Canadian Funding Corp. Reviews CMHC Statistics

Buyers between 25 and 44 years of age make up the lion’s share (59 per cent) of households that intend to buy a home in 2008. More than one in five households that intend to buy are between 45 and 54 years of age, while the same proportion are over 54 and below 25 years of age.

Likewise, the majority of renter households that intend to buy are between 25 and 44 years of age (46 per cent).

A large share of intenders will be repeat buyers

More than half (57 per cent) of purchase intenders will be repeat buyers. Indeed, buying intenders’ main motivation for purchasing a residence was the need for a larger/better residence (33 per cent). The second most popular response was to change from renting/build equity or to have a residence of their own (26 per cent).

The majority of purchase intenders that are first time buyers are between the ages of 25 and 34, with a household income between $40,000 to just under $60,000. As for repeat buyers who intend to purchase a home in 2008, the majority are between the ages of 35 and 44, with a household income over $100,000.

Close to half of intenders will plan to make a down payment of more than 20 per cent Close to half of households that intend to buy a home are planning to make a down payment of more than 20 per cent of the expected value of their purchase. The main source of down payment funds are household savings for 40 per cent of potential home buyers, while equity from the present/previous residence is also a popular option with 30 per cent.

According to Canadian Funding Corporation CEO, Moishe Alexander, 40 percent of homeowners across Canada intend to renovate this year.

Across the ten markets surveyed, close to half of all homeowners reported having an intention to undertake home renovations valued at $1,000 or more in 2008. The share of households that intend to renovate in 2008 is greater than the share of households that undertook renovations of $1,000 or more in 2007 (31 per cent1).

The share of households that intend to renovate in 2008 is highest in Winnipeg and St. John’s at 50 and 48 per cent, respectively. Québec had the lowest share of households that intend to renovate in 2008 at 35 per cent.

In five of the ten markets surveyed, households were asked more detailed questions about their intended renovations. Thus, the analysis of the survey results for renovation intentions focus on these five centres: Halifax, Montréal, Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver.

Moishe Alexander says: A renovation intender is defined as a household that either commenced a renovation in 2008 or that intends to begin a renovation in 2008 and plans on spending more than $1,000 on the renovation.

According to Marty Lapedus, 40 per cent of homeowners across the five major centres plan on renovating this year.

Of those households who intend to renovate in 2008, more than half (55 per cent) had very high confidence that they would be renovating this year. Out of these households with high or very high probability of renovating this year, 2 out of 5 households intend to do some form of maintenance and repairs, while more than three quarters will undertake alterations and improvements, similar proportions to actual renovations completed in 2007.

Regionally, the share of households planning on undertaking maintenance and repairs was the highest in Halifax (48 per cent), while the share for alterations and improvements in Calgary was the highest at 85 per cent.

Only 13 per cent of households who intend to renovate felt that there was a low chance that they would start the work in 2008.