2026 Canadian Real Estate Sentiment Report

For most of the last decade, the Canadian housing market was like a balloon bouquet being offered to a wide-eyed child. Get a hand on it — elation. Let it slip through your fingers and whoosh, it soars out of reach forever.

In 2026, those balloons aren’t quite as exhilarating. They’re still pretty, and mostly buoyant, but it’s hard for kids to focus on them when the price of candy is through the roof.

The current market downturn is often attributed to curdled home buying sentiment. Because sentiment is such a vague, fascinating concept, NerdWallet wanted to dig into Canadians’ feelings about real estate to find out why they’re buying so little of it.

It turns out emotion hasn't played as large a role as economics.

But that’s not all we discovered. With the help of Angus Reid, we surveyed 1,501 Canadians about the challenges of the housing market, their feelings about real estate agents, their homeownership regrets, and a whole lot more.

Canada might not be known as an opinionated country, but when it comes to housing we have some thoughts.

Of the non-homeowners surveyed, over half (55%) said they have no interest in buying a home in the next 12 months. Only 6% said they plan to buy their first home over the same period, while virtually none said they plan to buy an investment property.

Non-homeowning women (62%) were more likely to say they have no interest in buying than non-owning men (47%), while residents in Quebec (68%), Saskatchewan and Manitoba (54%) and Ontario (52%) showed less interest in purchasing a home than those in other provinces.

Demand is still simmering, though: 35% of non-homeowners said they want to buy a home in the next 12 months but will likely continue renting (28%) or living either at home or with relatives (7%).

Ironically (and sadly, and worryingly), plans to buy a home in the next year were more common among Canadians who already own property.

While 78% of homeowners have no plans to change their homeownership status over the next 12 months, 5% plan to buy and move into a home larger than the one they currently own, 6% plan to buy and move into a home smaller than the one they currently own and 2% plan to buy an investment property.

The nebulous concept of “economic uncertainty” is often blamed for throttling housing demand. As a catch-all term, it’s fairly handy. It saves journalists from enumerating all the economic headwinds — provincial, national and global — that might be impacting home buyer decisions.

But it’s actually current economic conditions, not fears about the future, that are preventing Canadians from changing their living situation.

Nearly a quarter of Canadians (23%) said that other living costs being too high or unpredictable was preventing them from moving in the next 12 months. The other most frequently cited obstacles included not being able to afford a down payment (18%), having other financial priorities (17%), waiting for house prices to decrease (16%) and mortgage rates being too high (15%).

The obstacles that fall into the “economic uncertainty” bucket were selected far less frequently.

Only 6% of Canadians said their unease around the trade situation with the U.S. was preventing them from moving in the next 12 months. Other related obstacles included a lack of confidence regarding job security (8%) and concerns about a recession (11%).

Almost nine-in-10 Canadians (88%) agreed that homes in Canada are overpriced. The level of agreement was consistently high across geographies, income levels and genders. The only noticeable difference was between Canadians aged 18-34, 92% of whom agreed, and those aged 55-plus, of whom 82% agreed.

There was also widespread agreement that the housing market is unfair to first-time buyers (69%) and that it’s too focused on housing as an investment (68%). But there was a significant generational divide regarding the latter view, with 78% of 18-34s and 74% of 35-54s agreeing compared to 57% of those 55 and older.

A distressing generational split also emerged regarding access to the housing market. While 42% of Canadians agreed that homeownership feels out of reach, 18-34s were about twice as likely to agree (63%) as those aged 55-plus (31%).

Just 14% of Canadians agreed that the market is functioning the way it should.

Canadians were luke-warm when asked their feelings about the more than 100,000 real estate agents operating in the country.

While the highest percentages of Canadians said their overall opinion of real estate agents was either somewhat positive (31%) or neutral (30%), almost as many characterized their opinion as very negative (8%) as very positive (9%). Just under a fifth of Canadians (19%) said their overall opinion of real estate agents was somewhat negative.

Still, the vast majority of Canadians believe that agents bring something to the table: 18% said agents provide a lot of value during the home buying process, while 41% said they bring some value and 28% said they provide limited value. Only 6% of Canadians said real estate agents provide no value.

On a regional basis, agents fared better in Alberta, where the highest percentage of respondents had very positive (13%) or somewhat positive (35%) opinions of them, and felt that agents bring a lot of value (22%) or some value (47%) to the home buying process.

Owning a home is an admirable life goal; achieving it doesn’t mean the struggle is over.

More than four-in-ten homeowners (42%) expressed some form of regret related to homeownership.

The most frequently cited regrets related to homeownership were maintenance demands that have been more difficult than expected (16%) and non-mortgage costs that have gotten too high (13%).

Regrets around non-mortgage expenses were highest in Atlantic Canada (20%) and Alberta (17%) and lowest in Saskatchewan and Manitoba (8%) and Quebec (10%).

Overall, the responses confirm the relative stability of Canada’s homeowner class.

Only 9% said they regret that homeownership is more expensive than anticipated, and even fewer (7%) regret that renewing their mortgage has led to increased financial pressure. Similar percentages said they regret overpaying for their house (7%) or that the value of their home has decreased (8%).