How Toronto seniors aging in place is affecting millennials

“It’s like (builders) try and cram as much as they can into the smallest spaces. It’s like, ‘Why build two full bedrooms when I can build this one bedroom and a huge walk-in closet that nobody’s gonna use, and a den?’”

In a perfect world, she says they would live in a house with ample room for toys and play. But their rental unit, which costs $1,800 a month, is the best the family can do on one income while Thomas recovers from complications following the birth of her child.

Finding a house to buy or rent in Toronto probably won’t get any easier for Thomas or other millennials starting families.

And it’s an issue that’s been exacerbated by trends seen in another generation: seniors and baby boomers staying in their detached, semi, town and other lowrise homes instead of downsizing, according to a recent City of Toronto report analyzing housing occupancy trends from 2001 to 2021.

That means that as the city’s millennial population approaches the size of the baby boomer generation at its peak, (there were 704,550 millennials in Toronto in 2021 and 814,655 baby boomers in 1991) the turnover for ground-related housing will likely continue to be slow, and the supply will arrive too late to meet millennials’ needs, the report said. While it noted the trends overall are not new, it said they should be seen with a new sense of urgency in light of the housing and homelessness crisis.

Lyne Lavoie, 66, is in no rush to move out of the three-storey house in Lawrence Park where she and her husband have lived for 25 years. 

“It’s the best investment you can have, right? So hopefully the value of your house keeps going up,” she says.

Lavoie and her husband were the last to buy a house on the street for less than $1 million, she says, but they spent another $1 million “gutting” and renovating it. When her husband retired several years later, they thought about selling the house and invited a realtor over, only to be told the house looked “dated.”

If she were to move out now, she says the associated costs wouldn’t be worth it.

“We’re definitely not going to an old-age home,” Lavoie says. “So then you buy a condo here, one of those smaller condos. You give your real estate agent, I don’t know, $150,000 in commission, you buy another place, you spend another $100,000, and then you sell it again. That’s a lot of money.”

Theoretically, she could keep the house to give to her adult daughter who lives in Boston, but Lavoie says the taxes and maintenance of the home would be too expensive for her.

At this point, she would only consider moving out if mobility became an issue.

According to the report, “the large size of the Baby Boomer population itself means that any amount of movement by even a fraction of this population group could yield large amounts of housing turnover in the future,” housing that is larger and with more bedrooms than today’s norm.

Seniors and baby boomers were the fastest-growing cohort in Toronto from 2001 to 2021, the report found, with the 55 to 74 age group growing by 216,520 people or 53.3 per cent since 2001. As the group continues to age, those who retire or become empty nesters may want to move or downsize, the report adds, but historically, older adults have not moved much.

Mortgage agent Ramona Harris, who has clients who have downsized, believes the financing options available to seniors are often unknown or misunderstood. (For instance, a reverse mortgage could allow a homeowner to hold onto their house until they’re ready to go somewhere new, as opposed to the traditional method of selling a house first and then having to rush to buy, she explained.)

Additionally, people may not want to move somewhere that could have new and unknown challenges.

“(They) don’t know what might be happening under the surface,” Harris said. “It’s unfamiliar.”

Registered social worker Raynia Carr, who specializes in aging, caregiver stress and life transitions, explained that moving can be emotional — and daunting — for an array of reasons.

“It’s human nature to have a certain amount of discomfort with change,” she said. “A home that we’ve lived in for 40, 50, sometimes 60 years is almost like a holding space for our memories.”

Some older adults, even those in their 80s and 90s, might not feel ready to downsize if they’re in good health and don’t feel “old,” she said, adding that downsizing isn’t for everyone.

“When you talk about moving into your first home, there’s joy, there’s excitement, there’s hope, there’s all of these kinds of qualities associated with it, but we don’t have the narratives for when we’re aging and leaving our homes.”

Ensuring that a conversation about downsizing is done with sensitivity and an appreciation that it may take time to make these big life changes may help some older adults be more open to the idea.

The city report added, however, that seniors who do want to downsize may find it difficult to find suitable options.

While Thomas bemoans the layout of her condo, she understands why seniors stay in their houses.

“Finding a house is almost impossible,” she says. “And then when you find one, you can’t even afford it.” 

“Millennials or people who are getting ready to start a household are gonna have to find that type of housing supply somewhere, and that would likely be outside of the city,” said Jordan Nanowski, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.’s (CMHC) lead economist for the Toronto market. “That’s a trend I don’t see changing.”

The city report acknowledges people of child-bearing and child-rearing years (15 to 54) are already leaving Toronto for elsewhere in the GTHA; the exodus nearly doubled from about 37,500 people leaving between 2011 and 2016 to about 72,300 leaving between 2016 and 2021.

Thomas says she and her partner considered leaving Toronto before their child was born. They spent two years searching for a house to rent or buy within an hour of the GTA, and even though Thomas was working at the time and the couple had two incomes, they found nothing.

“We can barely afford our bills and to feed him,” she says, gesturing at her child. “Buying a house is never ever going to happen on planet Earth.”

The difficulty millennials face to enter home ownership also sets them up for financial challenges in the future. According to an RBC report released earlier this year, renters face increasing hurdles to build wealth compared to homeowners.

Contributing to this trend is the fact that renters devote more of their take-home pay to housing costs than homeowners do (29 per cent compared with 21 per cent). This leaves less money to put aside for a down-payment or for basics. Last year, renters collectively spent almost nine per cent more than they earned in disposable income, while homeowners saved seven per cent of their take-home pay, the RBC report said.

“We want to increase density in the city of Toronto, increase housing supply and make the most out of the land we have … and that densification naturally comes at the cost of suitability for households,” Nanowski said. 

“There’s also an economical component for developers,” he added. “They’re trying to make the most out of the land that they have. So, you have a push and pull between densification and suitability, and … even if we do get units that are suitable, there’s an affordability challenge.”

“There’s no silver bullet. There’s no very easy solution you can point to,” Nanowski said. “Right now you’re kind of just seeing people vote with their feet and leave the city for more affordable-slash-suitable housing.”