you will never be a real homeowner. you have no mortgage, you have no deed, you have no property tax. you are a renter twisted by leases and landlords into a crude mockery of a homeowners perfection.  all the validation you get from your housewarming parties is two-faced and half-hearted. behind your back, people mock your lack of equity. your parents are disappointed that you dont have a guest room for them to stay in, your friends laugh at your lack of a backyard behind closed doors.  realtors are utterly repulsed by you. thousands of years of evolution have allowed realtors to sniff out renters with incredible efficiency. even renters who pass as homeowners look uncanny and unnatural to a realtor. your lack of a welcome mat is a dead giveaway. and even if you manage to get a realtor to show you a house, theyll turn tail and bolt the second they get a whiff of your lack of pre-approval.  you will never be happy with your rental. you wrench out a fake smile every single time you write that rent check and tell yourself its going to be ok, but deep inside you feel the fomo creeping up like a weed, ready to crush you under the unbearable weight of not being able to paint your walls whatever color you want.  eventually, itll be too much to bear  youll buy a book on home buying, read the first chapter, put it down, and plunge into the cold abyss of signing another year-long lease. your parents will find out, heartbroken but relieved that they no longer have to live with the unbearable shame and disappointment of not being able to brag about your home ownership to their friends. theyll send you a housewarming gift for your rental marked with your birth name, and every passerby for the rest of eternity will know a renter lives there. your security deposit will decay and go back to the landlord, and all that will remain of your legacy is an apartment that is unmistakably rented.  this is your fate. this is what you chose. there is no turning
Canada