The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday edition that Canadian homeowners move every seven years on average, according to Realtors. In a Globe special, Kelsey Rolfe writes that the number is often used to underscore why homeowners should beware of the high cost of breaking a fixed mortgage rate if they are forced to move earlier than expected. Experts believe the number of years between moves is likely increasing, which they attribute to housing affordability issues and the country's aging population. There is, however, little agreement over how frequently Canadians move, and hard data are scarce. The origin of the number is murky. Statistics Canada said the agency does not track lifetime moves, but Statscan data from last March found that in the two years leading up to 2021, 870,000 homeowner households moved, out of 15 million total households. With Canadian home ownership rates at 66.5 per cent, there are just shy of 10 million homeowner households, translating to only 4.3 per cent of homeowners who moved per year in that two-year period. That means an average time between moves of 23 years. "That's too long," housing analyst Will Dunning said. "It probably really is something in the area of seven to 10 years."