The Income Gap Between First-Time Buyers and Everyone Else, By the Numbers

What the new data actually shows

Statistics Canada released updated figures from its Canadian Housing Statistics Program on August 26, 2026, combining 2024 information on residential properties and their owners with 2023 information on home sales and buyers. The headline finding: first-time homebuyers had a higher median family income than the typical family overall in every jurisdiction covered.

That's a specific and easy-to-miss comparison. It isn't saying first-time buyers are wealthy — it's saying that, compared against every household in a province (including renters, retirees and people who bought decades ago), the households managing to buy their first home right now skew toward the higher-earning end. Buying a first home in this market requires clearing a bar, and the data shows who's actually clearing it.

The gap within the group — first-time buyers vs. repeat buyers

A second comparison inside the same release tells a less reassuring story. In 2023, the median family income of first-time homebuyers was lower than that of repeat buyers in every jurisdiction covered, with one exception: British Columbia, where the two groups reported similar median incomes.

The size of the gap varies a lot by place. In Yukon, first-time buyers had a median family income of $155,000 against $180,000 for repeat buyers — a $25,000 difference, and the largest across every jurisdiction Statistics Canada examined. New Brunswick's gap was smaller and shrinking: $22,100 in 2021, narrowed to $10,000 by 2023. Every covered province saw its gap narrow between 2021 and 2023 except Yukon, where it widened from $16,700 to $25,000 over the same period.

Age looks like a real part of the explanation. In Yukon, the median first-time buyer was 32 years old; the median repeat buyer was 44. Twelve additional years in the workforce is twelve additional years to build income, seniority and home equity — which repeat buyers can then put toward their next purchase in a way a first-time buyer, by definition, cannot.

Where Ontario fits — and where the data runs out

Here's the honest limitation in this release: it doesn't cover Ontario. For the income and age variables in this update, Statistics Canada's Canadian Housing Statistics Program publishes figures only for Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia and Yukon. Quebec is excluded from the program entirely, and Ontario — despite being covered by the broader program for other variables — has no published first-time-buyer income comparison in this release.

What can be said honestly is that the pattern — first-time buyers out-earning the general household median, while still earning less than repeat buyers — held in every province Statistics Canada was able to measure. There's no data-driven reason to assume Ontario looks structurally different, but there's also no data to confirm it does or doesn't, and a market this different from the rest of the country in home prices deserves its own figure before anyone treats this as settled.

Why this matters if you're qualifying right now

If clearing the bar to buy a first home already requires an above-typical income in every province Statistics Canada can measure, the practical question for an Ontario household isn't "what does the national average buyer earn" — it's "where do I actually stand against what a lender will qualify me for." Those are different questions, and only one of them has a useful answer without a provincial benchmark.

It's also worth noting what this data doesn't claim. It doesn't say first-time buyers are comfortable, and it doesn't say the gap against repeat buyers is closing everywhere — Yukon's widened over the same period every other covered province's narrowed. A household deciding whether now is the right time to buy is making a decision specific to their own income, their own debts and their own target property, not one that a national or partial pattern can settle for them.

• A mortgage stress test governs how much you can qualify for, and it isn't the same thing as what you'd actually pay — our own explainer walks through the mechanics.
• Down payment tiers, FHSA and Home Buyers' Plan room, and the eight regional down payment assistance programs across Ontario are covered on our First Home Hub.
• Household income from two working adults, a co-signer, or rental income from a legal secondary suite can all change what a lender will count — worth exploring before assuming a single number applies to you.

Finding your own number, since there's no provincial one yet

A national or partial-provincial pattern is a useful piece of context, not a benchmark to measure yourself against. The number that actually matters is what a lender will qualify your household for, given your income, your debts and the specific property you're considering — and that's a calculation, not a statistic.

Our pre-qualification tool and calculators model that using your own figures rather than a national or partial-provincial average, and a conversation with a broker can walk through what a lender will actually count — co-signed income, rental income from a legal suite, or a program like FHSA — before you start looking at homes.

None of that requires waiting for Statistics Canada to eventually publish an Ontario figure. A qualifying calculation runs on your household's numbers the day you ask for it, whether or not a matching provincial statistic ever gets published — and it's a far more useful starting point than any average, provincial or national, could be.