亚洲天堂: ''

Views: That's 'low'? Yeesh. 

Admittedly I'm a little out of the loop when it comes to rent. It's been more than 25 years since I rented a place and the costs back then paled in comparison to what we see now.  A few years back my son moved to Victoria and I was taken aback at the tiny room $1,100 a month got him. That was more than my mortgage payment at the time and it struck me as decidedly unfair. Still does. 

How are our young people supposed to get ahead? Own a home?

The most I ever paid I rent was $400 a month sharing a house with a buddy in Nanaimo. I had previously paid $375 to live with another roommate; $400 for a decrepit cottage on my own in Duncan; $125 or so to live with a couple of other lovely roommates and about $300 in a house with my sister. That鈥檚 it. So the current rates (especially on the Island) blow me away. 

I asked a few Black Press colleagues about their first renting experience. (I鈥檒l leave their names out but bonus points for correct guesses). Here鈥檚 a sampling:

鈥�1978, $600 for a three-bedroom apartment in Edmonton. Sketchy area of the city. Woke up one morning to find a stranger sleeping in the hammock we had on our deck.鈥�

"$850 for a one- bedroom in Lac La Hache, alongside a living room and kitchen. Really good deal, to be honest."

"$450 for a one-bedroom in Kitsilano. Would be double that for a parking spot now."

"I'm still in the basement of my parent's place, but when I got my job my rent started at $1,100 a month."

"$800, around the year 2000, basement suite, and one year the landlords upstairs went away for a week in the winter and turned the thermostat all the way down."

"2008, $600 for one bedroom in a basement suite with four other rooms and a kitchenette at Oak/49th while going to Langara College."

"2010, one-bedroom apartment in Smithers for $800 a month."

"$500 for a bedroom and utilities, in a house with four people in Kelowna. This was circa 2014."

"Maybe $600 a month in the early 2000s in Calgary."

"$300 for a one-bedroom apartment in Merritt in 1986. My monthly reporter's salary was $1,100."  

"$700 (with my parents paying half) for an apartment in Red Deer 2012. Now $1,950, split with my wife, for an apartment in Courtenay."

"$500/month for a two-bedroom basement suite in New Westminster in1997. So my rent was $250. Included internet and cable."

"My first rent was $275 a month which was my share of a two-bedroom apartment in 1980 in Winnipeg."

"$350 for a three-bedroom house in Ottawa, split three ways with guitar player and drummer, roughly $117 each... 1980."

"$800 a month for a three-bedroom townhouse in Ottawa, split between four university students in 1990/91. First place I rented alone: $435 per month for one-bedroom apartment in Ladysmith in 1994/95."

"1994, Greenwood B.C. $400 for half of a giant apartment above the bank, and my roommate paid about the same. It was a wicked party apartment with a great view of the province's smallest city."

"1989ish college, $200 for my share of a Kitsilano basement suite I shared with a good friend and his 85-year-old granddad, who only spoke Greek."

"The place I stayed for three years during university in Kamloops was $850 for a one-bedroom side suite, 2015-18. Because I was a student, very thankful for my gramma, who paid my rent during that time."

"$700 for a dark basement room in old Ottawa South."

"$400 a month for a third (top) floor one-bedroom apartment in Richmond with a clear view over the airport to the North Shore mountains. It had a wood-burning fireplace and a massive deck with a huge storage room. This was in 1987-88."

"$900 a month for the basement of a home, two-bedroom, one bathroom and kitchen included in Williams Lake in 2018. It has since been converted into some kind of massage parlour after I and the guy living upstairs moved out."
 
"When I was at my first journalism summer job, in the summer of 1990, my rent was $146 a month for a furnished place. The parking space brought it up to $175. I was in a shabby building, next door to the town drunk, but still, for a few months, it was workable."

"$600 two-room apartment in Thunder Bay back in 2011, split between three people."

"Zihuatanejo, bungalow on the beach, $7/day."

"I paid $325 a month for a room in a townhouse in Harewood my first year of college, 2003-2004."

"$900 in Nanaimo in 2016."

"I'm really old but $250 in Duncan around 1986. The landlord's mother kept peering into our window. It was creepy."

"My first roommate and I split a $400/month two-bedroom on the outskirts of Chinatown in Victoria in 1988."

I'd love to hear from you, our readers. How much was your first rent? What do you think of today's prices? And what possible solutions might you have in terms of creating more affordable housing?

PQB 亚洲天堂/VI Free Daily editor  can be reached by phone at 250-905-0019, or by email at philip.wolf@blackpress.ca.