THE STARTER HOME
DETACHEDTOWNHOUSECONDOThe starter home didn't disappear. It got smaller, moved into a strata building and, in Vancouver, stopped being particularly cheap.
For an earlier generation of young homeowners, the first home was much more likely to be a detached house. Today, the first realistic ownership option is increasingly a condo — and even the gap between a condo and everything above it has become enormous. That changes more than what first-time buyers purchase. It changes what “getting started” in homeownership actually means.
The first home used to look different
There is no official definition of a starter home. It is an idea more than a housing category: a relatively modest property someone buys early in adulthood, builds equity in and potentially sells later to move into something larger.
But we can see how that idea has changed by looking at what younger homeowners actually own. Statistics Canada compared baby boomers, Gen Xers and millennials when each generation was between 25 and 39 years old.
In Vancouver, 36.3% of baby boomers in that age group owned a single-detached home in 1991. By 2021, just 12.2% of millennials the same age did. That's not a small shift. The share fell by roughly two-thirds.
At the same time, Statistics Canada found an increase in apartment ownership among younger adults in Vancouver. The first rung didn't simply become more expensive. It increasingly became a different type of home.
Look at the price ladder
Go back to December 2010. Metro Vancouver benchmark prices were approximately:
- Apartment: $387,115
- Attached home: $490,869
- Detached home: $797,868
Now jump forward to August 2026:
- Apartment: $686,200
- Townhouse: $1,028,800
- Detached home: $1,799,400
The condo is still at the bottom. But the spacing between the rungs has changed dramatically.
In 2010, the difference between the benchmark apartment and attached home was about $104,000. Today, the difference between the apartment and townhouse benchmarks is about: $342,600.
The gap between an apartment and detached home? About: $1.11 million.
A first home can still be a condo. What comes after it is another question.
The condo became the starter home
This isn't just a Vancouver stereotype. Statistics Canada has found that first-time buyers in British Columbia are particularly likely to purchase condominium apartments. More than one-third of BC first-time buyers in its 2019 data purchased a condo. Statistics Canada has described condominiums as a common lower-cost entry point into ownership in Vancouver and Toronto.
That makes sense. At current Metro Vancouver benchmark prices, choosing an apartment instead of a townhouse cuts the purchase price by roughly $343,000. Compared with a detached home, it cuts it by more than $1.1 million.
But “cheaper” and “cheap” are doing very different jobs here. A $686,200 benchmark apartment with 20% down requires roughly: $137,000 for the down payment alone.
Put down less and the upfront cash requirement falls, but the mortgage gets larger and mortgage-default insurance may enter the equation depending on the down payment and applicable rules. Then there are closing costs, property taxes, strata fees, insurance and the ongoing cost of owning the unit.
The starter home still exists. The price of admission changed.
And younger adults are getting there differently
There is another difference hiding behind the type of home. Younger Canadians are less likely to own at the same stage of adulthood.
After Statistics Canada adjusted its comparison to account for adults still living with parents, 49.9% of millennials aged 25 to 39 owned their home in 2021. For Gen Xers at the same age, it was 56.2%. For baby boomers, 55.9%.
That does not mean every millennial wanted to own and couldn't. Housing choices are tied to marriage, children, income, location and household structure, all of which have also changed between generations. That's precisely why the comparison needs some care.
But current first-time buyers give us another clue. CMHC's 2026 Mortgage Consumer Survey found that 72% of first-time buyers had been renters immediately before buying. Those buyers spent an average 7.6 years renting before their purchase. For a lot of households, the starter home is becoming a later home.
A cheaper first home can still come with expensive monthly costs
The purchase price is only part of the condo equation. A condo owner also pays strata fees. Those fees fund the building's shared expenses: insurance, maintenance, cleaning, landscaping, amenities, management and contributions to the contingency reserve fund, among other costs.
And sometimes the regular fees aren't enough. Major building expenses can result in a special assessment — an additional amount owners are required to contribute beyond their regular strata payments.
That doesn't make a condo a bad first purchase. It means comparing a $686,000 condo with a $1.03-million townhouse solely on purchase price misses part of the story. The condo lowers the entry price substantially. It does not make the rest of homeownership disappear.
The “move up later” part became harder too
This may be the bigger change. The classic starter-home model has two stages. First, buy something modest. Then, as your income rises and you build equity, sell it and move into something larger.
The first part can still work. The second depends heavily on what happens to the price gap between the home you own and the home you want next.
Consider today's Metro Vancouver benchmarks again.
- Apartment: $686,200.
- Townhouse: $1,028,800.
- Difference: $342,600.
- Detached: $1,799,400.
- Difference from the apartment benchmark: $1,113,200.
Your condo can appreciate and build equity while you pay down the mortgage. But the home above it can appreciate too. If different property types rise at similar percentages, the dollar gap between them can actually widen.
Suppose, purely as an illustration, a $700,000 condo and a $1-million townhouse both increase 10%. The condo gains $70,000. The townhouse gains $100,000. The original $300,000 gap becomes $330,000.
Owning the condo still gave its owner exposure to the housing market. It just didn't automatically solve the move-up problem.
Location became part of the starter-home decision
There is another way to get onto a lower rung: Move. An apartment benchmark across Metro Vancouver hides enormous geographic variation. A buyer willing to change neighbourhoods, municipalities, commute patterns or even regions can find a very different entry price.
That means today's starter-home decision is increasingly a choice between variables:
- smaller home,
- different home type,
- different location,
- longer commute,
- higher monthly cost,
- or more time renting and saving.
Previous generations made housing compromises too. The difference is that the particular combination available to today's buyer has changed. That is why “just buy a starter home” isn't especially useful advice without answering the next question: What counts as one now?
There isn't one starter home anymore
For one buyer, it may be a one-bedroom condo close to work. For another, a two-bedroom farther from the city. For a couple planning for children, a condo that works today may not feel like much of a starting point if they expect to need another bedroom within three years.
Someone else may deliberately choose a condo for the long term and have no interest in moving into a detached house at all.
That last group matters. Calling every condo a “starter home” quietly assumes that the buyer is supposed to graduate from it. They may not want to. The detached house doesn't have to be the final level of housing.
So did the starter home disappear?
Not exactly. The data suggest something less tidy. Younger Vancouver homeowners are far less likely to own detached homes than similarly aged homeowners were a generation earlier. Apartment ownership has become more important. First-time buyers often spend years renting before buying. And once they enter the market, the price difference between a condo and the next major housing type can be hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So the starter home survived. But the old version — buy a modest house relatively young, build equity and move into a larger house later — describes a smaller portion of the market.
The modern version is more likely to start later. It is more likely to be attached to other homes. And the second rung can be a long way above the first.
The starter home didn't disappear. The ladder changed.
Metro Vancouver benchmark prices
2010 apartment
$387,115
2026 apartment
$686,200
2026 townhouse
$1,028,800
2026 detached
$1,799,400
Sources & notes
All household examples and models in this story are illustrative, not forecasts or financial advice. Source figures should be read with their original reporting periods and definitions.