Canada's housing system operates on assumptions from another era. Get married in your twenties. Buy a house with your spouse. Have kids. Build equity. Retire comfortably.

For single people, that script doesn't work. And the numbers show it.

The median income for single Canadians sits around $45,000, depending on the year and whether income is measured before or after tax. Using $45,069 as an illustrative midpoint, the standard affordability guideline says housing should cost 30% of income. That's about $1,125 per month. According to private rental indexes such as Rentals.ca and figures cited by Nesto, average asking rents for one‑bedroom apartments across Canada were roughly in the $1,800 to $2,100 range in late 2024 and early 2025, with some indexes placing the January 2025 figure near $2,100. Either way, the gap between incomes and rents is substantial.

For buying, the gap is even wider. Based on Nesto's affordability calculators using late‑2025 prices and typical stress‑test assumptions, you need a household income in the roughly $175,000 to $205,000 range to qualify for an average‑priced home in Toronto with a 20% down payment. In Vancouver, comparable affordability models produce required household incomes well north of $280,000, depending on rates and prices at the time of calculation.

When housing policy assumes two incomes and singles pay the same prices with half the earning power, the math doesn't add up.

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Where the 30% Rule Came From

The 30% affordability guideline feels arbitrary because it is. Sort of.

Carolyn Whitzman, a housing and social policy consultant who worked as a senior housing researcher at the University of Toronto's School of Cities, has explained the history. "Back in the early days of labour rights, there was a notion of eight hours for rest, eight hours for work, and eight hours for what you will. Out of that same era, there was advocacy for one day's work for one week's rent, which means 20%, not 30%."

The Curtis Report on postwar reconstruction, released in 1944, used 20% as its affordability standard. That slowly crept to 25%, then to 30%. Many Quebec social‑housing programs and provincial affordability benchmarks still aim for 25%, even though federal and national frameworks commonly use 30%.

The OECD set 30% of disposable income as a standard housing cost burden threshold in the 1980s, and Canada adopted it. Other countries, including the US, UK, and Australia, followed. At 40%, the OECD considers a household "overburdened." That's starting to look like the norm for many single Canadians.

What the guideline doesn't account for is that housing costs don't scale with household size. A single person pays the same rent or mortgage as a couple would, just without the benefit of splitting it. Property taxes, utilities, insurance, maintenance, all of it falls on one income.

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The Policy Assumptions That Don't Fit

Housing policy in Canada still operates under cultural assumptions locked in decades ago. One of those ideas is that owning a home is the primary pathway to building wealth.

As Whitzman and other policy scholars have noted, governments grew increasingly concerned about pensions and longevity. Homeownership became framed as a kind of informal retirement plan: buy a house, pay it off, and rely on its value later in life.

Life expectancy used to be shorter. People died in their sixties or seventies. These days, people are living well into their eighties. Actuarial tables show that someone in their seventies has roughly a one‑in‑four chance of living into their nineties, depending on sex and cohort.

We're not keeping up with demographic trends. Housing policy remains tied to the idea of a "normal" family that marries early, stays together, and follows a predictable life course. Demographics look very different now. People aren't getting married and having children in their twenties. Many don't get married at all. Single‑person households are growing. Yet housing policy still treats singles as exceptions rather than a large and expanding segment of the population.

Industry surveys suggest the average age of a first‑time homebuyer in Canada has climbed to around 40, up from the mid‑30s in the 2010s. For singles, that age tends to be even higher because saving for a down payment takes longer on one income.

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What Single People Are Actually Paying

A 2024 Abacus survey found that nearly three in five Canadians were somewhat or very concerned about losing their home or rental because of financial issues. That precarity is more pronounced for single people.

CMHC data from 2024 show that average monthly mortgage payments varied widely by province, ranging from the low‑$1,300s in parts of Atlantic Canada to well over $2,800 in British Columbia, depending on price, term, and rate. None of those figures align with the 30% affordability threshold for someone earning about $45,000 a year.

For renters, the situation isn't much better. National rent‑tracking datasets place average asking rents for all unit types in Canada in the roughly $2,000 to $2,200 range in 2024. Toronto, Vancouver, Burnaby, and Mississauga sit well above that. Smaller cities have lower rents, but salaries are also generally lower, and many of those markets have seen rents rise as people move in search of affordability.

Jo Pavlov, an education worker from Hamilton, rents a two‑bedroom house. When their roommate left, all responsibilities fell to them alone. Pavlov estimated that paying for all housing costs alone, including bills, consumed more than 60% of their net income. They eventually found another roommate and received a raise, but they still don't believe they could sustain the rental on their own long‑term.

The question becomes: should needing a roommate be the default for adults in their forties, fifties, or sixties? Most would say no. But that's increasingly the reality for single people trying to afford housing independently.

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A Necessary Adaptation

When traditional homeownership doesn't work, people adapt. One growing response is co‑buying with friends or family.

A 2023 Royal LePage survey found that about three‑quarters of Canadian co‑owners cited lack of affordability as a primary motivator for purchasing together. Among those respondents, most co‑owned with family members, while smaller shares co‑owned with friends or with someone outside their family or social circle. These figures are self‑reported survey results, but they point to affordability as the dominant driver.

In Toronto, six people in their late twenties to late thirties pooled resources to buy a $1.3 million house together downtown. There were no couples or relatives among them. Just friends. They named the house Clarens Commons and secured a co‑ownership mortgage from a major bank.

Valery Navarrete, one of the original owners, said their goal was stability and community rather than treating housing as a financial investment. "We were just seeing friend after friend find a place, be happy to stay for a while, and then get renovicted."

Before buying, the group shared detailed financial information and discussed their histories and attitudes toward money. They also talked through values, lifestyle expectations, and exit scenarios.

Finding a lender wasn't easy. Most banks formally support up to four borrowers, not six. Insurance also cost slightly more than it would for a couple. But the group was able to make it work.

Navarrete eventually moved out due to personal changes, but she says she would do it again. Co‑ownership offered built‑in community alongside housing stability.

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The Legal Side of Co‑Buying

Co‑ownership requires clear legal structures. The two main options are joint tenancy and tenancy in common.

Joint tenancy involves equal ownership and includes the right of survivorship, where one owner's share passes automatically to the others if they die.

Tenancy in common allows unequal shares and no automatic survivorship. Each owner's share can be sold or passed to beneficiaries.

Most friend‑based co‑buying arrangements use tenancy in common. A co‑ownership agreement sets out ownership shares, cost‑sharing, decision‑making, and exit rules. Without one, disputes often end up in court.

Noam Dolgin, founder of Collaborative Home Ownership BC, has estimated based on experience that roughly 10% of co‑ownership arrangements sour over time, compared with divorce rates closer to 38%. These are not comprehensive national statistics, but they highlight the importance of due diligence and clear agreements.

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How Common Is This Actually Becoming?

Surveys suggest that as many as half of Canadians would consider co‑ownership as a way into the housing market, up from roughly 30% in similar polls in the late 2010s. Willingness rises sharply among younger generations.

Considering co‑ownership and actually doing it are very different. Actual co‑buying remains a small share of transactions.

Some widely cited figures about buyers co‑purchasing with friends come from U.S.‑based surveys by Zillow. Those American surveys show that co‑buying with non‑partners rose during the pandemic years and then declined as interest rates increased. They are useful for understanding broader trends, but they do not represent Canadian co‑ownership rates.

Higher interest rates mean buyers need to stay in a home longer to make the purchase worthwhile. That makes long‑term alignment between co‑owners more critical and more difficult.

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What About Kelowna?

Kelowna presents its own version of the single‑buyer challenge. Benchmark prices from the Okanagan Mainline Real Estate Board place the average single‑family home just over $1 million by late 2025, with condos around $480,000 to $500,000 and townhomes near $680,000.

Using typical late‑2025 rates and stress‑test assumptions, qualifying for an average detached home with 20% down would require an income in the $190,000 to $200,000 range. A typical condo would still require roughly $90,000 to $100,000. These are modeled estimates, not official thresholds, but they reflect how the math works under current rules.

Average one‑bedroom rents in Kelowna are lower than in Vancouver or Toronto, generally falling in the $1,600 to $1,800 range depending on the month and data source. On a $45,000 income, even the low end represents more than 40% of gross income.

Kelowna's rental vacancy rate has risen sharply. CMHC's 2025 rental market report shows a vacancy rate of about 6.4%, one of the highest among Canadian metropolitan areas. That gives renters more choice and some negotiating power. But renting doesn't build equity or long‑term security.

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The Systemic Problem Nobody's Fixing

The core issue is that housing policy still treats single‑person households as an afterthought. Mortgage qualification, affordability calculations, and savings programs all scale better for couples than for singles.

Programs like the First Home Savings Account and the Home Buyers' Plan help, but they are designed per person. A couple can combine accounts and withdrawals, effectively doubling the benefit. A single person cannot.

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What Would Actually Help

Policy experts consistently point to similar solutions: more missing‑middle housing, stronger tenant protections, mortgage rules that better reflect single incomes, clearer frameworks for co‑housing, and a large return to non‑market housing.

Some reforms are underway. Zoning changes, federal supply programs, and apartment‑focused financing have increased policy attention on housing. But these efforts remain incremental relative to the scale of the problem, and they do little to directly address the structural disadvantage faced by single‑income households.

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Making It Work

For single people in Kelowna and across Canada, understanding that the system wasn't designed for you helps set realistic expectations. This isn't personal failure. It's structural.

Renters can use higher vacancy rates to shop around and negotiate. Buyers need to understand income thresholds and plan carefully. Co‑buyers need strong agreements and honest conversations.

The housing market isn't working for single people. Navigating it successfully often means adapting in ways the system never anticipated, and getting guidance from professionals who understand both the numbers and the realities single buyers face.