This woman pays 100% of her income on rent

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadian-rent-expensive-1.7240858

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She had to sell her house after her divorce and now pays $2,679 per month for a three-bedroom townhouse in the same neighbourhood. She didn't want her children, a teen boy and teen girl, to have to switch schools or share a bedroom

Then... What did selling the house achieve...?

She probably didn't qualify to take on the whole mortgage without her ex-Spouse.

Understood. I've only recently been learning how much Canadian mortgages force their lendees to "readjust" to new conditions. In the US you can generally keep the initial terms shy of a refinance or foreclosure

Can you provide any local insight as to whether you can find a decent house at a lower rate than that?

I know housing affordability is a shit show there and that lady isn't making enough no matter what she does but I'm curious how much she could have lowered that percentage

I'm pretty sure she'd be in the same situation in the US. Assuming the house was jointly owned and she had the ability to buy out her ex-Spouse's equity or get the whole home in the divorce, there would still be a change of ownership, so she'd need to get a new mortgage solely in her name.

I know I've heard of couples splitting up and coming up with creative solutions, like continuing to jointly own the house, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

It might have been part of the divorce, selling the house and splitting the profits.

Someone had to pay their lawyer.