British Columbian homeowners born in the 1990s most likely in Canada to co-own with their parents: StatsCan
British Columbians born in the 1990s are more likely to co-own a home with their parents than anywhere else in the country, a new report from Statistics Canada has revealed.
The report, based on statistics from 2021, found that 20.3 per cent, or one in five residential properties owned by British Columbians born in the 1990s are co-owned with their parents.
The rate of parent-child co-ownership among all properties in Canada is 17.3 per cent. Ontario has the second highest proportion at 19.8 per cent, while the Northwest Territories has the lowest at 5.8 per cent.
StatsCan says some of the highest rates of co-ownership are found in expensive urban markets such as Vancouver, Victoria and Abbotsford-Mission.
Noam Dolgin, a realtor who specializes in co-ownership and is a co-founder of CoHo BC, told CTV News this type of living arrangement is a growing trend amid sky-high real estate costs.
“People really require the support of family to get into the housing market,” he said. “The barriers to entry are so high these days in terms of qualifying for a mortgage and down payment that most young Canadians can’t afford to get into the market without a heads up.”
The report shows that around 30 per cent of properties co-owned by parents and their children nationally are “mortgage co-signing” agreements where the adult child lives in the home they own and the parents live in another property.
However, in Vancouver, StatsCan says in 46.1 per cent of cases the parents and child co-owned a single property. A multigenerational family living together or a situation where a parent added a child to the title for inheritance reasons both fall into that category.
Dolgin explained that there are many reasons people enter co-ownership agreements, not just financial but also to meet social needs. Rising housing costs as well as growing social isolation during the pandemic made interest in co-housing grow, he said.
“It also speaks to the growing trend of intergenerational living,” he said. “People have come back to realize that living intergenerationally is great for everybody. It’s great for the kids and grandparents and it’s great for the parents.”
StatsCan also found that immigrant parents are more likely to co-own properties with their adult children, with nearly half of co-owning parents nationally being born outside of Canada. In Vancouver, 76.9 per cent of parents who co-own properties are immigrants.
In his work, Dolgin says he sees interest in co-ownership agreements among all age groups, from people in their 20s and 30s looking to enter the housing market to boomers and young families wanting to live with community support.
“There’s an advantage to it at pretty much every stage in life and we’re seeing growth in all of those areas,” he said.
With files from CTV News Vancouver’s Isabella Zavarise
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Signs of Alzheimer’s were everywhere. Then his brain improved
Blood biomarkers of telltale signs of early Alzheimer’s disease in the brain of his patient, 55-year-old entrepreneur Simon Nicholls, had all but disappeared in a mere 14 months.
Flammable kids' sleepwear, salmonella-contaminated chips: Here are the recalls of this week
Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued recalls for various items this week, including kids' bassinets, chips, and stoves. Here's what to watch out for.
Lyon-bound Air Canada Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner from Montreal turns back midflight due to pressurization alert
Passengers heading from Montreal to Lyon, France on Friday were forced to return home and depart the next day after a pressurization indication was detected in flight.
Sentencing trial set to begin for Florida man who executed 5 women at a bank in 2019
Zephen Xaver walked into a central Florida bank in 2019, fatally shot five women and then called police to tell them what he did. Now 12 jurors will decide whether the 27-year-old former prison guard trainee is sentenced to death or life without parole.
'How do you get hypothermia in a prison?' Records show hospitalizations among Virginia inmates
The Virginia State Police investigator seemed puzzled about what the inmate was describing: "unbearable" conditions at a prison so cold that toilet water would freeze over and inmates were repeatedly treated for hypothermia.
The secret Italian lakes that most tourists don't know about
Italy has dozens of secret smaller lakes that boast superb scenery, unknown to mass tourism, where locals get together on day trips and enjoy picnics.
Oilers dominate Canucks, win to force deciding Game 7
The Edmonton Oilers avoided elimination from the NHL playoffs Saturday night, beating the visiting Vancouver Canucks 5-1 in Game 6 of their second-round series.
Economists to have a close eye on April inflation report as BoC rate decision nears
Forecasters expect this week's inflation report to show Canada's inflation rate fell last month, but financial markets are still unsure whether a June interest rate cut is in the cards for the Bank of Canada.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange facing pivotal moment in long fight to stay out of U.S. court
The host of a news conference about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's extradition fight wryly welcomed journalists last week to the "millionth" press briefing on his court case