No, Millennials Don't Ignore Their Phones: What Canadian Data Says About Calling Millennial Buyers

We recently looked at the Canadian data on who answers unknown numbers. One detail from that same survey deserves its own article, because it contradicts an assumption a lot of businesses — real estate agents especially — build their follow-up around: that millennials, the generation now doing most of Canada's home buying, won't pick up a phone call.

The Assumption

It's a common enough belief that it rarely gets questioned: younger adults text, they don't call, and they definitely don't answer a number they don't recognize. Years of media coverage have reinforced it, generally framing younger generations as avoiding phone calls in favour of texting. That coverage is rarely specific about who it means, and the stereotype gets applied to millennials by association — even though millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, are now mostly in their 30s and early 40s.

What the Canadian Data Actually Shows

The May 2025 Narrative Research and Logit Group survey of 1,231 Canadians, weighted to the 2021 Census, looked at how people handle unknown callers and compared age groups. In the release's own words, older Canadians are the least likely to answer calls from unknown numbers, while millennials are the most likely to do so. That's a direct contradiction of the stereotype, from a census-weighted Canadian sample.

To be precise about what that does and doesn't tell us: the published release ranks the age groups but doesn't report a separate percentage for millennials, so we can't tell you exactly how many millennials answer. What we can say is that they answer more often than any other age group, and that across all Canadians the figure is 66%.

Preference for Texting Isn't the Same as Refusing to Answer

Even setting that finding aside, it's worth being precise about what "prefers texting" means. Being comfortable with, or even preferring, text-based communication in everyday life is a different claim from refusing an incoming call — especially a call about something the person is actually expecting, like a reply to a listing inquiry or a quote request. Casual communication habits and how someone responds to a call they have a real reason to pick up aren't the same behaviour.

Why This Matters Most for Real Estate

Millennials aren't a marginal segment for a real estate agent — they're the core of the market. Statistics Canada reported that as of July 1, 2023, millennials outnumbered baby boomers for the first time, making them Canada's largest generation. A Wahi survey conducted through the Angus Reid Forum — fielded November 21 to 25, 2025 and released January 13, 2026 — found that 25% of millennials say they'll probably buy a home in 2026, while only 15% of Gen Z respondents expressed interest. And CMHC data reported by insauga.com shows millennials accounting for the largest share of homebuyers. An agent who quietly deprioritizes calling this group because "they won't pick up anyway" is making a channel decision about their biggest buyer segment based on a stereotype the data doesn't support.

What This Means for Speed-to-Lead

This connects directly to the case for speed-to-lead in real estate. When a millennial buyer submits an inquiry — through your website, a Facebook lead ad, or an Instagram DM — and gets an automated callback within 30 seconds, they're not being reached through a channel that doesn't work for them; the data suggests the opposite. Because the call only goes to someone who just opted in, it reaches a person who's still holding their phone and expecting to hear back. The cost of a slow response doesn't shrink because the lead is a millennial; defaulting to text-only follow-up for this segment risks giving up the advantage that calling quickly provides.

The Right Takeaway

Channel preference and response speed are two different variables, and conflating them leads to the wrong strategy. The better approach, supported by what this data actually shows, is to combine channels — a text alongside an automated call — and prioritize speed regardless of the lead's age, rather than skipping the call because of an assumption about who answers their phone.

Sources

• Narrative Research and the Logit Group, survey of 1,231 Canadians on spam calls and texts, fielded May 9–11, 2025, weighted to the 2021 Census. Source for the age ranking and the 66% overall answer rate.
• Statistics Canada, "Millennials now outnumber baby boomers in Canada", The Daily, February 21, 2024.
• Wahi, 2026 homebuyer intentions survey, conducted through the Angus Reid Forum among 1,501 Canadians, November 21–25, 2025; released January 13, 2026.
• CMHC data on homebuyer age, as reported by insauga.com.