There was a time when buying a home in Ontario was considered a realistic milestone of adulthood. For many young people today, it feels more like winning the lottery.
A striking new poll conducted on behalf of Royal LePage found that 55% of Greater Toronto Area residents would consider moving to a more affordable Canadian city if they could secure employment there. Edmonton, Thunder Bay, Charlottetown and Windsor-Essex ranked among the most attractive destinations.
Think about what that means. More than half of the people living in Canada’s largest economic region are willing to leave in pursuit of a dream that previous generations took for granted: homeownership.
The poll is not simply a snapshot of consumer sentiment. It is evidence of a profound change in Ontario’s housing market and the opportunities available to younger generations.
The numbers explain why.
Over the past 25 years, Ontario’s typical house price-to-income ratio has roughly doubled. Around the turn of the millennium, a home generally cost about three to four times a household’s annual income. By the 2021-22 peak, that ratio had climbed to seven to nine times income in many urban markets, and even after higher interest rates cooled prices somewhat, affordability remains dramatically worse than historical norms.
In other words, incomes have not remotely kept pace with housing costs.
The result is that many Ontarians are now doing what would have seemed inconceivable a generation ago: looking hundreds or even thousands of kilometres away for a chance to own a home.
It is difficult to build a strong economy when workers feel they must leave the province’s largest urban centre simply to attain a basic middle-class aspiration.
The irony is that this crisis is unfolding even as housing construction is slowing sharply.
A recent report prepared for RESCON by the Missing Middle Initiative at the University of Ottawa paints a troubling picture. Housing starts across 50 Ontario municipalities fell 31% in the first quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier. Home sales dropped 68%.
The situation in Toronto was even more alarming. Housing starts were down 47%, sales plunged 69%, and industry employment fell by more than 10,300 workers.
Condominium construction, traditionally one of the major sources of new housing supply in urban centres, has been particularly hard hit. Condo apartment starts were down 60% compared with average first-quarter levels from 2021 through 2025.
These are not the numbers of a market steadily solving a housing shortage. They are the numbers of a market struggling to produce the homes Ontarians need.
Governments deserve credit for at least recognizing the problem. Both Ottawa and Queen’s Park have introduced temporary HST rebates and agreements to lower development charges on new housing projects.
Those measures are a move in the right direction. But they have yet to fundamentally change the affordability equation.
The reason is simple. The tax burden on housing remains extraordinarily high. According to RESCON, taxes and government-imposed charges account for roughly 36% of the purchase price of a new home in Ontario. That means more than one-third of the cost of many newly built homes stems from taxes, fees and charges before a family even moves in.
We need to address the burden of government-imposed costs on new housing and reduce them significantly. Housing is just too vital to the economic health of our country. Presently, we are taxing housing like alcohol and tobacco - which are wants and not a need. This has to change.
The decline in construction activity should be alarming not only for prospective buyers but for policymakers concerned about economic growth, as it affects the number of jobs in the industry.
Perhaps the most troubling consequence is its apparent impact on family formation and birth rates.
Toronto’s fertility rate has fallen to just 1.11 children per woman, well below Canada’s already low national rate of 1.25 and far beneath the replacement level of 2.1 needed to sustain population levels without significant immigration.
Researchers increasingly point to housing affordability as an important factor.
Statistics Canada found that 37% of Canadians aged 15 to 49 did not believe they could afford to have a child within the next three years. Nearly one-third said they lacked access to the housing they would need to start or expand a family.
When young couples postpone homeownership, they often postpone having children. Some eventually abandon those plans altogether.
It appears the housing crisis is affecting not just where people live, but how they live and whether they pursue some of life’s most important goals.
This is why younger Ontarians remain skeptical about their prospects for owning a home.
Polling consistently shows that while they appreciate governments are finally paying attention to housing, many do not believe meaningful progress has yet been achieved. Surveys have found fewer than half of Ontarians aged 18 to 38 believe homeownership is achievable.
That skepticism is understandable.
If governments want young people to build their futures in Toronto and Ontario, they must tackle the underlying costs that make housing so expensive in the first place. Temporary measures may provide modest relief, but permanent reductions in taxes, fees, development charges and regulatory barriers will be necessary to dramatically increase supply and reduce prices.
Otherwise, Ontario risks becoming a place where young people can build careers, but not homes, families or futures.
