# Where do families go to afford three bedrooms?

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2025-11-03

housing, sprawl, missing-middle-initiative, low-rise, ground-oriented-housing, ground-oriented, mid-rise, urbanism, land-use

---

In Ontario, couples with children overwhelmingly live in ground-oriented ownership housing. This form of housing is still the majority for all other households (at least according to 2021 Census data), but apartment rentals make up a much larger share.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/09c81dc75ae04cebf559946511bccd9b45fd596519a388d866bb995c8dbc54ce.png)

Given these figures, it is not surprising that the [Missing Middle Initiative has found](https://www.missingmiddleinitiative.ca/p/the-gtas-missing-middle-not-just) that family migration patterns within southern Ontario tend to correlate strongly (r = 0.71) with where ground-oriented ownership housing is being built, which largely means outside of the Greater Toronto Area.

This is an important finding if you're worried about [Canadians not having enough babies](https://brandondonnelly.com/canada-needs-immigration-because-we-dont-make-enough-babies). But this correlation doesn't tell us exactly what's going on. The data suggests that families with children have a clear preference for ground-oriented ownership — even if it means moving farther out — but what other options do they really have?

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/ac09a8d35a2128aece5a887df8fc8abcf18f2e8b574721966136c02d2a821c20.png)

Three-bedroom apartments remain a relatively elusive housing type because demand is low. [But as we have talked about](https://brandondonnelly.com/the-market-for-three-bedroom-apartments-isnt-what-you-think), demand is a function of price, and multi-family buildings are more expensive to construct than low-rise housing. So how much of this perceived consumer preference for ground-oriented housing is actually just people driving until they qualify?

In other words, how many people are simply solving for X amount of space/bedrooms at Y price? And what would happen if we made large three-bedroom apartments in walkable transit-oriented communities the most affordable option? It still wouldn't be for everyone, but I bet that we would see demand adjust.

More importantly, it would give people options.

_Charts from the_ [_Missing Middle Initiative_](https://www.missingmiddleinitiative.ca/p/the-gtas-missing-middle-not-just)_; cover photo by_ [_Jason Ng_](https://unsplash.com/@json_pix?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) _on_ [_Unsplash_](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-couple-of-cars-that-are-sitting-in-the-street-zWJF4eHFo4M?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)

---

*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/where-do-families-go-to-afford-three-bedrooms)*