“Down payment assistance is no longer a backup plan — it’s a requirement for many Canadians hoping to buy,” said Lauren van den Berg, president and CEO of Mortgage Professionals Canada. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images) · NurPhoto via Getty Images
Getting help from family to make a down payment on a new home is no longer a “nice-to-have.” Instead, it’s becoming a necessity for Canadians looking to buy a home, according to a new report from Mortgage Professionals Canada (MPC).
The organization’s 2025 State of the Housing Market report reveals that among buyers in the last two years, 70 per cent say they couldn’t have bought their home without financial help. Among all respondents, that number was 58 per cent. About 35 per cent of Canadians acknowledge they will never buy a home.
“Down payment assistance is no longer a backup plan — it’s a requirement for many Canadians hoping to buy,” said Lauren van den Berg, president and CEO of Mortgage Professionals Canada, in a statement.
These findings underscore the deepening challenges of housing affordability in Canada.
Young Canadians buying their first homes, in particular, may face the greatest barriers to home ownership without financial support.
Canada’s youngest households — those under 35 — are building wealth at the slowest pace of any age group, in part because they’re reducing their real estate holdings, according to a Statistics Canada report on the savings and wealth of Canadians.
Young prospective buyers may be giving up on the housing market due to affordability issues, the report added.
Homebuyers who entered the market when interest rates dropped from 2020 to 2022 may have also dropped their real estate holdings because they moved into more affordable accommodations – or are putting their financial focus on repaying existing mortgage debt, the report says.
More than half of Canadians (56 per cent) agree that now is a bad time to buy, and 60 per cent believe that, due to previously lower interest rates, many Canadians bought homes when they probably shouldn’t have, the MPC report says.
Canadians largely expect home prices to rise another 5 to 10 per cent, especially those living in Alberta and Quebec.
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