More Than Half of Toronto Gen Z Say Affordability Could Drive Them Out Within Five Years: Ipsos

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Toronto’s appeal has long rested on a trade-off: housing and daily life may cost more, but the city offers jobs, universities, culture and access to one of Canada’s largest economic hubs. For a growing share of younger residents, that bargain appears to be breaking down.

New Ipsos polling conducted for the Toronto Region Board of Trade found that 52% of Gen Z respondents said they were likely to leave Toronto within the next five years because of affordability concerns. The result is especially striking because the same sentiment reached 37% across all Toronto adults and 46% among Millennials. Rather than describing a distant housing problem, the findings capture a more immediate question facing young residents: whether building a stable adult life in Toronto still makes financial sense.

The 52% Figure Is a Warning About Intentions, Not a Moving Count

Ipsos polled 801 Toronto adults between July 20 and August 4, 2026, through its I-Say online panel. Among Gen Z respondents, 52% said affordability made them likely to leave Toronto within five years. Millennials were not far behind at 46%, while the figure across all respondents was 37%. That makes younger residents considerably more likely to contemplate an exit than Toronto’s population overall. The finding does not mean half of the city’s Gen Z population has booked a moving truck, but it does show that relocation has entered the realm of realistic consideration for many.

That distinction matters. People who tell pollsters they may leave do not necessarily follow through; careers, partners, family ties and changing housing markets can alter plans. Still, the result captures something more consequential than momentary frustration. Young adults are considering where careers, relationships and families might be built over several years. When more than half of one generation says the financial equation could push them elsewhere, affordability has started influencing long-term life planning rather than merely monthly budgeting.

Affordability Has Become Toronto’s Defining Economic Anxiety

The Gen Z result sits inside a much broader mood of economic pessimism. In the same Ipsos polling, 76% of Toronto respondents identified the cost of living as one of the city’s leading economic challenges, and 53% called it the single most important one. Fifty-seven per cent believed it had become harder for people to get ahead in Toronto than it used to be. Those responses help explain why concerns about leaving are not limited to people actively searching for a house.

The unease is also affecting perceptions of Toronto itself. Fifty-five per cent said the city’s prosperity was on the wrong track, compared with 22% who believed Toronto was moving forward and 37% who described it as falling behind. For a young worker, affordability can therefore become tied to a larger calculation: whether higher Toronto expenses are still compensated by better economic opportunities. That is a difficult bargain to sustain when rent, transportation and basic expenses consume more income while career advancement feels less certain.

Housing Prices Have Outrun the Broader Cost of Living for Years

Toronto’s housing problem did not develop overnight. The Toronto Region Board of Trade says Toronto-area home prices, measured using the CREA Composite Home Price Index, increased about 185% between 2006 and 2025. Consumer prices rose by roughly 50% over the same period. Although wages, interest rates and household circumstances differ widely, that divergence helps explain why entering the ownership market can feel fundamentally different for someone beginning a career today than it did for earlier generations.

New supply has also weakened recently. Board of Trade figures show 4,557 Toronto housing starts between January and May 2026, compared with 12,866 during the same five months of 2023—a decline of roughly 65%. Fewer starts today can translate into fewer completed homes several years later, particularly when population and household demand remain substantial. For Gen Z residents watching the market, the concern is therefore not simply that existing homes cost too much. It is whether enough housing can actually be delivered to change that calculation over time.

A Softer Rental Market Still Does Not Mean Cheap Rent

Toronto renters have received some relief from the exceptionally tight conditions seen earlier in the decade. CMHC reported that the Greater Toronto Area’s purpose-built rental vacancy rate reached 3% in 2025, while the average rent for a two-bedroom purpose-built apartment was $2,034, up 3.5%. Rental condominium apartments remained considerably more expensive: the average two-bedroom condo rent was $2,904, with a vacancy rate of only 1%.

Those numbers illustrate why a market can become easier for renters without becoming genuinely inexpensive. Additional supply and higher vacancies may give tenants more negotiating power, incentives or choices, but a young adult still has to generate enough income to carry rent month after month. CMHC’s 2026 outlook anticipates further easing, with a Toronto CMA purpose-built vacancy rate around 3.5% and average two-bedroom rent near $2,090. Slower rent growth would help, but it does not erase the accumulated increase in shelter costs that younger renters have already absorbed while trying to save for emergencies or an eventual down payment.

Living With Parents Has Become Part of Toronto’s Housing Equation

One of the clearest signs of delayed housing independence appears in Statistics Canada data. Among Toronto-area adults aged 25 to 29, the share living with parents increased from 21.8% in 1991 to 48.6% in 2021. That means nearly half of people in that age range were still in the parental home by the last census, more than double the proportion three decades earlier. Statistics Canada notes that housing affordability may be one factor influencing when younger Canadians establish independent households, although family, cultural and personal preferences also play important roles.

Homeownership data show a similar generational challenge. In the Toronto census metropolitan area, the homeownership rate among households whose primary maintainer was aged 25 to 39 declined from 55.3% in 2011 to 46.5% in 2021. These figures do not mean every young adult living with family is financially trapped. Many households deliberately choose multigenerational living. Still, the scale of the change shows why discussions about affordability increasingly involve delayed independence as much as mortgages.

Housing Costs Are Landing on Households Already Managing Tight Budgets

Toronto’s affordability debate is occurring against a wider backdrop of household financial pressure. An Ipsos poll conducted for MNP in June 2026 found that 61% of Canadians said at least half of their income was already committed to bills, debt and routine expenses before their paycheque arrived. Thirty-two per cent said most of their income was already spoken for, while 16% said all of it was committed or their expenses exceeded their upcoming income.

The same research found 46% of Canadians were within $200 or less of being unable to meet their monthly financial obligations, while 28% said their earnings did not cover their bills and debt payments. Those are national figures rather than Toronto-specific results, but they provide important context for younger residents living in one of Canada’s costliest metropolitan areas. Saving a down payment, absorbing a rent increase or paying to move becomes much harder when little cash remains after recurring expenses. Affordability can therefore influence everything from housing choices to entertainment, relationships and career decisions.

Toronto Residents Are Already Looking Beyond the GTA

Relocation is not merely appearing in one piece of polling. Royal LePage reported in June 2026 that 55% of respondents in the Greater Toronto Area would consider buying a primary residence in one of 15 more affordable Canadian cities if they could find work locally or continue working remotely. Across respondents in the Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver regions, the generational divide was substantial: 77% of Gen Z and 56% of Millennials said they would consider such a move, compared with 51% of Gen X and 34% of Baby Boomers.

For GTA respondents, Edmonton ranked as the most popular destination at 16%, followed by Thunder Bay at 15%, while Charlottetown and Windsor-Essex each attracted 14%. These figures describe openness rather than completed migration, but they show how the mental map of a young Toronto resident can expand when housing becomes difficult to justify. A career once assumed to require Toronto may increasingly be weighed against what the same income—or even a somewhat lower salary—could buy elsewhere.

Jobs Remain the Biggest Brake on an Affordability Exodus

Moving somewhere cheaper sounds straightforward until employment enters the equation. The Royal LePage question explicitly assumed respondents could either find a job in the destination city or continue working remotely. That condition matters enormously. A lower-priced home offers limited advantage if moving means giving up a specialized career, taking a large salary cut or facing higher transportation costs. Family networks, professional contacts and relationships create additional anchors that housing comparisons alone cannot capture.

Remote work temporarily made geographic arbitrage easier for some professionals, but employers bringing staff back to offices have reduced that flexibility. Royal LePage noted that Canadians may be highly mobile in theory while actual moves are constrained by careers, family obligations and social networks. That helps explain why Toronto can remain expensive for years without immediately losing everyone who complains about the cost. Yet the risk increases when employers in other cities offer comparable opportunities. Once affordable housing and credible career paths appear in the same location, Toronto’s traditional advantage becomes much harder to defend.

Losing Young Workers Could Turn a Housing Problem Into an Economic One

The latest Toronto polling suggests residents understand that connection. Seventy-six per cent said they were concerned Toronto could lose talented workers and young professionals to competing cities. The Toronto Region Board of Trade argues that when workers and families cannot afford to remain in the city, employers face greater difficulty attracting and retaining staff, while investment and economic growth can become less competitive. Housing affordability therefore reaches well beyond real estate.

The challenge is particularly important because younger residents are not simply consumers of housing. They include early-career nurses, engineers, tradespeople, software workers, teachers, entrepreneurs and future business owners. A city can continue attracting graduates while still struggling to retain them once they begin thinking about larger homes, children or long-term savings. Toronto’s economic strength has historically depended on the concentration of workers and businesses in the same region. If affordability steadily separates where jobs are located from where employees can realistically build their lives, that advantage can begin to weaken.

The Test for City Hall Is Turning Plans Into Homes People Can Afford

Toronto is not starting from zero. The City is pursuing a target of 285,000 new homes by 2031 and, within that broader goal, aims to approve 65,000 rent-controlled homes, including 41,000 affordable units and 6,500 rent-geared-to-income homes. City data show that by March 31, 2026, more than 6,200 rent-controlled, affordable and RGI homes were under construction, while more than 3,700 had been completed since the beginning of 2020 when projects approved before 2020 are also counted.

The political pressure is increasingly about speed. In the new Ipsos polling, 59% of respondents wanted faster municipal decision-making, 57% wanted greater willingness to try new solutions and 52% wanted a stronger emphasis on economic growth. Those attitudes suggest Torontonians are looking for more than additional housing targets. For Gen Z, the meaningful benchmark will be whether rents, housing choices, wages and opportunity improve quickly enough that staying in Toronto feels like a viable path rather than an increasingly expensive compromise.

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