A Pattern We’re Seeing with Affluent Families
There’s a pattern that comes up in conversations with affluent families, especially in cities like Vancouver. Parents who worked hard for decades, built businesses, and invested well often find themselves in a position where they own multiple properties or have substantial assets. On paper, the family is financially secure. Yet their adult children are still renting, struggling to enter the housing market, and finding it harder each year to get started.
Why It Happens
What makes this pattern interesting is that it rarely comes from selfishness or neglect. In most cases, it comes from love and from experience. Many parents who are successful today remember a time when money felt uncertain. They learned to protect what they had, to keep control, and to rely on themselves rather than assume help would be there. Those habits served them well and often explain why they succeeded in the first place.
But the same instincts that helped build wealth can sometimes make it harder for the next generation to begin building their own.
The Quiet Cost of Waiting
The issue is not usually a lack of resources. More often, it is the absence of a deliberate plan. Decisions about helping children with housing or financial support are postponed. Conversations feel uncomfortable and get pushed to another time. Support, if it exists, remains informal and undefined. Meanwhile, years pass, housing prices rise, and opportunities that once seemed attainable move further away.
In a market like Vancouver, time plays a powerful role. Buying a first home earlier in life does more than provide a place to live. It allows equity to build, creates financial flexibility, and often shapes long-term stability. When that step is delayed by five or ten years, the difference can be significant. The gap compounds quietly, and catching up becomes much harder.
There’s a moment in The Big Short where a few investors realize what’s happening in the housing market years before everyone else does. The difference between being early and being late ends up being enormous. Real estate doesn’t work the same way for individuals, but the principle is similar. Time in the market quietly changes outcomes, and once those years pass, they’re difficult to get back.
The Tension Nobody Says Out Loud
This situation can also create tension that remains unspoken. Parents may feel they are encouraging resilience or independence by holding back. Children may feel they are working hard but still falling behind, even while knowing that wealth exists in the family. Neither perspective is unreasonable, but without open discussion and intentional planning, both sides can end up feeling frustrated.
This Isn’t About Entitlement
It is important to recognize that this is not a conversation about entitlement. Most families are not looking to remove effort or responsibility from the next generation. What they are trying to find is a way to provide a fair starting point without creating dependency. The distinction matters. Giving without structure can create problems of its own, but thoughtful planning can strengthen both financial outcomes and family relationships.
There’s a line of thinking you hear sometimes that people should succeed entirely on their own, that struggle is a necessary part of proving yourself. Characters like Harvey Specter in Suits embody that idea of earning your place and relying entirely on your own ability. There’s value in that mindset. But in real life, most success stories aren’t built alone. They’re built with guidance, opportunities, and timing that made the path possible in the first place.
What Thoughtful Support Can Look Like
Families who approach this successfully tend to think in terms of structure rather than simple transfers of money. Sometimes support takes the form of a loan with agreed-upon terms, which allows a child to enter the market while maintaining accountability. In other cases, parents help with a down payment as part of a broader estate plan. Some families explore co-ownership arrangements or trusts that set out expectations and responsibilities in advance. The details vary, but the common thread is that these decisions are made intentionally rather than reactively.
A Brief Note on Taxes
Planning in advance can also have tax implications that are worth considering. Coordinating property ownership, gifts, and estate plans over time often leads to better outcomes than leaving everything to be sorted out later. Families who take the time to plan early may reduce unnecessary taxes, avoid administrative complications, and preserve more of what they have built. While tax savings are rarely the primary motivation, they are often a meaningful benefit.
Questions Worth Asking
For many people, the hardest part of this process is simply starting the conversation. It requires stepping back and asking a few honest questions. Are you helping your children move forward, or are decisions being delayed out of habit or uncertainty?
Are they building their own foundation, or waiting for the right moment that never quite arrives?
If something unexpected were to happen tomorrow, would your estate plan provide direction, or would your family be left trying to interpret intentions that were never written down?
These are not easy questions, but they are important ones. Avoiding them does not prevent the issue from developing; it usually makes the eventual conversations more difficult.
The Bigger Point
Most parents share the same goals. They want their children to be capable, responsible, and secure. Thoughtful planning does not take those values away. In many ways, it reinforces them by giving the next generation a path to stand on their own rather than leaving them to navigate uncertainty alone.
At its core, this isn’t really about money. It’s about how families use what they’ve built to help their children become independent in a practical, healthy way. Most parents are trying to do the right thing. Planning just makes the support more intentional, and avoids misunderstandings down the road.
If This Feels Familiar
For families who have been thinking about these issues, it can be helpful to talk them through with someone who has seen different approaches and outcomes. There is no single right way to structure generational wealth transfers, but there are many ways to do it thoughtfully, in a way that respects both independence and the work that built the wealth in the first place.
If this is something your family has been thinking about, you can book an online consultation or reach out to our team at your convenience. We’ll walk through the key considerations and help you put a clear, practical plan in place so your family is prepared if circumstances change.
