[News] Move over, millennials. A third of Canada's single renters are seniors

Angela Sealy, 77, is a content lifelong renter. She immigrated to Canada in 1967 from Barbados, and lived in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia while completing her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Buying a home may seem like an important goal for many new Canadians, but for Ms. Sealy, it was never on the agenda.

“[Renting] was a lot easier for me … there’s this desperate need [in Canada] to purchase something that I find peculiar,” said Ms. Sealy, who’s been a resident of New Westminster, a Vancouver suburb, since 1980. She sees owning a home as a financial burden, especially for people doing it on one paycheque: “Having a down payment is wonderful, but that’s where the expenses begin.”

When people think of single people who rent, they might envision a young professional or someone who can’t yet afford to buy. And while millennials might be the face of solo renting, seniors like Ms. Sealy make up the dominant share of solo renter households in Canada. Whether seniors renting alone are doing so because of divorce or death of a spouse, downsizing in retirement, personal preference or other reasons, doing so in Canada’s pricey rental market can have implications for their financial security and retirement plans.

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