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Even with a drop in prices, he said the cost of homeownership has only moved “a small step in the right direction,” but the cost of that home is still enormous relative to renting. Try to convince people otherwise, and they will say things like, “rent is throwing away money.”

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The reality is that this week, many homeowners are going to be more upset that gas prices are up a few cents since war broke out in the Middle East than they are about the decline in the value of their largest asset. And the average resale home price dropped by more than $15,000 in the third quarter of 2025, according to the most recent Statistics Canada data.

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Doug Porter, chief economist with Bank Montreal, said he doesn’t get a sense that consumers’ spending habits have been affected much at all by the so-called wealth effect from lower house prices.

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“The run-up in financial market wealth has, in many cases, offset the decline in real estate wealth,” he said.

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The economist said flat house prices may prompt people to think differently about their real estate assets and noted that in the 1990s, housing prices went “sideways for a decade,” which can affect consumers for a while.

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“But housing will always be a unique asset,” said Porter.

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That is the crux of the issue. No matter how much rental stock we build, it will never supplant owning, because the very nature of the apartment market in Canada continues to prevent you from being a renter forever, with no guarantee of tenancy. Ultimately, your landlord can evict you.

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“Consumers never think that way,” said Ron Butler, a mortgage broker, about the impact of having a lot of equity in their home, even when prices are dropping. “People are certain prices will go up. But when something you don’t see every day goes up, it’s just easier to get (angry about it) … like gas prices.”

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There are also scales when it comes to your house and what you put into it. If you bought a house in the 1990s and have not put one cent into it for three decades, your costs are a lot different from those of someone constantly renovating.

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“Home ownership has been mostly divorced from the idea that it was an investment until the 2000s,” said Butler. “The only thing you ever thought about was eventually paying it off, and you wouldn’t have a mortgage. You bought a house so your kids could go to the local school, you get to know your neighbours, and at the end, you just pay property tax.”

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Given the lack of family-oriented housing, that has and always will make a lot of sense. But with your home looking more and more like dead money, will it ever change?

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Butler said the one exception might be a population that is increasingly single and never plans to have children. Do they need to own? Probably not, but convincing others may be tough, even if the math doesn’t work.

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“There seems to be a sense of ownership that runs through many cultures,” he said.

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All true. Ownership will always have value beyond the numbers, but it comes at a price and one that should be recognized. A house paid off does cost you money, even though it’s not coming out of your account like filling up at the pump.

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