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Andrea Stucchi counts her blessings. She has a good job, a stellar education, a supportive family; she and her husband even have an enviable toehold in Vancouver’s red-hot real estate market — a 690-square-foot studio in Kitsilano they purchased four-and-a-half years ago.

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The couple had put off kids for a few years to pursue their careers and in the hopes of getting a bigger place to raise a child, but with student loans, a hefty mortgage, and skyrocketing property prices that saw the benchmark price for a detached home in Greater Vancouver jump an astounding 30 per cent in the last year, that goal now seems impossible.

“We’ve resigned ourselves to the fact we’re likely going to be raising a child in a studio apartment with no walls and no bedrooms,” said Stucchi, who holds a full-time administrative job at the University of B.C. while pursuing a master’s degree. “It’s going to be quite cramped for a few years.”