Vancouver leads Canada for proportion of families with rental income

When it comes to families making money from renting out a space in their home, Vancouver leads the back compared to the rest of Canada, followed by Victoria.

In Vancouver, that number is 11.2%, and in Victoria, it’s 10.4%.

Toronto is third in Canada, lagging behind the BC cities with 9.8% of families with rental income, according to recently released 2020 data from StatsCan.

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If you’ve ever perused through Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, looking for potential spots to rent, this may not come as a surprise.

Most of the listings you find on these websites are posted by families with a legal suite they can rent out in a home, whether it’s a basement or what have you. For years, many families have turned to renting out legal spaces in their homes as a source of secondary income, nowhere is that more prominent than in Vancouver.

2020 data shows the proportion of families with rental income is the  highest in Vancouver (StatsCan)

Across the board, nationally, the money families have been raking in from rental income has been steadily rising over the past two decades.

StatsCan says that in 2020, the proportion of families with rental income was 7.9%, and their median rental net income was $2,750, putting Vancouver at nearly 4% above the national value.

StatsCan

Couple families (11.3%) were more likely to have rental income than lone-parent families (5.1%) and individuals not in families (4.1%).

“Couple families, who also have the highest median total income, have access to more cash flow than other family types and therefore may be more likely to have a property to rent.”

StatsCan suggests the typical landlord in 2020 was a working couple living in a big census metropolitan area.

“For example, in 2020, just over four in five rental income earners were in couple families (81.0%), close to half of rental income earners were aged 45 to 64 (46.7%), and most lived in the census metropolitan area (CMA) of Toronto (21.2%), Montréal (13.5%) or Vancouver (10.7%).”

While it might seem like it’s mostly boomer moms and dads, StatsCan data suggests otherwise.

“The share of 30- to 34-year-olds receiving net rental income rose from 4.1% in 2000 to 5.2% in 2020, the share of 35- to 39-year-olds rose from 5.3% to 7.2%, and the share of 40- to 44-year-olds rose from 6.1% to 8.2%.”

Younger people getting into the housing market are likely fueling this trend. As housing costs continue to rise, younger homeowners are forced to pinch pennies and save up as much as possible to own a home. Once that reality has been fulfilled, rental income is an easy way to recoup some of those costs, especially in Vancouver, where expensive rental rates are the norm.