Canadian real estate is being scooped up by investors with excessively cheap credit. Ownership data for residential real estate across four regions show a significant share owned by investors in 2020. What’s most impressive is how fast this trend must have accelerated. Cities have seen up to 90% of recently completed homes go to investors, much higher than normal.

Today we’re looking at the share of housing owned by investors across Canada. When we say investors, we mean “non-owner-occupied” housing. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) defines this as a home that’s “vacant, rented out to others, or used as a secondary property.” Since we’re only looking at cities, no one’s shack in the woods is likely to be included. Only data for Ontario, British Columbia (BC), and Atlantic Canada is available.

Canadian Cities Have Seen Up To 92% Of New Supply Go To Investors

Let’s start with some general observations, shall we? About 1 in 5 (21.0%) homes in the median city across the four regions are investor-owned. When isolating new construction (built after 2016), that number rises to 1 in 3 (33.7%) bought by investors. Their ownership of new housing is overrepresented. It’s running about 60% faster than the general market share.

The share of investor-owned housing is more intense in some regions than others. For example, Bay Roberts, Newfoundland, has the highest percentage of investor-owned housing. They own 49.9% of the total stock and 92.1% of recently completed construction. For a city where unemployment is 65% above the national average, it’s not a great setup…read more.