How buying a home could make you a slave (kind of)

Globe and Mail columnist Rob Carrick wrote another not-very-reassuring column about home ownership today (though he did refrain from calling readers suckers or donkeys this time). In expensive cities like Toronto or Vancouver, Carrick says, more and more homeowners in their 30s-through-50s have little or no money to contribute to their retirement savings after making their mortgage payments. What’s more, saddled with big mortgages, home equity lines of credit and the mountain of costs that come with moving into and furnishing a home, people are actually dipping into previously untouchable retirement savings to avoid sinking deeper into debt. An investment advisor quoted in the column says people feel trapped when they buy homes they can’t really afford, and calls the worries over debt “a new form of slavery.” With investment experts getting this hysterical, we can only imagine how the homeowners feel. Read the entire story [The Globe and Mail] »