47-year-old Sask. student turns to crowdfunding to buy her very first home

Lori Deets has been in the rental market since she graduated high school almost 20 years ago. Now, she is hoping to crack into Saskatchewan's housing market with a novel approach: crowdfunding.

The 47-year-old university student, who started pursuing a higher education at 45 after working throughout her adult life, has found a trailer selling for $50,000 and is hoping to purchase it outright with donations from friends and family.

"I'm a helper and a giver within my community, so living in inadequate housing has been hard on us," she said, explaining that her current rental costs $900 a month, which eats up at least half her income.

The Regina apartment has no heating, meaning she and her 14-year-old son have to use space heaters in their bedrooms, she said. Finding rentals as an Indigenous woman has also been challenging, with some landlords seeming unwilling to rent to her and her son, or to let her smudge within the rental, she said.

"I have honestly never tried to get a mortgage because I know I've never qualified. I've never made enough income. I can't afford it," she said. "But does that mean that I don't deserve permanent housing in a housing crisis? We need to start thinking outside of the box."

Saskatchewan's rental rates might be among the most affordable in the country, but vacancy rates are virtually zero and the demand for rentals continues to be very strong, according to Cameron Choquette, CEO for the Saskatchewan Landlord Association.

Population growth has also continued to fuel demand for those rentals, with 30,000 new people making Saskatchewan home last year, he noted.

"It is harder to find a place right now and that demand is outstripping the supply that's present in the province," he said, noting all that means rental rates are on the rise. "We've seen a consistent increase over the past 12 to 18 months due to both inflation, cost of living and the cost of providing that rental housing."

Ryan Boughen is a mortgage broker with TMG, The Mortgage Group, in Regina. He said higher interest rates, combined with factors like being a student and having student loans or other debt, can make it harder for people to break into the property market.

"There's lots of different tools that people try to tap into because it can be challenging to save for a down payment," he noted, adding people are increasingly looking at drawing from their RRSPs or other savings, or relying on gifts from family, to scrape together down payments.

Given Deets's situation as a student, it's likely she would struggle to qualify for a mortgage, making her ambition to own a trailer a smart move, he said.

"It's not for everybody, but she's going modest, and if she can reach her goal, that would be amazing." 

Deets said her crowdfunding goals were inspired by the 2005 story of a Canadian blogger who traded his way up from one red paperclip to getting a house in Kipling, Sask.

She said she's built up a lot of support and connections in her life, which she thought she could use to help her raise the money for her new home.