Canada Boasts a Foreign Buyer Ban

Author: Adrian Reece

America’s president is taking a strong stance towards rectifying the housing market in America, and Canada should follow suit. Trump has announced that he will stop institutional investors from purchasing single family homes. This will help lower housing prices and improve access for the regular person to obtain a home in America. Canada mimics this same approach, with the access levels to homes incredibly high in Toronto, moves like this benefit Canadians immensely. While there have been positives about affordability, we are still a far cry away from what the citizenry needs.

 The housing market, which has been incredibly stressful to navigate over the past few years, may be finally coming to a place that is affordable for the average person. The average home price has fallen 11.2% compared to 2024, where prices fell 4.7%. These numbers sound great, and we are moving in the right direction, but with the average home price in Ontario sitting around $834,000 and specifically the GTA sitting somewhere around one million there is still a way to go before we are where we need to be.

Canada has made a huge move in the best interest of its citizens, Canada boasts a foreign buyer ban, which prevents non-Canadians from purchasing homes until January 1^st, 2027. This would allow more Canadians themselves to own homes, instead of renting homes from foreign owners who have never even set foot in the country. This ban extends to corporations as well. They are banned from purchasing residential homes of three dwelling units, or less, detached homes, townhouses and condos.

This ban includes individuals who aren’t citizens, permanent residents and registered Indians. The purpose of the ban is to reduce foreign demand, and Canadians can look forward to lowering costs to enter the housing market, and more inventory of houses that are available to Canadians, where bidding wars aren’t against foreigners with large amounts of money. 

There are exceptions to the ban under specific circumstances. Temporary residents, spouses who are married to Canadian citizens and diplomats. These come with specific conditions for these exceptions and need to be carefully considered in allowable purchases of Canadian real estate. Canada will reevaluate whether they want to extend the ban or modify it to encourage foreigners to invest in land development instead of purchasing family homes.

As we move through 2026 Canadians are hopeful that housing prices will continue to fall. Experts predict that there will be a further decrease, anywhere between 4-6%. These numbers coupled with the ban, provide great potential for more Canadians to be in homes.

There is a hint of a housing recovery, after the long housing crisis trend. Markets like Toronto and Vancouver are still seeing pricing declines and slow growth due to affordability challenges. Many homes are coming up for renewal, and homeowners are facing larger mortgage payments, and renewals that challenge their disposable income.

Current Mortgage rates are sitting at 3.9-5%, which is a far cry from mortgage rates that were under 2%. The renewals will increase payments by a few hundred dollars. These increased payments will change the dynamic of the economic lifestyle of Canadians.

Canadians are in a place where prices and payments are getting farther beyond their income, and even two income households have difficulty maintaining the home expenses.