A person walks past multiple for-sale and sold real estate signs in Mississauga, Ont., on May 24, 2023.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Millennial Moron is a self-appointed housing prognosticator who, with his dry wit and dour analysis of Canadian indebtedness, is more than a comedic content creator. He’s a voice of his generation.
He first rose to social media prominence a year ago for videos showing the absurdity of modest Canadian properties selling for around the same price as European castles or private Caribbean islands. He’s graduated to explaining Bank of Canada moves, and his worries about the country entering a period of Japanese-style stagflation.
“I’ve always known that something bad is going to happen. I just didn’t know what form it was going to take,” said MM in an interview.
(The Globe and Mail knows MM’s real name but he has asked that it not be used. He doesn’t want it connected to his alter ego, which he chose because he’s 35, smack-dab in the middle of his cohort, and because he thought it was what detractors would call him. I am not following The Globe’s style guide in this column, as it would have me referring to him as Mr. Moron.)
His videos encompass the housing calamity that spans the country, from New Brunswick to British Columbia. Suitably, for a period when Alberta is gaining tens of thousands of interprovincial migrants each year, MM himself is an Ontario transplant to this Western province.
But MM is not an economist. He is an amateur analyst who has watched housing costs and Canadian indebtedness rise for 15 years, all the while worrying about what would happen when interest rates inevitably went up. His videos on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram have attracted millions of views because of his wry juxtapositions, including one showing a burnt out house in London, Ont. that costs the same as a tidy Italian villa.
People come for the jokes but return for the spreadsheets and charts, and analysis on variable interest rate mortgages. It all speaks directly to people under age 45 terrified by their housing costs, or who believe they will be living in their parents’ basements for the next decade.
What he offers up is not unlike what comes from some institutional sources, including the Bank of Canada. But it’s akin to getting your news through late-night television comedians.
MM’s take in a recent video is: “We might get a tiny bit of interest rate relief in the coming year, but if rate cuts come, they’re probably going to be in response to a weakening economy and reduced disposable income, which doesn’t exactly bode well for the housing market,” and a dig: “Although I’m sure there’s hundreds of realtors on social media that will disagree with me.”
He believes his commentary is straightforward, and stating the obvious. What differentiates him: “I’m an industry outsider and I’m not selling anything.”
His basic hypothesis is that Canada’s high home values, propped up by record mortgage debt, are going to clash with a fast-growing population and a weak economy. This will lead to very bad things.
Many have discussed and dismissed a dramatic financial crisis here, similar to the type that began in the American subprime market 15 years ago. “They had so many risky credit products all interacting with each other that everything collapsed at once,” he said. The Canadian crisis is more likely to see “prolonged suffering over many years.”
Naturally people are going to try to, and often will, hold onto their homes through all of this. But that will come at the cost. People won’t move for a new job, he points out, or they will have to dedicate more of their income to servicing debt.
As employment weakens, this sets Canada up for a world of macroeconomic and individual financial pain. “It’s going to be similar in that regard to what happened in Japan – they have the lost generation,” MM said, referring to the long malaise that entrenched itself in the Asian powerhouse.
It would appear MM’s monologues are just focused on real estate and money. But more deeply, he advises his viewers to focus on building meaningful personal and community relationships to steel them through financial turmoil.
MM might not be right about everything. But some type of reckoning on housing will come. For decades, and through successive governments, the country has let its housing stock dwindle, poured money into real estate rather than other productive ventures, and has laid out the conditions for houses to often be investment vehicles rather than places to live.
The fact housing in Canada has become as unattainable and income-sapping as it is will continue to be debilitating for the country’s economy, and people.
“We’re in a situation where a lot of people have made a lot of profit, and they’ve made a lot of money,” MM said. “But we’ve lost something of value.”