25 Percent of BC Homebuyers Are Investors, StatCan Says

Investors make about a quarter of real estate purchases in British Columbia, according to new numbers released by Statistics Canada.
StatCan said about a quarter of homebuyers in B.C. and 3 in 10 buyers in Nova Scotia are investors. In New Brunswick, the number drops to 2 in 10.
Over the three years, an average of 24.8 percent of residential properties in B.C. were bought by investors. In Nova Scotia, the number ranged from 29.2 percent in 2018 to 26.7 percent in 2020. In New Brunswick, the rate of investors averaged 20.3 over the three years.
StatCan determined investor status by property ownership and owner’s location of residence. Investors were divided into four categories: business investors, non-resident investors, out-of-province investors, and in-province investors.
Investors typically bought condo units rather than single-detached houses, StatCan numbers showed.
The B.C. cities that saw most investors buy prior to the COVID-19 pandemic were Kelowna, Vancouver, and Victoria.
“In Vancouver, for example, immigrants constituted about two-thirds (67 percent) of in-province investor buyers, despite representing around two-fifths of the population at the time,” the authors wrote.
Similar numbers were seen in 2018 and 2020 statistics, the report said.
Authors said other research has found that immigrants are more likely to buy property rather than other assets, which could be behind their overrepresentation.
“A tendency for immigrants to devote greater amounts of savings to real estate assets would also help explain disparities in incomes between immigrant and Canadian-born investor buyers,” the report said.