It’s unfortunate that you couldn’t be there in the fall before things started to go crazy again. Things may level off sooner this year. Hang in there for a bit, and keep trying. With the momentum this economy has it may be a challenge to find greener pastures and that long distance commute isn’t ideal for family living. I feel for you Lucas. Good luck.

I pray for all those who rent or are thinking of locking into an expensive mortage.I suggest you think twice before buying a house that just a year ago was valued at a 100,000 and is now 250,000.Buyers beware of the REAL ESTATE GAME.

concerned citizen,Jonboy

What else is there to say? The fact that you can go out and apply for a debilitating mortgage doesn’t qualify as “housing problems solved”.

I promise to not buy a home until I can do it affordably. There’s just nothing else to say about it.

This is a reality the government is flat out refusing to acknowledge.

The MLAs don’t care and only like to promote themselves and their “openness”. The city passes the buck to the first not-them possible. The federal government can’t be bothered. The provincial government simply ignores us.

They all figure because they can afford a home, why can’t we?

There’s no such thing as middle class to these people, only “very poor” and “very rich”. One is a chance for self-glorification, the other is a like-lifestyled tier of people to feel justified in your decisions with.

Thank you Norm, and please continue to monitor the situation for first time / not as wealthy home buyers.

Some of my wise friends tell me that these things have a way of working themselves out and that Saskatchewan is going to see significant income growth in the coming years. Let’s hope that we can eventually see some balance on that end of the equation. As hard as I try to find it, I see nothing happening in the short term which is likely to change the supply problem with Saskatoon homes.

I hope you won’t give up yet. We bought a small “fixer-upper” as our first home years ago. We loved that little place and before long it became home. It took a little money and a fair bit of sweat but we did well on it in the end.

Best wishes.

Jeff, you must be kidding right? Obviously you haven’t looked at homes for a week or so.

I took Norm’s earlier suggestion and wrote my MLA telling him exactly what I thought (sounds exactly like your post). That was in early april. I got no reply, but the yesterday got a generic flier in my mailbox from my MLA talking about all the great things he’s done and how easy it is to contact him!

Know that you’re not alone. Which doesn’t really help any of us sleep at night I guess.

Best of luck to you!!

It is almost like the Calvert government is trying to drive away young people with his new “Move to Saskatchewan” blitz. Ironically enough, out of my group of peers the ones feeling this situation the hardest are the ones who have chosen to stay in Saskatchewan since graduation. We all studied at U of S, established businesses here in Saskatoon, and all feel very close attachment to the city and its people. Now that we are at the point in our lives where we feel comfortable making the move towards home ownership, we see that it has now almost become the privelege of a select few, and we are questioning whether Saskatchewan is now the right place for us to settle our roots. After looking for sometime for a house in Saskatoon, one of my friends, a prominent local artist, abandoned hope and eventually moved to Winnipeg to buy a house there for a fraction of the cost it would have cost here. This is the dilemna we are facing. This so called “new economy” is driving the housing prices up, but the majority of the people I have talked to see very little difference on their paystubs to help alleviate this huge rise in housing costs.

The double whammy is that the other 75% of my class that graduated and moved off to greener pastures in Alberta, are now selling their properties and returning home to buy up the already short supply of housing in Saskatoon. While it is great to see more young people returning home, one can’t also help but feel as if those of us who stood by the province of while it was a “have not” are now being punished for doing so, and being driven out the province we love so much.

Once again, thank you for the time you put into the maintaining your blog; it is an excellent resource, and also for your “going to bat” for us desperate home buyers in the aformentioned article.