Canada’s housing market is booming, and so are articles about people born between 1981 and 1996 who have somehow managed to afford homes! Meet Myrna, an industrious young woman who recently paid cash for a 3 bedroom home in Toronto’s up-and-coming Junction District! We guarantee you’ll be amazed, not just by how Myrna managed to make her home-owning dreams a reality, but by how many paragraphs we get into this piece before we finally mention the actual way she could afford it!
While many millennials claim it’s financially impossible to afford a mortgage in any of Canada’s major housing markets, let alone pay off the entire thing (yikes!), Myrna Banting is living proof that IT IS entirely possible (with one pretty big asterisk that you’ll read later after we fill some column space sanctimoniously pretending it was easy).
Unlike most young people her age, Myrna doesn’t purchase the latest iPhone or eat out at trendy restaurants. This 29-year-old prefers to save her money by shopping at thrift stores, packing her own lunch, and driving to work in a used car she acquired for free from a source that also will not surprise you!
“I guess I just pride myself on being a self-made person,” Myrna explained to our reporters, even though information that we’re eventually going to sneak into this piece will drastically undermine her statement. Looking at Myrna’s frugal lifestyle (and one other massively relevant factor), it’s no wonder she managed to scrape together the 1.3 million dollars her house cost. That’s right, $1.3 million dollars! And the house she bought isn’t even some super nice mansion – it’s just a regular house that needed work on the roof. Crazy, right?
While it’s probably clear to you by now that Myrna didn’t manage to pay off her absurdly inflated mortgage simply by making coffee at home in the morning, we think it’s still a bit too soon to unpack her actual financial situation. That’s because revealing it will definitely undermine the guilt trip this article is subtly laying on all you millennials to make you think that the housing crisis is entirely your fault. The Boomer readers of our publication would definitely prefer young adults internalize that, when in fact sky high housing prices are the result of years of unsustainable inflation spurred on by homeowners and speculators who view property as an investment rather than living necessities that citizens of a city shouldn’t be priced out of.
Hey, did we mention Myrna doesn’t go out drinking very often? That also kinda helped her save up a bit!
Asked if she has any advice for her fellow struggling millennials, Myrna advises them to be sensible. “Be realistic about your home owning goals, but don’t be afraid to buckle down – and make your money work for you,” she said without elaborating any further whatsoever. “If I can do it, so can you.”
Well, the article is nearly over, so we guess it’s time to lay it all out. We do still urge you to feel some level of personal shame over your own inability to afford the same lifestyle as Myrna, and your parents’ entire generation. That said, Myrna Banting paid off her entire mortgage before age 30 through a combination of 50-hour work weeks, sensible personal investments, a minor $200,000 interest-free loan from her parents (VP acquisitions for TD Bank and thoracic surgeon, respectively) and also a seven-figure trust left to her by her grandfather, William Thurston Banting III, founder and CEO of Banting Financial Holdings Inc.
There, we got it in, and only in paragraph 8, which totally still counts!
So put down that avocado toast and get to saving, millennials. Myrna’s looking for new neighbours!
