comfortable with $120k.

13
donnamatrix79•

This. Spouse and I make well over $200k, but have no hope of saving up enough for a down payment without an inheritance. We have a kid and assist his parents financially, so money isn’t exactly tight, but a down payment is out of reach.

We’ve chosen to focus on other things instead.

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Angry_beaver_1867•

you have no hope for a single family house in Vancouver and many suburbs. At $200k you have lots of ownership options available to you without an inheritance

7
donnamatrix79•

Yep, but my career and lifestyle require me to live where I do.

Sure, I could live in Hope but then I couldn’t do my job and wouldn’t make the money I do. My career doesn’t transfer, I don’t own a car nor do I want to, and my spouse is visually impaired and doesn’t drive. I also have zero interest in a SFH. I’m done with yard work and will live a happy life never mowing a lawn again.

As I said, we’ve chosen to focus on other things. Sure, I could sacrifice everything I like about my life in exchange for home ownership but… why would I do that?

Please understand that people know their own circumstances better than a stranger on the internet.

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Angry_beaver_1867•

For the record a $180k is won’t float a mortgage on $2m house. You need about $420k assuming 20% down

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ElementFieldOP•

Yeah, I definitely understand that lmao

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tacotime2werk•

Totally. We are high income but don’t have family help, so the small condo we own took us ten years of saving to buy. Even if we were to magically have $400k to put down on a townhome, the mortgage payments are still astronomical - even if rates went down a percent or two. It feels like there’s no winning for anyone here unless you benefit from generational wealth.

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ketamarine•

250k household income

33
mr-jingles1•

Still not enough to afford a house though

12
chronocapybara•

It's enough to afford a condo

10
mr-jingles1•

Yeah but I wouldn't consider affording a condo as having "made it".

1†
chronocapybara•

Urban detached homes will never be affordable again. That ship has sailed.

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donnamatrix79•

Not everyone has an interest in a SFH.

2
sweetcheek•

You can't afford a 600k condo on 250k a year household income?

News to me

-1†
chronocapybara•

It's enough to afford a condo

2
JoshL3253•

With the housing price and food/grocery inflation, $250k is the new $100k.

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ElementFieldOP•

And what sort of lifestyle do you expect that affords?

2
Live_Government_678•

One kid, a dog, one vacation a year, not missing a bill or mortgage payment. The Vancouver dream

21
olrg•

Yeah that’s about right. Add a vehicle to the list too, nothing fancy.

5
ElementFieldOP•

We’re about at that household income and don’t see being able to afford a mortgage :/ But I do think you’re pretty spot on

1
ketamarine•

Family, one car, 2-3 bdrm house in burbs.

Honestly not much left for vacations and restos.

But you can live well with tha income, lots of hobbies and sports here are cheap and available year round (tennis, hiking, any field sports).

1
ElementFieldOP•

Makes sense. We make about that much household but I don’t know that we’d be able to afford a house (or a family) but I could see how with the right setup in life one could

1
ketamarine•

Let alone the 10-15% of gross income you should be saving for retirement and kids education...

1
RDF19•

Id say if you don’t have kids, around 200-250K household you can be pretty comfortable and have the ability to own a place (approx $800k mortgage), go on a couple vacations a year and have some hobbies (ski/snowboarding, golfing, boutique fitness studios/gyms, etc), eat out/order in pretty regularly if you want and don’t have to stress about bills all the while saving a little bit every paycheque.

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Beneficial-Oven1258•

I have this income level. No kids. We can't afford the lifestyle you describe lol.

We are comfortabel and we're not stressed about money, but we rent and have no car and won't own a condo before we're both 40+. Both from low income families and both help them financially now. Both had huge student loans (6-figures) that took a decade to pay off.

At thr same time, I have employees who make much less and own homes because they were able to live at home until they were 30, had no student loans, and their parents used the equity in their own homes to help with a down payment. It really depends on family situations just as much as individual income.

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RDF19•

Yeah for sure, my assumption is that figure is being spent/allocated to just one household of two people and also not carrying any large amounts of outstanding loans or debts.

Of course there’s other circumstances that would change how far your money would go (outstanding loans/debts, supporting other family members or kids), but I think in just a general sense, with a 200K household you should be pretty comfortable, again without those extenuating circumstances.

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pepperonistatus•

I think these extenuating circumstances are becoming normal.

There are a lot of seniors who are homeless or are on the verge of being homeless.

in order to make 200K+, you need some education. Education is very expensive and a lot of people have multiple degrees before they even start working in their career.

With AI, some careers will no longer exist. Salaries are already trending lower. If you lose your job to AI will you be able to find one that pays similar?

1
ElementFieldOP•

Wow, such a similar story to mine, actually. And yeah about people having their parents help them, it’s crazy how much of a difference that makes, isn’t it?

3
Beneficial-Oven1258•

Oh yeah absolutely. If you didn't grow up here or Toronto with parents who owned, it's really tough.

2
nickthaskater•

$200k individual

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ElementFieldOP•

What sort of lifestyle do you think that affords?

1
nickthaskater•

One where I can fathom buying a house, car, and have solid investments without worrying about the bills for the month or whether I want to go out to eat or buy something new. Comfort.

6
Yimgo•

Everything is true except for the buying a house part.

11
butters1337•

You need closer to 400k household to afford a detached.

3
nickthaskater•

I guess I should have specified "home" rather than house. I don't care about a single family detached house. A condo is fine with me.

3
Sad-Funny-615•

Depends how you want to live, even with 200k (gross) family income, it would be hard to buy a decent detached home in east van.

Besides owning a place, if you want to have a family and go camping and skiing …

Things my parents were able to provide (home with yard, modest trips to local destinations, skiing, etc) on like < 50k per year ….

You need to increase the range to 350/400 + in today’s money .. 🥺😖😭🤬

10
alpinexghost•

Hard? No, it’s impossible. Quite literally.

I make around 150k right now. I typically work 65-80 hours a week in Vancouver, and I own a home elsewhere in BC. My property was valued at about 400k last year on BC Assessment, and due to go up more this year I’m sure, but nonetheless. Let’s say I sold that and kept the whole value. Sweet, 400k downpayment.

The other day I was bored and curious, and I decided to punch my numbers into the calculators and what not for pre-approval. You know what I got? Around $750-775k total purchase price. That’s almost less than I got approved for with a 40k downpayment when I bought my place 4 years ago, while making about 60% of what I make right now.

Yeah. That’s one of the many reasons I moved away from the city, and live in an RV when I’m working.

2†
FrozenToonies•

Single, renting, no kids, older car, have company car + expenses. $75-85k.

10
ElementFieldOP•

Do you think you’ll ever buy? Do you ever plan to have kids? Do you have an emergency fund and put away at least 15% of your gross to retirement? (About $1000 per month)

-4
imprezivone•

Depends on lifestyle. A single individual could live frugally and get by earning $60k, whereas an individual earning +$150k may be in debt over lifestyle choices

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ElementFieldOP•

I guess that’s true, but I think I would imply that one would do at least the basics of personal finance: emergency fund, 15% at least to retirement. Bare minimum stuff

I’m $150k+ and not in debt over lifestyle choices, but I definitely don’t feel like I have any forward momentum to buy property, or what have you.

2
hunkyleepickle•

It’s almost completely dependent on when/if you bought a house. We moved here in 2011 for uni, and had cheap rent and no money. When we both had good job and income, we bought a condo in 2017. Now we have the modest condo and a 260k household. We are very financially comfortable, but moving up to a house is pretty unlikely. Lots of our friends have similar trajectory, but had the money to get into the market before 2010, and many of them are fabulously wealthy on paper simply because they were 5 years ahead of us by chance. Even with lower income now. And don’t even start with the people that have parents that have owned a home for 20-30 years. These people can afford to have very low income because of the generational wealth advantage. So the question is what’s your year more than what’s your income in a lot of ways.

9
ElementFieldOP•

Yeah ain’t that the truth. We started our career journey in 2021-2022, and have about $240k household. We definitely feel far from fabulously wealthy, and question if we’ll ever own lol

3
Agitated_Cheetah_311•

Before Covid 70k seems to be decent. Now I don’t know…. 100k?

6
No-Isopod3884•

$100k is just barely enough to afford to maintain a house that you fully own, and even that I am questioning.

6
ElementFieldOP•

We make a lot more than that and rent, I don’t think we could even consider a house at our income, let alone $100k!

1
No-Isopod3884•

Absolutely, I don’t think I could afford rent if I wasn’t older and already settled without a mortgage. Even when we bought 25 years ago we had to have some help from in-laws, though we got lucky in jobs and were able to pay them back. Now it’s impossible.

Even without a mortgage owning is not cheap. There is tax, utilities, maintenance, improvements. I think it comes out approximately to what rent would be for a much smaller place.

1
Forsaken-Candidate-2•

Most people I know make around that and they are either renting or just barely afforded a down payment for an apartment or townhouse.

100k should honestly be the median salary in this city, considering the cost of living.

1
GoodCanadianKid_•

Real talk, 500k family income is my goal. A brand new three bedroom condo or old house in east van is like 10k per month mortgage. 500k family income after tax is like 250 to 300k, so even then half your money is going to housing for shittier house than most people grew up in.

6
mr-jingles1•

This is my take as well. $500k HHI means you can afford a house in east van, 2 ok cars, and take a reasonable trip or 2 a year.

1†
shaidyn•

110K, because then I had the income to leave.

5
ElementFieldOP•

Haha. I’m happy to be here. I worked hard to leave in order to get here

9
corysgraham•

200k household minimum if renting, 300k+ if home with a mortgage, especially if that mortgage is new, or up for renewal in the next 18 months. This is my "made it" status, not "just surviving" status

5
ElementFieldOP•

I gotcha. We’re in the middle of those two and rent. Lucky to have low, grandfathered rent, too. Very lucky.

1
corecursion0•

A 300K net income would allow you to pay the nosebleed mortgages, cover expenses, pay for savings, and live comfortably. At that point, you are cruising, but not out of the woods yet if you actually have to pay down a mortgage for too long -- big paying jobs can be notoriously unstable if you don't have something very valuable to leverage, giving you either stability by demand, or stability in that same job.

When you have assets, e.g. if your parents bought you your house (birth lottery easy mode), then you can get by with way, way, way less than 300K net income.

But in Vancouver, if you are climbing and maximally on the take, there is no amount of money that will make you feel like you've made it until you've paid off your loans and have substantial savings and holdings. Getting to that point where you are not worried about material means anymore for the rest of your life takes a lot, more than you might think.

It will take even more if you are spendthrift, maybe even never.

4
ElementFieldOP•

I think I’ve discovered the “more than you might think” as I moved here from the prairies and increased my income very suddenly and drastically.

Also, you say $300k net income, do you mean net, or do you mean $300k before-tax income?

Our household is $240k (early career) and we’re just trying to save up to build a basic personal finance platform to get started.

2
corecursion0•

Net = after tax income

1
ElementFieldOP•

Yes, I’m aware, I just wanted to know if that’s actually what you meant. So you think $500k is about right?

1
corecursion0•

Yeah if you can reach that combined income, you can build up wealth and assets fairly quickly but it will still take about 10-30 years depending on your head start. 30 years if you're starting from scratch, 10 years in ideal conditions with maximum savings and some assets to start with.

I'm also assuming that you're not buying the latest and greatest cars, spending on renos, or going to expensive restaurants constantly.

1
peekymarin•

Depends what “making it” means to you. Have lived (rented) here for over a decade with 90-100k household income. Paid off 50k in student loans. No inheritance. Have a used car. No kids. We travel, we like our jobs, we have many hobbies and friends and a dog. We are happy so that feels like we are making it.

3
ElementFieldOP•

That’s good to hear. I’ve only been here half a decade and only now did we start our careers. We were making a combined $100k household a few years ago and now are at $240k household but not much feels different. I guess it just takes more time

1
Modavated•

Depends on expenses.

160k household seems like healthy middle class

3
ElementFieldOP•

I suppose that would depend on how you define middle class. I see it as being able to own a home (probably a detached house) and 1-2 cars, and maybe be able to afford to have kids.

That definitely isn’t possible on only $160k household lol

1
Modavated•

Definitely agree!

But relative to our expenses it's going to let us get ahead. We're in the heart of Vancouver but thank God our rent is relatively low to what its become.

1
loose_larry•

Income is almost irrelevant, especially if we’re theorizing a situation where someone is starting from scratch. It’s all about whether or not you own real estate in Vancouver. If you own, you’ve already made it.

If you don’t already own, it’s a double-whammy. You do not have your housing costs capped, and you don’t get to participate in the tax-free gains on some of the most sought after land on earth. It doesn’t really matter whether you make 60k or say 130k. If either aren’t on the path to buy, It’s just a matter of time before both people are priced out due to rising rents.

I was born and raised the but don’t live in Vancouver anymore. i told my mom if I got an offer for 120k I’d think about it, but I’m mid career and would be bringing enough assets with me to buy after moving. If I was early career and had nothing to my name, I’d seriously need to be making 200k or more. I’d rather live somewhere else.

2
ElementFieldOP•

I moved here from somewhere else, for work. Last year, I made just a bit more than $200k, but it fluctuates due to equity being part of TC.

I and my wife are starting of our careers, but in our mid-30s. Our household is $240k, and we expect (hope?) that it will go up from here, especially with the economy recovering.

But I agree with all you’ve said. It’s exactly how I’ve been thinking about this for ages. It has little to do with income, and more to do with networth and assets. People with wealthy parents are so much further ahead.

1
DJBossRoss•

$250k I could be comfortable and start saving again.

2
buzzybeefree•

$250k pp or HHI if $500k.

2
ElementFieldOP•

That’s a huge pp

2