While the ar­ti­cle—First time home­own­ers need to be bet­ter pre­pared pub­lished in the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian of Sep­tem­ber 28—rais­es valid points about fi­nan­cial pre­pared­ness such as pre-ap­provals, bud­get­ing dis­ci­pline, and ac­count­ing for an­cil­lary costs—I could not help but find its over­all fram­ing some­what tone-deaf to the re­al­i­ties that many cit­i­zens face.

The nar­ra­tive seems to sug­gest that first-time buy­ers fail pri­mar­i­ly be­cause of in­suf­fi­cient knowl­edge or in­ad­e­quate prepa­ra­tion. In truth, the greater ob­sta­cle lies in struc­tur­al con­di­tions: stag­nant wages, ris­ing prop­er­ty val­ues, and an ever-in­creas­ing cost of liv­ing.

For many who live pay­cheque to pay­cheque, the no­tion of amass­ing sig­nif­i­cant sav­ings is not a mat­ter of poor plan­ning, but an eco­nom­ic im­pos­si­bil­i­ty.