New data challenges claims that non-permanent residents are driving Canada’s ownership boom
Non-permanent residents (NPRs) barely featured in Canada’s homeownership market, even as their numbers surged in recent years, according to a new Statistics Canada analysis. This undercut claims that temporary residents are a major force behind rising home prices.
The study, part of the Canadian Housing Statistics Program, found that “NPRs accounted for a small share of homeowners at the start of 2022.”
At the provincial level, homeownership rates ranged “from 0.10% in Alberta to 0.39% in Prince Edward Island, with NPRs representing 0.13% of owners in both Ontario and British Columbia.”
In B.C., NPRs made up about 5% of the population but just 0.13% of homeowners and 0.31% of homebuyers in 2021, the study said.
By early 2022, only 1.41% of NPRs in the province were homeowners.
“Large growth in the number of NPRs (as was seen from 2022 to 2024) was much more likely to influence the rental market than the ownership market of Canada’s housing system, given that NPRs tended not to be homeowners,” the report said.
Canada’s rental market, long defined by scarcity and bidding wars, shifted in 2025 as vacancy rates for purpose-built rentals rose to 3.1%, up from 2.2% in 2024 and above the national 10‑year average, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s (CMHC) latest Rental Market Report.
CMHC data showed purpose-built rentals became easier to find in most major centres, with national stock expanding even as demand from newcomers and international students eased.
Rental, not ownership, felt the population shock
Researchers stressed that today’s ownership picture reflects yesterday’s buyer pool.
In 2021, NPRs represented just 0.31% of buyers in British Columbia and 1.58% in Manitoba, and they were similarly scarce in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
“NPRs are virtually all renters. Homeowners, at the start of 2022, accounted for 1.64% of all NPRs in Ontario and 1.41% in British Columbia.”
It added that their temporary status made purchasing “potentially risky,” that many arrived on student visas limiting work, that “insufficient work and credit histories” made mortgage approval harder, and that NPRs tended to be younger with less accumulated wealth for a down payment.
Policy shift and what it meant for brokers
The federal government has already moved to curb temporary entries. Ottawa planned to admit 385,000 temporary residents next year—about 43% less than the 2025 target—and 370,000 in the following two years.
TD Economics highlighted how an immigration slowdown “cools Canada’s rental market” even as affordability remained strained. An RBC analysis, meanwhile, said new immigration rules were likely “to cool housing demand,” with fewer temporary residents expected to soften demand for rentals and entry-level homes, even as some were fast-tracked to permanent status.
Bank of Montreal (BMO) senior economist Sal Guatieri said during a conference this year that lower immigration “will be a bit of a dampener on consumer spending and, of course, the housing markets and rental markets for a little while.”
In Toronto, fewer newcomers this year have helped push rents down and caused condo demand to drop. Moreover, according to “The Leaky Bucket 2025,” an impact paper by the Conference Board of Canada, one in five immigrants left the country within 25 years of landing, with the risk of departure peaking in the first five years.
In the past, new immigrants made up a large share of renters, encouraging investors to buy and rent out units.
For brokers and lenders, the message is less about NPRs as direct buyers and more about how temporary status shapes rental demand, investor behaviour and future pipelines of permanent residents.
As the StatCan paper concluded, “these results set the stage for further research on the homeownership trajectories of newcomers who first arrive to Canada with a temporary status,” including whether today’s NPRs, largely renters, would translate into tomorrow’s first-time buyers.
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