Saving up for your first home can take some serious time, and a new study has revealed that Gen Z in Calgary has quite the window of time needed to get to that goal.
Point2Homes rounded up the time needed to save for a down payment in the 20 largest Canadian cities, and YYC came up in the middle of the pack when it comes to stashing money away to get the keys to a first home for Gen Z.
Calgary came in 12th place, with an individual income of $20,073 and a starter home price of $303,350.
A 20% down payment works out to be $60,670, which would take 15.1 years to save up for.
The top 10 is dominated by spots in Ontario and BC, with Markham, Ontario, taking the top spot with a whopping 40+ years needed for Gen Z to save up for a down payment there.
Point2Homes
The study also broke down the time needed to save for a down payment for all generations, which can be found here.
For this study, Point2Homes considered the 20 largest Census Subdivisions (Cities) based on the most recent data from Statistics Canada 2021 Census of Population.
Starter home prices in all 20 cities were considered homes estimated to be priced at half the local benchmark price. The national benchmark home price was sourced from CREA and home prices for the 20 most populous cities in Canada were sourced from local MLSs.
The survey was posted on Point2Homes.com between March and June 2024, and 1,361 people participated, 890 of whom were renters. For this study, only the answers provided by renters were considered.