Canada’s housing market hit a turning point in spring 2020. Interest rates were slashed, and for the first time in a generation, working from home was actively encouraged, giving families far more flexibility in where they could live.
Zoocasa analyzed what happened next using CREA average home-price data from May 2020 to February 2026 across eight major cities in Alberta, Ontario, and British Columbia. May 2020 falls just before the pandemic-era price surge, but after it was clear the shock would reshape how and where Canadians live, making it a natural starting point for comparing how much equity buyers built in each market over the following six years.
Calgary’s Housing ROI Tripled Toronto’s
Measured from that turning point, the results flip two decades of real‑estate wisdom. Canada’s biggest cities didn’t see as high a return on investment. A buyer who put down $21,150 on the average Calgary home in May 2020 has about $210,000 more equity today, a 994% return on their down payment, while comparable buyers in Toronto and Vancouver needed far larger cheques for far smaller gains.
This concept is best illustrated by examining the return generated per $100,000 of invested equity. On that basis, a dollar invested in Calgary worked about three times as hard as a dollar in Toronto, and even more than a dollar in Vancouver, so households taking on million‑dollar mortgages in those cities, often with family help, carried bigger payments for weaker payoffs.
Statistics Canada data highlight how much inherited wealth has shaped who can even enter the housing market: in 2019, three in ten homeowners reported receiving an inheritance, with a median value of $67,000, versus $33,000 for renters, and by 2023, the median inheritance for homeowners had climbed to $85,100.
As home values surged during the pandemic, owners not only saw their properties appreciate but also began receiving larger inheritances to fund future moves up the ladder.
The Down Payment Gap Made Alberta the Only Realistic Starting Line
Return on investment only matters if you can get into the market in the first place. In May 2020, Canada’s minimum down‑payment rules required 5% on homes under $500,000, a blended 5- 10% for homes between $500,000 and $999,999, and 20% for homes at $1M or above, with no insured mortgages allowed over $1M.
That framework quietly favoured Alberta. With average prices sitting around $422,994 in Calgary and $357,206 in Edmonton, someone with about $22,000 saved up could cover the minimum down payment on an average home in either city. In Greater Toronto, those same savings wouldn’t have covered a third of the required down payment, and in Greater Vancouver, they would barely make a dent in the $208,276 needed to get into a million-dollar-plus home.
After watching earlier generations build wealth through real estate, younger buyers ran into a very different reality. The gap between a $21,000 down payment and a $208,000 one was never about skipping lattes; it was a math problem with no solution in their province, likely due to limited space near the largest city metros. And for families who did manage to scrape together six figures to buy in Canada’s priciest cities, the payoff was far smaller than they’d been led to expect.
Victoria Sees Largest Home Equity Gains From 2020
Victoria homeowners saw the largest raw equity gain in the study, increasing by roughly $325,000 between spring 2020 and 2026. The catch is the cost of entry: buyers paid about $274,000 more for a typical home and needed roughly $23,600 more in cash for the down payment than buyers in Calgary.
Meanwhile, the average Calgary home gained $210,187 in equity, outpacing Greater Toronto ($145,369), Greater Vancouver ($166,597), Hamilton-Burlington ($141,497), and Kitchener-Waterloo ($191,835).
It’s no wonder tens of thousands of Canadians voted with their feet. Statistics Canada estimates that more than 47,000 people moved from other provinces to Alberta in 2022, with the largest flows coming from Ontario and British Columbia. Many of them weren’t just chasing cheaper rent; they were looking for one of the only major markets where a realistic down payment could still get them into the housing market.
Ontario’s Pandemic Darlings Couldn’t Match Alberta’s Value
When remote work took off, Ontario buyers from the GTA poured into Kitchener‑Waterloo, Hamilton, and Ottawa. Prices jumped, but returns per dollar still lagged behind those in Alberta cities.
In British Columbia, Greater Vancouver delivered the weakest performance in the entire study: a 16% gain on a $1,041,380 home that required $208,276 in cash up front. Victoria was the province’s lone standout with a 46.5% gain and $324,677 in equity, but again demanded far more capital than Calgary for only slightly higher returns.
The importance of affordable entry points for homeownership is evident in interprovincial migration data. The number of British Columbians moving to Alberta nearly doubled, from about 16,000 in 2015/16 to more than 30,000 in 2023/24. Over the same period, the flow in the opposite direction dropped sharply, from roughly 29,000 Albertans moving to B.C. to about 18,000. Ontario‑to‑Alberta migration followed a similar pattern, with more people heading west and fewer people leaving.
Edmonton Buyers Quietly Outperformed Half the Country
Edmonton may be the sleeper success story of the pandemic era. With the average home costing $357,206 in Edmonton, a minimum down payment of $17,860 was required in 2020. Yet its 26.4% gain still beats Greater Toronto (16.8%), Greater Vancouver (16%), and Hamilton‑Burlington (21.6%).
Most importantly, Edmonton pairs that affordability with the fundamentals buyers look for in a city they want to live in long term: a diversified economy, major infrastructure, and a population that has grown by about 14.9% since 2021, providing the depth and liquidity that small bargain markets can’t offer.
Buy Where the Math Works, Live Where You Want Later
Ontario’s new HST relief model for purpose-built rentals may offer some welcome relief, but it isn’t a wide net. The biggest benefits tend to flow to larger projects and to people willing or able to move to smaller, less-connected regions, rather than to households tied to the cities where they can commute to work and still make it home for dinner. Similarly, B.C.’s provincial programs can help on the margins but don’t fundamentally close the affordability gap for buyers aiming to own in or near Greater Vancouver, Victoria, or Toronto.
For many of these would-be buyers, a more realistic path is to use a smaller down payment to purchase in a stronger-performing, more affordable market. Calgary is a prime example. And Calgary isn’t exactly a sacrifice: it’s a city with a growing economy, a short drive to the Rockies, and a cost of living that actually lets you enjoy your weekends. Hold for a few years while that equity grows faster, then sell and recycle the gains into a home in your long-term target city. It’s a stepping-stone strategy that, for now, may do more to move people toward ownership in the places where they actually want to live than any single provincial incentive program.
What This Means for Buyers in 2026
The takeaway from the past six years is pretty clear. In Canada’s most expensive cities, you now need both a six‑figure income and a six‑figure down payment just to get to the starting line. Currently, the minimum down payment for the average single-detached home in Calgary is $48,500, and in Edmonton it is $32,000.
While past performance is never a guarantee of future results, even if the next six years deliver only half the returns we’ve recently seen, it still represents a realistic path to building meaningful wealth, particularly in a market where the entry price hasn’t already locked most Canadians out of homeownership.
Curious about what you can afford across Canada? Check out listings on Zoocasa and connect with a local agent to start planning your path to homeownership.
Methodology
- This analysis uses CREA average resale prices from May 2020 to February 2026 across eight major Canadian markets (Calgary, Edmonton, Greater Toronto, Greater Vancouver, Victoria, Ottawa, Hamilton–Burlington, and Kitchener–Waterloo). May 2020 was chosen as the starting point because it precedes the pandemic price run-up but follows the initial rate cuts and shift to remote work.
- Minimum down payments follow the federal rules in effect in 2020: 5% on the first $500K, 10% on the next $ 499K, and 20% on homes priced at $1M+.
- “Equity gain” is the difference between the average prices in May 2020 and February 2026, before transaction costs and mortgage pay-down. “Return on down payment” divides that gain by the minimum down payment; “return per $100K invested” applies each city’s percentage gain to a hypothetical $100K stake.
