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You’re no longer middle-class if you own a cottage or investment property (www.theglobeandmail.com)

submitted 1 year ago by lautan@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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Paying taxes on a half-million-dollar capital gain from a cottage or an investment property is a good problem to have

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[-] AnotherDirtyAnglo@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 year ago

Duh. I'm very much in the top 5% of annual wage earners in the country, and there's no way I could afford a decent cottage (i.e., where I can't see or hear my neighbours).

[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

I have some great memories as a kid enjoying the cottage with the neighbouring cottage kids. What you want sounds more like a remote hunt/fishing camp.

[-] AnotherDirtyAnglo@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

When I was a kid, we had a cottage in the forest. My uncle owned about a 1km stretch of river-front property that he got for nearly nothing. The idea was to go there to get away from everyone in the city and just be a family. If you wanted to be social, you went into town or the local park.

[-] HubertManne@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

im from the us but one thing that gets me is having a rustic vacatio place was a cornerstone of middle class when I was young. if not that then regular vacations that cost a fair amount. families either did one or the other (invested more for the long term or enjoyed more variety but with no long term investment return). nowadays it feels like doctors and lawyers have a hard time swinging this.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ah. I think I'm top-ten, but we're renters. So that's the window where people improving their economic spot need to reach -- you need to be top 5% to own a home without buying-in 20 years ago, and above that to own a vacation home.

Contrast that with a nation so heavily-taxed like Sweden where 50% of the country seems to own a cottage AND a small boat.

[-] ZC3rr0r@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

Having moved here from Sweden (and having just returned from a trip to Sweden) that 50% number is highly inaccurate when measured against the entire population. Swedes these days find themselves very much in a similar rent/purchase crunch we see in Canada, with most young people struggling to find affordable housing. The generation that owns those cottages and boats are the older Millenials, Gen Xers and Boomers, generally speaking.