There’s new evidence to suggest that a minority of Canadian homeowners are amassing large amounts of residential real estate in Ontario and B.C.

New data reveal that 15.5 per cent of individual homeowners own 31.1 per cent of all residential properties in Ontario as of 2019. In British Columbia, 15 per cent of individual owners held 29.1 per cent of the provincial housing stock.

The data is from the Canadian Housing Statistics Program, or CHSP, set up five years ago through Statistics Canada to fill a data gap on the forces driving the country’s housing market.

The findings are CHSP’s first comprehensive look at individuals who hold multiple properties and what they own. They’re released less than a week after Ottawa introduced a budget that attempts to alleviate the country’s affording housing crisis by pumping billions of dollars into new home construction, helping first-time homebuyers, and curbing foreign real estate buyers.

The budget did not address the role of retail real estate investors, whose buying doubled over the first year of the pandemic and represented just over 20 per cent of all purchases across the country in the first half of 2021.

“Individual multiple-property owners hold a significant share of the residential property stock, despite accounting for a relatively small number of owners,” the CHSP report said, adding that owners seeking additional properties “contribute to increased competition in already tight real estate markets, making it more difficult for prospective homeowners to purchase a home.”

Statistics on multiple-home owners in urban Ontario and B.C. offer an indication of the level of investment in residential real estate by individual real estate investors, or those who invest for themselves.

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