ZERO Growth: How Canada’s New Population Targets Will Reshape the Housing Market

Canada's housing downturn is no longer simply a story of declining property values. A broader deterioration in household finances, employment and business confidence is beginning to reinforce the weakness already gripping real estate markets. The concern is not any single economic indicator. It is how these pressures are increasingly connected, creating a cycle that could deepen the housing downturn while undermining the construction activity needed for future supply. Financial distress i...

Canada's housing market is facing an extraordinary contradiction. After years of government efforts to improve affordability, home prices are finally falling across major Canadian cities. But as sales volumes collapse, so does a significant source of government revenue. British Columbia collected $3.33 billion in property transfer taxes during the 2021–2022 housing boom. For 2025–2026, that revenue is forecast to fall to approximately $1.75 billion, a staggering 47% decline. And now, with...

Vancouver has officially entered a buyer's market, a condition that has occurred in only about one out of every ten months over the past 21 years. And while buyers may have felt increasingly powerful for some time, September's numbers confirm just how dramatically the balance of power has shifted. Metro Vancouver recorded only 1,713 home sales in September 2026, an 8.4% annual decline and the fifth-slowest September in the available data dating back to 2005. Sales were 25% below the ten-yea...

Vancouver real estate is entering the final stretch of 2026 with a growing problem: buyers are losing confidence at exactly the moment borrowing costs are threatening to rise again. Consumer confidence fell 6.9 points in September, its steepest monthly decline since the trade war began in early 2025. Even more significant for housing, the Real Estate Outlook Index has fallen 8.4 points since late August, its sharpest three-week deterioration since July 2022, when the Bank of Canada delivered...

Canada’s housing market is heading into the final months of 2026 with a problem few expected earlier this year: just as affordability was finally improving, borrowing costs are threatening to move higher again. The U.S. Federal Reserve has raised interest rates for the first time since 2023, lifting its benchmark rate by 25 basis points. More importantly for Canadians, U.S. bond yields have surged, with the 10-year Treasury reaching 5%. Canadian fixed mortgage rates don't operate in isolati...