75% of Canadians who want a home can't afford one

Jun 16 2021, 4:10 pm

Three-quarters of Canadians who want to own a home say they can’t afford to buy one, as housing prices continue to reach record highs nationwide.

A new report released on Wednesday by Manulife found that 75% of Canadians who do not own a home but want to can’t afford to do so. And they don’t view the future too optimistically either, with 71% saying they worry about ever being able to save up for a home.

Two-thirds of those surveyed also reported worrying about housing prices in their local communities. The report also suggests aspiring homeowners might have to move to another community if they want to own a home.

For the Canadians lucky enough to have purchased a home, 33% said they needed help from their parents when purchasing their first home. That number gets even bigger when looking at millennial and Gen Z homeowners, of which 46% and 47% respectively reported receiving help from their parents.

“With the housing market pricing many Canadians out of the market, younger generations are forced to turn to their parents to close the gap,” said Manulife Bank CEO Rick Lunny. “Although this can be an effective short-term solution, it can actually be exacerbating the problem. That’s why it’s so important to have financial flexibility, especially when it comes to purchasing a home, no matter the financial environment.”

About 7% of parents have reported helping their adult children purchase a home during the pandemic, and about 5% have used equity from their own home to help their child purchase a home.

And parents aren’t expecting this trend to stop any time soon, with 85% of parents of young children already worrying about what the real estate market will look like when their children are ready to buy.

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