by Rick Crouch | Feb 5, 2026
As a real estate Broker for over 25 years and as a property owner, I spend a lot of time thinking about markets, value, and risk.
Every so often, a question surfaces, sometimes jokingly, but most often seriously—that deserves a sober, professional answer. The question I ask not only myself but also my valued Seller and Buyer clients is along the line of, “What if……..?” More appropriately at this point in time, the question every Canadian needs to ask or think about is:
What would happen to Canada’s housing market if Canada became the 51st U.S. state?
From a real estate perspective, the answer is clear: it would fundamentally alter the conditions that support home ownership, housing stability, and long-term property value, hence investment in Canada.
This isn’t about politics or nationalism. It’s about systems—and housing markets are downstream from a variety of systems. Consider the following.
Housing Markets Reflect Social and Economic Systems
Real estate doesn’t exist in isolation. Prices, demand, affordability, and stability are shaped by a variety of factors including but not limited to the following:
- Health care costs
- Income and wealth distribution
- Worker protection, job security
- Public safety
- Infrastructure investment, expansion and maintenance
- Environmental policy, more so now due to climate change
Change the dynamic of the system even in a given location and you change the market.
Having lived and worked in both Canada and the U.S. I’ve seen firsthand how those differences show up—not just in lifestyle, but in housing overall. I feel fortunate to have travelled extensively across the U.S. both for pleasure and on business and have visited roughly 40 of the 50 U.S. states. When travelling for business you are not visiting the tourist hotspots such as Disney World. You are in the industrial and economic heart of the country and Canada is no exception with Ontario being a manufacturing threshold while other provinces focus on food production such as fishing/farming with others developing our natural resources.
Health Care Costs and Housing Stability
In Canada, health care expenses are largely predictable. In the U.S., they are one of the biggest financial wild cards households face.
Data consistently shows:
- Nearly half of Americans struggle to afford health care
- Medical debt is common—even among insured homeowners
- Unexpected medical costs are a leading cause of financial distress
From a housing standpoint, this matters because:
- Mortgage affordability depends on stable cash flow
- Medical debt increases default risk
- Financial shocks force homeowners to sell earlier and or under pressure/duress
Canada’s system while not perfect, helps insulate households from exactly the kind of shocks that destabilize housing markets and I speak from experience. My now 35 year old son had open hear surgery when he was 14 months old. Complications arose resulting in a lengthy hospital stay. Without the “system” we enjoy in Canada, I may still be paying for what was likely a $300,000 to $500,000 bill.
Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD), World Health Organization, West Health–Gallup Health Care Affordability Index
Inequality and the Structure of Home Ownership
The U.S. has one of the highest levels of income and wealth inequality among developed countries. The gap between haves and have-nots has always exceeded that we have in Canada. The result is a housing market that increasingly favors:
- Large scale investors ad developers
- Speculative ownership
- Asset concentration at the top end of the market
This leads to:
- Fewer first-time buyers
- More permanent renters
- Reduced intergenerational wealth transfer through home or other property ownership
Canada’s housing challenges are real especially when it comes to affordability—but our comparatively stronger social mobility still allows many households to move from renting to owning. A shift toward U.S.-style inequality would no doubt harden class lines in real estate and reduce long-term ownership rates.
Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD), World Bank
Public Safety, Community Confidence, and Property Values
Public safety is one of the most underappreciated drivers of real estate value. While rural locations are typically safer the same cannot be said for larger urban centres.
The U.S. experiences significantly higher rates of gun violence and homicide than other high-income countries. This has very notable effects on real estate:
- Higher insurance costs, in some storm prone southern U.S. states insurance is not even attainable
- Slower price appreciation in affected areas
- Greater neighbourhood turnover through mortgage defaults etc.
- Increased investor dominance over owner-occupancy which drives rentals versus ownership
For anyone that has travelled, you’ve seen gated communities in states like Florida, California and others. Canada’s relative public safety supports stable communities—and stable communities support durable real estate ownership values.
Source: World Health Organization, United Nations, Gun Violence Archive U.S.
Worker Protections and Mortgage Risk
In Canada, most households benefit from the following:
- Paid maternity leave
- Paid sick leave
- Predictable income continuity
In the U.S., none of these benefits are federally guaranteed.
From a lender and market perspective, this creates:
- Greater income volatility
- Higher default risk
- Increased reliance on credit rather than home equity and we saw the outcome to that in 2007 to 2009 Global Recession when even large lenders failed
Housing markets perform best when homeowners have buffers to fall back on when needed. Canada’s labour protections act as an invisible stabilizer for real estate.
Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD), U.S. Department of Labour
Infrastructure, Environment, and Long-Term Value
Long-term property values depend on:
- Infrastructure quality hence maintenance
- Access to essential services, roads, water, sewers etc
- Environmental resilience
- Education systems that support both learning skills and local labour markets
The U.S. underperforms many peer nations in these areas despite higher spending, leading to uneven development and declining desirability in certain regions.
Canada’s comparatively stronger performance supports long-horizon investment, which is essential for sustainable real estate markets. When house hunting n the U.S., I learned the important factor to consider was the strength of the education system in the area, not just the location of the house.
Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD), World Economic Forum, Yale Environmental Performance Index (EPI)
The Real Estate Bottom Line
A political merger with the U.S. wouldn’t just change governance—it would change a number of factors that Canadians have come to rely on and too often take for granted:
- Mortgage and insurance risk profiles
- Home ownership and vacancy rates
- Community stability and safety
- The balance between investors and owner-occupiers
- The long-term resilience of the Canadian housing market
Canada already outperforms the U.S. on many of the foundational systems that support a healthy real estate market. When the U.S. real estate market collapsed during the 2007 to 2009 Global Recession, Canada’s real estate market escaped with little more than a slowdown in sales and in some markets, a modest downward adjustment in pricing. The stability of real estate in Canada is derived from among other factors:
- Health outcomes and expenses
- Social mobility, the ability to move up or down the economic and social ladder over time
- Public safety and security
- Worker protections that enhances affordability and reduces rick
- Environmental performance
From a real estate perspective, these are not abstract benefits. They are structural advantages that we can ill afford to give up. By no means is the Canadian real estate market without it’s flaws and the current shift we are seeing in many markets illustrates that a change or correction is underway. That’s not a bad thing and I will talk about “pricing stability” in future posts.
Preserving Canadian sovereignty isn’t just about identity—it’s about preserving the conditions that make many aspects of living in Canada so beneficial. This includes the fact that home ownership is viable, our communities are stable, safe, and while real estate is cyclical in nature, it has proven to be a reliable long-term investment when the systems we rely on are effectively managed.
For both real estate professionals and consumers, it’s worth recognizing that once systems change, markets follow—and not always in ways we can readily reverse. There is no better time than now to remember the saying: “be careful what you wish for.”
NOTE: The author is a Broker, Market Value Appraiser-Residential with Sotheby’s International Realty Canada and a Past President (2008) of the One Point Association of REALTORS®.
Email: [email protected] or Direct: 705-443-1037
This post is not intended to solicit homes or other properties already listed for sale.
Rick
RICK CROUCH – Broker, MVA (Market Value Appraiser – Residential)
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