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 30 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.”

Challenges of breaking into property market

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.”

One red paper clip inspiration

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.

• Canadian blogger trades his way from paper clip to his own house

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.

“I just am taking the bull by the horns and creating that opportunity for myself,” she said.

Friends and family rallied behind her Facebook campaign and helped her raise $10,000 of her goal within three weeks. Asked what she would do with the money if she doesn’t meet her goal, she said she is fully focused on getting there and hasn’t really thought of the alternative.

Her son, Alex Sauer, said he’s impressed by his mom’s efforts, saying he’s her “biggest supporter” and is eager for a better housing situation.

“I’ll be able to study, do my homework in heat. I won’t have to cover up with blankets. I won’t have to walk around in sweaters, and I will be able to dress however I’d like in my house,” he said.

Deets said her son is really motivating her efforts.

“Being a Sixties Scoop survivor, life hasn’t always been easy for me. It always seems like I’m fighting a struggle,” she said.

Although she started university later in life, she wants to pave the way for better things for her son, starting with a home to call their own.

“I want him to go from high school to have those opportunities and I need this permanent stability in order to make those things happen.”