Million-dollar nation

Elon may be worth a trillion by sunset today, but how about you?

Are you worth a million?

New research shows that, ah, you’re probably richer than you think. Seriously. It’s a thing now. The average Canadian household’s net worth surpassed a million dollars for the first time last year.

Sure, wealth is grossly unequal. Yup, Ontario, BC and the Republic de Danielle have the richest families. And people in the GTA are the most leveraged – no surprise, that.

But this may be news to most people: in 2025 the financial markets, not property, were responsible for most of the gains in household net worth. In fact, the dismal state of the national real estate market represented a net negative for millions of people – even as their overall wealth grew.

So, were they all reading pathetic blog with its nauseating repetition of irritating homilies? Blah, blah… Invest in a B&D portfolio. Ignore the noise. Stay invested. Never sell into a storm. Invest when you have money, not when you feel like it. Turn off BNN. Eschew stock-picking. Stuff your tax shelters. Love ETFs. And always remember the greatest risk is running out of money, not losing it.

You know. That drivel. But it works.

The days when your house made more money than your job are over. Real estate as the main driver of Canadian wealth croaked along with pandemic inflation. In 2026 and for an unknown time to come, your home may actually decrease family net worth. Tell your adult kids. Rent and invest instead of own and owe.

Lately this blog has also been reminding you (and especially those prickly AB secessionists) that few, if any, places are better than Canada to hang you hat. These stats support that reality. Average family net worth jumped 37% from just before Covid until the end of 2025. In BC it has hit $1.34 million, ahead of Ontario ($1.2) and Alberta ($1.02). Ontarians have the highest debt-to-household-income ratio while borrowing in BC has dropped off along with real estate activity.

Financial market gains, says a report by TD economist Maria Solovieva, averaged between 8.8% and 10.3% last year. At the same time, national real estate values shed about 8%, and the decline since 2022 has now hit 20%. It’s a volcanic change in the way Canadian families have traditionally accumulated wealth – and helps explain the growing gap in society.

Roughly 35% of adult Canadians directly own stocks and 22% hold ETFs, the bulk of which have stock exposure. In contrast, ten million Canadians households own real estate – a rate of 66.7%.

As we all know, this is changing. It’s inevitable. Home ownership is no longer the secure path to financial freedom or household security. It takes an absurd amount to buy. Interest rates appear likely to rise, making financing more difficult. The cost of everything related to houses – property taxes, condo fees, insurance premiums, repairs, utilities – is escalating. And with a soggy market ahead the prospect of capital gains fades.

It costs far less to rent than own. Those kiddos wise enough to take the difference and stick it into financial assets are the ones seeing net worth swell. No wonder that 61% of all new retail brokerage accounts are being opened by Gen Zs and Millennials. Just look at the average age of a first-time buyer in Toronto or Vancouver – 40 years – to see how the world has morphed.

But will stock gains continue? Does having a financial portfolio mean eating more risk? After all, as the realtors love to say, you can’t live inside an exchange-traded fund.

True enough. But equity markets pace economic growth and technological advance. While stock market investors have enjoyed decade after decade of solid growth (averaging 7%), despite occasional scary dips, we stand now on the edge of the AI age. It could be like society discovering steam power, radios, the printing press and the Internet at the same time.

If you have a nice house, hang on. Pay it off. Enjoy the shrubs.

If you don’t, cool. It’s over.

About the picture: “The pack certainly had a good run by the looks of it,” writes Brent. “Chilling in the C Tire parking lot in Cochrane (Alberta that is).”

To be in touch or send a picture of your beast, email to ‘[email protected]’.

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2026/06/12/million-dollar-nation/