With housing prices going through the roof in many major cities, saving up for a downpayment really isn't even possible. Since wages aren't keeping up with housing prices, by the time you have a downpayment at current prices, housing prices would already have increased by a lot more than your rate of savings. It's almost like you will never be able to catch up. (At least this is the case for me, and my income is already above-average according to national statistics.) *I keep thinking to myself, "If only I could get into the market now, rather than 6 - 7 years from now..."* This lead me to wonder... how many of you, like me, would be willing to pay **even more** now than your current rent in order to start owning now, rather than years later? In most cases, a mortgage costs less than rent, but I really don't care about the lower payments on a hypothetical mortgage that I'm never going to be able to get. Even though I'm spending ~32% of my take home pay on rent as-is, I would still rather pay a bit more now (up to 40% of my take home pay) in order to own a place now, rather than throwing my rent away every single month. PS - I'm using percents because I understand that rent is different in Vancouver and Toronto vs Iqaluit.