Do you need to own a home to be wealthy in Canada? How renters can get ahead
Global News
Some renters might be feeling less secure about their finances than if they owned a home, but experts say there's a path to build wealth outside the housing market in Canada.
Graham Isador says it feels strange to think about himself as one of the “lucky ones” in Toronto’s notoriously unaffordable housing market.
The 35-year-old freelance writer is a renter, and pays just under $2,000 for a two-bedroom apartment in the city’s downtown core. That’s well below the market rates his friends in the neighbourhood are paying, Isador says.
It’s a relatively affordable apartment, but it’s also become something like a pair of “golden handcuffs,” he tells Global News.
Isador says he’s only been able to hold on to a steady rate of rent because he’s been in the same unit for the past six years. But paying for that apartment on his own is already eating up a “pretty big portion” of his monthly expenses, and the prospect of having to move and probably see those payments spike hundreds of dollars fills him with a certain dread.
“The biggest thing that characterizes my relationship with renting is just a nervousness that what I have right now won’t last forever or might go away,” Isador says.
That anxiety comes as the cost-of-living crisis appears to be getting more bleak for young Canadians, with groceries and housing becoming more expensive in the past year.
Recent Ipsos polling conducted exclusively for Global News shows that while owning a home feels further out of reach, more Canadians feel it’s important for their financial security.
According to the polling released Friday, 71 per cent of respondents said they felt it’s possible to be financially secure without owning a home, but that figure is down nine percentage points from a similar survey in March 2023.
