Canadian Seniors More Likely To Have A Mortgage Than Young Adults

Canadian real estate in the 2020s is more for seniors than young adults, though it wasn’t always that way. Bank of Canada (BoC) 2024 mortgage data reveals that seniors are more likely to have a mortgage than those younger than 35 years old. Contrasting it with borrower age at origination reveals that those under 35 are less than half as likely as previous generations to own a home.

Canadian Seniors More Likely To Have A Mortgage Than Young Adults 

The share of mortgages by age of borrower in 2024, and age of borrower at origination.

Source: Bank of Canada; Better Dwelling.

Canada currently has more seniors with mortgages than people under 35 years old. Nearly half (49%) of mortgage debt is owed by those aged 45 to 64 years old—the prime earning years. Just a touch over a quarter (26%) is owed by middle aged households between 35 and 44 years old. That adds up to 3 out 4 outstanding mortgages, for those keeping track. 

The remainder is split between young adults and seniors, with the latter outpacing the former. Those under 35 years old represented 12% of Canada’s mortgage borrowers, while those 65 and older held 14% of mortgages. That’s an odd skew, and not just because the 20-34 year old population is slightly larger than those 65+, or the fact that households are carrying mortgages into their golden years. Previous generations were more than twice as likely to purchase a home before turning 35 years old. 

Canadians Younger Than 35 Less Likely To Own A Home Than Previous Generarions

The same mortgage data contains the age of the borrowers at origination (when the loan was first obtained). Even though nearly half of mortgages are held by those 45 years and older, most (52%) originated when the borrower was younger than 45 years old. Borrowers under 35 represent 23% of the originations, meaning current adults are less than half as likely to own at the same age. 

For those wondering if seniors just take out mortgages in the process of downsizing after retirement—that doesn’t appear to be the case. Despite representing 14% of borrowers, only 7% of borrowers originated their mortgage at 65+. More households are just carrying their mortgages into retirement—which isn’t a surprise considering that reverse mortgage debt is one of the fastest growing segments of lending.

2 Comments

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  • Reply
    Mortgage Guy 8 minutes ago

    You’re tip toeing around the issue, but we all know the senior mortgages are investment mortgages. The Libs granted first time buyers 30 year mortgages, then extended it to investors quietly for a reason.

  • Reply
    Omar 11 seconds ago

    Most important data point I’m surprised you didn’t mention—this was comprehensive mortgage data.

    Both Stats Can & those bank reports use sampling to determine ownership rates normally, which is why people under 40 know like 1 or 2 people who own a home but the gov claims it’s closer to half.

    Sampling is good for some data (hard to do unemployment any other way). But it’s a bad substitute for real existing data the government is normally just too lazy to drum up.

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