There is new evidence to suggest that a minority of Canadian homeowners amass large quantities of residential real estate in Ontario and BC. New data reveals that 15.5 per cent of individual homeowners own 31.1 per cent of all residential property in Ontario as of 2019. In British Columbia, 15 per cent of individual homeowners owned 29.1 per cent of Ontario. provincial housing stock. The data comes from the Canadian Housing Statistics Program, or CHSP, created five years ago through Statistics Canada to fill a data gap on the forces driving the country’s housing market. The findings are the CHSP’s first comprehensive look at people who own multiple properties and what they own. Less than a week after Ottawa unveiled a budget that seeks to mitigate the country’s housing crisis by raising billions of dollars in new housing, helping first-time homebuyers and restricting foreign buyers. The budget did not address the role of retail real estate investors, whose markets doubled in the first year of the pandemic and accounted for just over 20 percent of all markets nationwide in the first half of 2021. “Individual multi-property owners hold a significant share of the housing stock, despite the relatively small number of owners,” the CHSP report said, adding that homeowners looking for additional properties are contributing to increased competition in already tight real estate markets. making it more difficult for prospective homeowners to buy a home. “ Will a new tax-free savings account help home buyers? Experts offer mixed reviews The building sector sees challenges in the core budget program for expanding the pace of housing construction in Canada Statistics for multiple homeowners in urban Ontario and BC provide an indication of the level of investment in residential real estate by individual real estate investors or by those who invest for themselves. Although many homeowners own a leisure or cottage property, the CHSP report stated that the majority of multi-property owners owned all of their real estate in the same metropolitan inventory area. The data come from 2019 and therefore do not reflect the pandemic frenzy in the real estate sector where housing prices have soared, especially in smaller cities and rural areas. CHSP figures show that in New Brunswick, 19.6 percent of individual homeowners owned 38.7 percent of the county home stock. In Nova Scotia, 21.6 per cent of homeowners owned 40.9 per cent of residential real estate. However, with only about one-fifth of multi-family homeowners owning all of their properties in the same metropolitan area in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, the CHSP said it was likely that these sub-properties were leisure rather than investment properties. “We suspect that there are far more multi-purpose property ownership arrangements that are more in line with what we see in Ontario,” said Jean-Philippe Deschamps-Laporte, CHSP director. The pandemic real estate boom is largely due to record low-cost borrowing, which has also helped fuel demand from investors. Andy Yan, Simon Fraser University’s program director, said the latest CHSP figures suggest governments should consider who buys. Real estate investing is legal in Canada and has grown in popularity as housing prices have skyrocketed and residents are looking for other ways to earn a living as well as retirement income. However, Mr Jan said governments should consider policies to “balance the competition” between someone looking to buy their first home and someone looking for a second or third home. CHSP was founded after the 2017 real estate boom in Toronto and Vancouver. At the time, overseas purchases were thought to be behind rising housing prices in the Vancouver area, but there was no complete data. The CHSP uses tax returns, cadastral data and real estate appraisals for its analysis. The program is based on cooperation from provinces and regions, so the data set does not cover the whole country. Your time is precious. Deliver the Top Business Headlines newsletter to your inbox in the morning or evening. Register today.
