Higher incomes, enforced savings in the north key to this young couple's home-buying dream

A couple we’ll call Tracie and Kevin moved to northern Quebec two years ago in search of a fresh start. Both of them had tried their hand at living in Montreal and failed. Tracie, 31, had wrapped her Master’s degree but couldn’t find steady work in the city. Between her substitute teacher roles and the work that she’d put in at youth centres, she was barely making enough to live on. “It was paycheque-to-paycheque for me,”...