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You had your best-laid plans and then COVID-19 came along and hammered the entire economy. But you’ve got this – if you have the right information. Join Rob Carrick and Roma Luciw on Stress Test, a podcast guiding you through one of the biggest challenges your finances will ever face.

Rob: [00:00:02] Do you feel you’re not really adulting unless you own your own place? Are you ashamed to admit you’re still a renter? Do you feel pressured by your parents to buy property? In today’s episode, we’re taking on the boomer narrative that says you got to buy property and mapping out a route to financial success as a lifelong renter.

Roma: [00:00:21] Welcome to Stress Test, a Globe and Mail podcast that looks at how the rules of personal finance have changed in the pandemic for Gen Z and millennials.

Rob:[00:00:29] I’m Rob Carrick, the personal finance columnist at the Globe and Mail.

Roma:[00:00:33] And I’m Roma Luciw, the personal finance editor at The Globe. Rob, in Canada, renting is disrespected. We have these beliefs that owning a home is the mark of being financially successful, it’s something everyone needs to strive for and that renting is just this temporary stop along the road, something for people that are really young or don’t have their financial house in order. How many times have you heard that renting is just a waste of money?

Rob: [00:01:01] About a million times. Everybody thinks renting is a complete waste of money and something you do for a short a time as possible. And one of my missions over the years as a personal finance columnist is to try and change people’s minds about that. I think renting is a valid, sensible solution when you cannot afford a house. How much static do you get about renting?

Roma: [00:01:22] A lot. And I mean, it’s really time for us to change this narrative. The reality is that houses are massively unaffordable for a lot of people. It’s going to be a lot of sacrifice in terms of the things you’ll need to give up if you want to be a homeowner and not everyone is going to want to buy. That’s really what I think strikes me, is that people don’t really examine whether they want to be homeowners and they don’t consider the fact that they could be really happy as renters. Partially, I think it’s pressure from parents, from all of the ads that we see. I mean, the narrative is so ingrained and I think that it’s not this set in stone in many other places around the world. I think that it’s really valuable time now for renters. They have a lot of power to examine this narrative and to push back and to think about the kind of life they want. And if they choose to remain renters, do so with meaning and with purpose. Now, Rob, you’ve written a lot of pieces that are, you know, pro renter. We have filmed videos. We’ve done talks on this. You have been accused of being anti homeownership by some of the forces out there. Tell me how hard it is to make a dent in this idea that unless you buy, you’re a financial failure?

Rob: [00:02:41] Well, I feel like a bit of a failure for not making more of a dent in that. I mean, I’ve owned a house, my wife and I, for decades. We’re on our fourth property now. We own a condo. We’ve owned three houses, one in Toronto, two in Ottawa. I rented for a number of years and rather enjoyed it. And I, as a personal finance columnist, just can’t understand how people are affording houses in some cases. And so what I want to do is map out a way where they can be comfortable and have peace of mind as renters. I know most people will want to buy and most people will end up buying, and I think that is normal and fine. But we have to create a path where renters can rent and live a happy, productive financial life and end up doing very well and not have to be criticized at every turn by the owners out there.

Roma: [00:03:28] I mean, there’s a lot of positive for renters. I rented extensively in my 20s and I have really great memories. It was a time when I didn’t know where I’d be working, what I would be working at. I was able to pick up and move. I lived in several cities across the country. I didn’t have to pay for repairs on my apartment. I didn’t have to pay property taxes. I didn’t have to worry about saving for a large down payment. There was a lot of freedom in that lifestyle. And, you know, the pandemic has changed this narrative even further because for the first time, renters have a little bit of hand. You know, we’ve seen some softening. There’s a lot more places up for rent and a lot of big cities across Canada. Some of the younger millennials that I know have taken the opportunity to move. And, you know, the narrative that all landlords are bad and all rental places are terrible. That’s something that I think can change as well, because I was talking to my cousin, who is an older millennial, she just got a sweet new place. She’s so excited to explore a new neighborhood. It’s a little bit smaller. She likes it better. It’s got more light, different neighborhood. And so I think that when I speak with her, I don’t get this sense of being downtrodden or like she’s a failure. She seems pretty excited.

Roma: [00:04:43] Later in the episode, we’re going to talk to a financial consultant about all of this. But first, we’ll hear from someone who has committed to renting and is quite happy with the decision. That’s coming up right after the break.

Commercial: [00:04:55] This podcast is brought to you by CPP Investments. Take comfort knowing the Canada Pension Plan Fund will be there for you. We invest to help ensure the CPP fund remains resilient over the long term, sustainable and secure for millions of Canadians. Learn more at CPP Investments Dotcom.

Rob: [00:05:20] Sadiya is a thirty four year old freelance journalist renting a six hundred and fifty square foot apartment in Toronto. She says it’s the loft of her dreams

Sadiya: My unit has really high ceilings, like 14 or 16 feet or something like that. It’s a pretty open concept plan and just like a wall between the bedroom and the living room. So the area is pretty great, like it’s a stone’s throw from Chinatown and Little Italy. And the building itself has a pretty great community. Most people who live in the building are sort of in creative fields. It’s the kind of building that I never thought I could afford to buy in, and I probably can’t. But but right now, it’s like it’s a great place to rent.

Rob: [00:06:01] She pays eighteen hundred and seventy five dollars a month in rent and has no plans to buy. She says that as a freelancer, she can work from anywhere and likes the idea of being able to pick up and go live somewhere else, even if it’s short term. Last year, she spent several months subletting her Toronto apartment and working from Berlin, Germany.

Sadiya: [00:06:19] Currently, there’s a rent tap in Berlin, and I think that the city in general is very conscious of wanting to be an affordable place because they understand the mix of people it attracts. And that, to me, is very attractive to live in a city that’s concerned about who can live in it. In Toronto, the rental market, I know it’s changed since covid, but I was looking for a place three years ago and then a year ago. It’s like The Hunger Games. You’re just so at the whim of selling yourself as a tenant, sometimes. It’s so stressful and housing is literally a human right. And I think in Toronto it’s just becoming so much harder to live here. And as someone who is in a creative industry who doesn’t have as much stability, but I still make pretty good money. It’s kind of frustrating to feel like I could be pushed out of the city at any moment.

[00:07:07] On the other hand, when she was in Berlin, her apartment was one thousand square feet and fully furnished and she was paying less than she was in Toronto. Her rent there was the equivalent of seventeen hundred dollars a month. She said in Germany, most people are renters and specifically in Berlin, only 18 percent of people own property being in that climate to reflect on some of the traditional North American expectations for successful young adults.

Sadiya:[00:07:31] I think there’s lots of assumptions that are made about someone my age and what you’re working towards. So many of my friends are working towards owning a condo or owning a home, often looking with a partner, often looking to have kids fairly soon. And that’s just not my life. And so I think that what I’ve realized in the last couple of years is a lot of this programing is done as to what the markers of adulthood are. And for me, I think that those are not relevant factors. For me, I think the markets are very different. They’re more career oriented and more like lifestyle oriented. Like for me, just a lot of the renting versus buying thing was like uncoupling those things and sort of also accepting that like maybe, what, 80 percent of people who are what they’re doing around me is actually not what I want to do. Personally, I tell people to think about what you want your everyday life to look like and making the decision based on that, rather than making the decision based on what’s expected of you as someone who’s like in their 30s or in their 40s and what you’re supposed to do, like what you want to do.

Rob:[00:08:32] Another layer to all of this is that Saudi is parents are real estate agents.

Sadiya: [00:08:36] You know, they’re just endlessly disappointed that I haven’t bought a place. They’ve tried to convince me that it’s the thing to do. They tried to show me that it’s easier than I think it is. You know, they’ve offered me a bit of help. So I do have a bit of that endless guilt when I think about my parents who are immigrants who came in the 70s. And I think, like, I make more money than they did. I have more stability than they did at this point in my life. And they were able to buy a home and they were sort of able to, quote unquote, you know, make it. So why can’t we live in a different time? Like, even if I make more money, just doesn’t go as far as it did for my parents in the 70s or 80s or even the 90s. And so that’s one part of it. And I think the other thing is sort of just like de-programing that you’re buying is a good investment. I think that buying can be a good investment. But I also think that the only investment you can make.

Rob: [00:09:28] Roma, sounds like Sadiya is the prototype for the enlightened renter.

Roma:[00:09:32] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in addition to the fact that her parents are real estate agents, she is really making some smart decisions. She’s a freelancer. She wants to move around. She likes her lifestyle. She loves where she lives. She seems like she’s happy renting. And that’s all that we really want is people to feel comfortable with where they live and to be able to do it in a way that they can afford. In addition to the fact that she has gig economy work and she freelances, that’s another huge part of it. Next up, we’re going to talk to a financial consultant who’s a renter himself. That’s right after the break.

Commercial: [00:10:14] This podcast is brought to you by CPP Investments. At CPP Investments, we never lose sight of the long term. We invest the Canada Pension Plan Fund to help provide financial security for generations of Canadians. We diversify the CPP fund across geographies and asset classes to access the best investment opportunities and generate sustainable long term returns. The fund is now more than 400 billion dollars. To learn more about our investment performance for Canadians, visit CPP Investments Dot com.

Roma [00:10:53] Let’s get right into it. Here’s my conversation with Preet Banerjee, a consultant in the wealth management industry and founder of Money Gaps, an online platform for financial advisors.

Preet, you’ve been both a renter and a homeowner, and I’m hoping that today you’ll be able to lay out some solid lifestyle and financial reasons why young Canadians will not be second class citizens if they keep renting. I’ll start off by asking how much cheaper is renting than owning, even if the rent and the mortgage payments are the same?

Preet: [00:11:28] Well, it depends on where you live. That’s a big factor. So the whole idea of comparing renting versus owning, you have to remember that it varies depending on which city you’re in. So, for example, I’m in downtown Toronto and it is significantly cheaper in terms of a monthly cash flow to rent the place that I’m in. So I am a renter right now and I’m a happy renter. And the idea of buying right now is not high on my list of priorities. And so when you think about the argument that people have about which is better in terms of the financial aspect of it, a lot of people forget that when you’re a renter, you tend to be a little bit more judicious in your spending. You don’t kind of stretch when you’re renting. You don’t say this is a palatial abode that I want to rent. You tend to rein it in a little bit. And as you transition from renter to homeowner, then you start to be a little bit more aspirational. So the idea that two places would have the exact same rent or the same mortgage payment, you know, that’s a premise. First of all, I think leads you down the wrong path. We have to take a look at what is it like to be a renter versus being a homeowner. And you have different tastes and different preferences. So that’s the first thing. And then the second thing, when you take a look at surveys, especially of millennials, first time home buying millennials, a lot of them, the majority of them say that they regret buying their first home. Now, that will wear off over time. But there is that buyer’s remorse, especially as the reality starts to sink in, that there’s a whole bunch of other expenses that you didn’t really pay attention enough to when making that decision. People focusing in on here’s what it is for the rent. Here’s how much you need to come up with in order to close. And then here’s what the mortgage payment will be. And they forget about some of those other fantastic, amazingly high costs, such as maintenance.

Roma: [00:13:22] OK, so I’m glad you brought that up, because that’s sort of my next question, which is what are some of the costs that renters are successfully avoiding by continuing to rent? And I’m thinking of things like fees and taxes associated with buying in addition to maintenance.

Preet:[00:13:36] Sure, some of those costs are going to be wrapped up into the rent, but certainly the big one is repairs, maintenance. Those things really add up. So when you’re a renter, there’s so much more convenience because you have a little bit more certainty as to what your cash flow is going to be. When you’re a homeowner, you’re kind of crossing your fingers, especially if you’ve stretched yourself to be able to afford a home. You become house rich and cash poor, which is more and more common. You just don’t have a lot of free cash at the end of the month to do anything.

Roma: [00:14:07] So what are some of the specific fees? Let’s go back to specifically buying what something that might be a surprise that you would be on the hook for, that you wouldn’t be if you were a renter.

Preet:[00:14:15] So one of the big ones is if you’ve moved out of the city, maybe you’re buying an older home - foundations. The costs of repairing a foundation can be huge. Like a crack at the foundation is something that needs to be addressed. They range from about fifteen thousand to thirty five thousand for sort of a run of the mill Foundation repair. But if it’s more critical, it can quickly get into the high five figures. So I’ve seen some foundation bills that are around one hundred thousand bucks. Now, a lot of people will say, OK, well, I don’t have one hundred thousand bucks. But what I do have in this fast rising real estate market for the last 20 years is a huge amount of equity that is accumulated in my home. So I’ll just borrow against this line of credit. And again, that makes sense. It works as long as real estate values keep on going up. But another thing people have to realize is that is not always going to be the case. And if you are a newer home buyer, you haven’t had time for that equity to build up. And at this point, getting into the market, which a lot of people would say is at the very least heated, the future price appreciation probably isn’t going to be the same as the last 20 years. So that could be something that could completely up in your finances.

Roma: [00:15:25] OK, so you’re a renter and you wrote about this situation for us a number of years ago. It’s a very popular piece. The building that you were renting in, the parking lot was starting to sink, remember? So the repairs to that building would be super expensive. How does that impact you if you’re a renter?

Preet:[00:15:44] So it didn’t impact me directly. Like there was no. Immediate change, there is no special assessment that was delivered that I was on the hook for, that was something that the landlord would have to account for. So condo fees in the building have gone up. And my landlord did come to me and say, all right, well, I have to increase the rent this year because the condo fees have been increased to 60 cents a square foot, went up to sixty five cents a square foot, something like that. And he said, I’m going to pass on that increase to use it was 50 bucks extra a month or something like that. And so that is a lot more manageable if I was worried about my cash flow commitments. That’s a lot easier to stomach than let’s say. I don’t know. The condo is older. Something big needs to be repaired. And so they get together and they say, all right, well, this repair is going to cost a million bucks for this giant building with hundreds of units that may not be uncommon. And that gets spread out to all the condo owners. And that could be in the form of an increase in the regular fees to build up the reserve fund. It could be a special charge that everyone has to come up with a chunk of change immediately. And so that would be far more of an impact if you were an owner than if you’re a renter. Renter - it’s stress free from that perspective. I’m not saying that renting is complete without stresses and anxiety, but compare it to being a homeowner you don’t have to worry about

Roma: Ok so switching tactics a little bit. Homeownership is positioned very often as a forced savings program and a main way that most people grow their wealth. What do you think of that old argument that homeownership is the best way to go because it’s a fourth savings plan?

Preet:[00:17:20] So I think historically it has worked out well for so many generations of Canadians for a couple of reasons. Real estate has done well and it is for savings. A lot of people think that I am very much against homeownership or I’m pro rent. It’s not true at all. I think both are absolutely fine. Depending on your situation, there should be no shame in being a renter. And if someone wants to be a homeowner, that’s fine, too, as long as you’re not stretching yourself too thin. So the forced savings component is really, really important. If you were to do a mathematical comparison to say, hey, the mortgage and my monthly costs are, let’s say, four thousand dollars to buy a home and to rent a similar place, maybe it’s three thousand dollars would have to pay in rent. Everything else cancels out. So there’s this one thousand dollar per month difference. So a lot of the calculations that say renting is better assumes that you take that for one thousand dollars per month and religiously put it away into an investment portfolio that will grow at a pretty good clip. So there’s two sort of big problems with that thinking. It is a heck of a lot easier to skip a voluntary contribution into an investment portfolio than it is to miss a mortgage payment. So that’s the first problem. The second problem is when it comes to investing, I cannot tell you how many times I have gone on TV and talking about Markt or whatever, and I’ll quote something like, you know, a balanced portfolio over the last 30 years had a return of whatever, six, seven percent, whatever. The next day I’ll get flooded with people who say, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I’ve been investing for 30 years. And when I add up all the money I put into the market compared to my current market value of my portfolio, it’s the same. My rate of return is effectively zero. So just because you can put money to an investment portfolio doesn’t mean you’re going to get the rate of return that the market provides. So there’s two parts of that equation you have to really consider and be honest with yourself about. If your rationale is it financially makes more sense to rent and invest the difference, will you actually invest the difference and will you do a prudent job of investing?

Roma: [00:19:34] Let’s say you do that. Let’s say you’re diligently diverting part of each paycheck or a set monthly amount into an account specific to that purpose. Build us a roadmap for financial success as a renter.

Preet: [00:19:47] Yes. So there’s a lot of variables in there that are going to change the equation because this is a long term sort of comparison. So if you looked at, say, a twenty five year time horizon, maybe you pay off your mortgage in twenty five years if the average person pays it off in twenty two years, but we use twenty five years this time horizon. There’s a couple of things to consider. One is most people today who are buying a home are not going to stay in there for twenty five years. So the transactional costs of moving multiple times actually takes a big hit on your ending net worth. And so you have to factor in whether or not you could stay in that place for a long time. If you took a look at two comparable properties and you found that comparable property was much cheaper to rent, leaving you with some excess cash flow and you invested that difference, it’s pretty typical in cities where prices are, they really run up and rents haven’t had the same run up because remember, rents are more tied to income. So there’s only so much they can go up before people say, well, I just can’t afford that I have no money coming in to cover that monthly rent, but prices are geared because we’re levered 20 to one. And so as the rent on money, which is what a mortgage is, you’re renting money instead of renting space. When you’re a renter, as the price of renting money goes down, you can gear up so much more. And so prices can really get away from rents. And so in the overheated cities like, say, Toronto, Vancouver, etc., that is very much the case. And in that case, the differential for similar properties versus the cost of owning versus the cost of renting that differential if you put that away diligently into even just a balanced portfolio over time, you’re going to end up with a very similar increase in net worth over time. Now, as I said, that is based on historical rates of return for real estate and investment portfolios. What those rates of return are going to be going forward. I have no idea. If real estate will continue growing at the clip it has been in the last 10 years, then most people will very easily show, you know, no real estate is the only investment for you. I’m just saying that the rate of growth for real estate for the last 10 years is just not sustainable. That just cannot happen because house prices, the average house price is going to be one point five, two million, three million down the road. And if incomes don’t increase at a similar rate, it’s just not going to happen. So I think one of the things that you have to factor in is that the growth of real estate going forward, I am not very confident that is going to be at the same high rate as it has been for the last 10 years. So that’s a big, big factor in that equation as well. And there’s one thing I really want to point out, and I think this will really drive the point home for a lot of people. I’ve spoken a lot with this guy named John Robertson, who has a blog called The Value of Investing. He said something that I think should be highlighted more. Imagine you have a hypothetical scenario where you have two houses that were identical side by side and one house is for sale and one house is for rent. And imagine the sale price of that home. The one that’s for sale is five hundred thousand bucks. If I told you that the house beside it that was available for rent, the monthly rent was five hundred thousand dollars per month, no one in their right mind would rent it. Right. Everyone would agree. No one would disagree with that. But if you did that, the rent of that house was one dollar per month. No one would not rent it. Everyone said, well, of course I’m going to rent that house. It’s a no brainer. And so that example, I think no one would argue with those two choices. And if that is the case, and I think that is the case for hundred percent of people, you have implicitly agreed that there is some crossover point where it makes more sense to rent versus buy. You just have to figure out what that crossover point is. And for every city, it’s going to be a little bit different because prices are different, incomes are different, and mortgage rates are a factor as well. So it’s a matter of figuring what that crossover point is. The overheated cities, the price to rent ratios are, they’re pretty tough to stomach.

Roma: [00:23:51] But I think one of the points you’re making here is that if you are diligent and you save, you are not going to end up as a financial loser at the end of the lifetime of renting.

Preet:[00:24:02] No there’s a lot of other benefits as well. So for today, for labor force mobility, there’s lots of studies that show that higher rates of homeownership is actually bad for your career in a certain sense, because you’re less likely to move if you’re a homeowner. And so there are some opportunities that you just sweep off the table because you’re not going to move from a place where you have now put down roots.

Roma[00:24:23] So Sadiya, who’s a millennial that we spoke with for this renting episode, had her eyes opened and was recently reassured because she’s currently renting in Berlin. So she was saying that in Berlin, it’s absolutely normal for people to remain renters for their whole life. And it’s really reassured her that she’s making the right decision because she wants to continue to rent.

Preet:[00:24:43] Yeah. So there’s some cultural aspects of it. There are some regulatory aspects of it that make an impact into the rates of homeownership around the world. If you took a look at countries with the highest rates of homeownership, they tend to be central and Eastern European countries like Romania. The rate of homeownership is like ninety six percent. But you also have multigenerational families all living in the same home in Canada, I think right now is around sixty three percent.

Roma: [00:25:11] Now, Sadiya talked about how the idea of home ownership is tied to this sort of natural progression of life. You know, you find a partner, you have kids, you become a homeowner. So my question to you is, can you raise a family in Canada as a renter?

Preet:[00:25:27] Yeah, again, I think it depends on your perspective. I mean, there’s so many countries around the world where that’s normal. It’s not even a question. So for some reason, we have decided that you’re right. There’s this checklist of items that goes along with being a quote unquote adult. And I would challenge those perceptions that a lot of people have. Listen, I know a lot of people there’s a lot of horror stories about renters and having been forced to move or rent evictions and what have you, but I would argue that bad news travels a lot faster than sort of the standard case. I have been renting the same place for eight years. I’ve never had an issue with my landlord. I’m probably on the other side of that luck spectrum, no doubt about it. But being a long term renter is something that I think is feasible, even if you have a family. And I think that is going to be more and more the norm, because when you take a look at house prices right now, it’s just financially not an option for a lot of people.

Roma: [00:26:25] Well, one of the things I’m wondering is covid. So we’re seeing shifts in real estate and I think that covid and the pandemic has changed the landscape for renters. What are some of the ways that you’re seeing that unfold?

Preet:[00:26:39] Yeah, well, rents are dropping in a number of pockets of real estate around the country. We’ve also seen that people who bought the really small condos turns out they really hate them, especially when it comes to COVID. And so we’ve seen a lot of weakness in prices for the micro condos. The rest of the real estate market still defies gravity. And I think that speaks to how much of a wealth inequality there is in society. And so, you know, if you’re on the higher end of the income spectrum, you’re able to work from home, from a laptop. Your income may not have dropped, your disposable income may have gone up because you’ve been restricted from spending money that you otherwise would. You’re not traveling. So you’re sitting on, in some cases, 10, 20 grand more at the end of the year because you normally would have travelled, whereas you have people on the lower end of the income spectrum and they’ve been hard hit. But certainly one of the things that we’re seeing is a softening of rents. And if you are not stuck in a place because you’re a renter, you might say, well, I could negotiate with my landlord and try and get a cheaper rent. And many people have been successful, I know, especially in Calgary, because they’ve been hit by a number of different storms, go drop in oil prices. And so I know a lot of people who have successfully negotiated lower rents with their landlords.

And if your landlord isn’t willing to budge or they’re a tough negotiator, you just take a look at the other listings around and you might be able to actually upgrade your living space for the same amount of money. Or you can move to the same type of place and pay a little bit less in rent. I don’t think this is going to happen often, but this is an opportunity or an example of how renting flexibility can be advantageous at times as well.

Roma: [00:28:19] Final question. If you’re not sure whether you want to keep renting or buy, what kind of things should you be considering other than just crunching the numbers?

Preet: [00:28:28] I think right now, if you are thinking more and more about homeownership and buying, who are you buying for is a question that you need to answer. Are you buying for the person in the lifestyle that you are looking for right now or are you looking to buy for your 10 year older self who may be in a new relationship with kids or what have you?

And unfortunately, there’s a huge difference in cost for those two lifestyles when you’re young and single, the lifestyle that you have versus when you’re starting a family and thinking about being near a good school zone or what have you, that’s going to be a big difference in price for what type of home you’re looking at. One of the things that could potentially be a problem of trying to get onto that property ladder at any cost is that you may introduce all these transactional costs that will put a big dent in your net worth growth over time. So let me give an example. So a lot of people have been conditioned to buy a home. If you don’t own, you’re no good, you’re not an adult whatever. And so they buy these micro condos to start because that’s all they can afford at that stage in life. And then they meet someone else who has also bought their own little tiny condo. And you realize, two of you couldn’t live together in either one of those condos. And so you decide, well, we’re going to have to either sell both or become landlords, rent those out and find our own place that we can live in together. And that’s a little bit bigger. And then it gets more serious. Maybe you get married, you decide to have kids and you have to move again to find a home that’s going to be that lifestyle. And so I know a lot of people who have moved two, three, four times in the span of several years. Those transaction costs are killer. Could be to move. Sell a house, buy any house 10, 15 percent of the value of the home that you’re leaving. So that’s another thing to consider is home ownership is a big commitment. And there’s a lot of things that you want to account for when you pick this home that hopefully you’re going to be in for at least 10 years. And so if you’re thinking of what you’re going to be in this place for a couple of years, given where prices are versus rents, the flexibility that you give up just doesn’t seem that prudent for a lot of younger Canadians.

Roma: Thanks to Preet -- I love that last bit of advice

Rob:[00:31:11] Wrapping up here, some top takeaways from this episode. One, renting is a rational response to not being able to afford to own a house and has its own virtues. Your mobile, your costs are predictable and you don’t have to look after a property. Two can you be a wealthy renter? For sure. You just need discipline in investing the money you save because you don’t have to pay property taxes, upkeep and maintenance. Three Consider the benefits of being a renter in the post pandemic economy. Rents have come down in some urban centers, which means the savings over homeownership are even bigger.

[00:31:48] Thank you for listening to Stress Test.

[00:31:50] I’m Rob Carrick,

Roma: And I’m Roma Luciw. This show is produced and edited by Amanda Cupido with mixing and editing by TK Matunda. Kiran Rana is the executive producer.

Rob: If you like what you heard, make sure to subscribe to the show, share with a friend or leave a review on Apple podcasts. Cheers to 2021.

[00:32:18] This podcast was brought to you by CPP Investments as a member of the investment management industry. We’re committed to helping drive financial literacy among young Canadians, including providing information about our role in helping ensure the sustainability of the CPP. To learn more, visit CPP Investments Dot Com.

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