Must make sacrifices to own a home

Re: Home prices soaring

When I first read the letter from Mr. Ritchie I checked the calendar to see if it was April 1st and he was playing a joke. I can't believe that anyone would be so crazy as wanting the Government to have a say of what I can sell my private residence for.

This great country was founded on the principles of a free market society and the minute those principles are eroded we will be on a slippery slope to a more Government-controlled society we do not want or can afford.

Canada is not in the same financial trouble with mortgages as the US. We thankfully had some standards where people getting a mortgage had to at least prove they had a job and could afford it.

The trouble, I suspect, is people buying more house or wanting more house than they can afford, after an income is lost due to a job loss or to a new baby.

As long as there are people able to pay the prices in the Okanagan for
houses and those houses sell the price will not go down. This is called supply and demand.

The other problem is with people who think they are "owed" a place to live in the Okanagan, this is a false sense of entitlement. I lived in Vancouver as a young married man and I could see that it would be difficult to afford a house on our incomes. We made sacrifices leaving our families and moved to Kelowna in the '80s where I could afford a place on our income and made a go of it.

The times have changed and now Kelowna is not an affordable place for some families. The logical choice would be to make some sacrifices and relocate where you can afford to live in a lifestyle that you would like and avoid telling the rest of us who made these sacrifices in the past to now let our house values deflate so you can buy a house that you feel you are owed.

Randy Mueller