Over the next three decades, housing occupancy demand in Canada will continue to grow faster than our population; an outlook that differs from the apocalyptic scenarios of a crash in Canada’s housing market that were predicted years ago.

Why the predictions of a market meltdown? The reasoning was largely demographic, based on the notion that the number of people exiting the housing market (the boomers) would exceed the number of new entrants (the busters) sometime in the mid-2000s. Rather than crash and crumble, the past decade has seen many of Canada's housing markets experience one of the most buoyant periods on record. Why did the market meltdown not occur? Simply put, the assumptions underpinning the apocalyptic scenario both over-simplified the forces that shape housing demand--there is more at work than just demographics--and they got the demographics wrong.

Today the baby bust generation (currently between the ages of 39 and 58) is actually larger than the baby boom generation (now 59 to 68) and, while the busters have fully entered the housing market, the boomers have not yet left it. In other words, the baby boomers have not yet had to be replaced in the housing market, and so additional housing was needed to accommodate the busters.

With this as a backdrop, Urban Futures’ Canada Housing Series presents an outlook for Canada’s housing market over the next three decades. Recognizing that housing markets are truly local, projections are also presented for nine of Canada's major metropolitan regions. The projections consider long-run trends in demographic change as well as changing lifecycle patterns of housing occupancy.

The research will have broad appeal, whether you are an urban planner, real estate developer, home builder, or investment manager, or whether you are just generally interested in the implications that changing demographics will have for housing markets across Canada in the coming years.

Click here to access the full report as well as the individual regional profiles.