Are Canadian home buyers ready to really dig into their pockets? Judging from the news we hear every day about home prices going up and the market becoming hotter than ever, one might believe that people have gotten used to the idea that they’d need to pay a lot more for their homes.
But an analysis based on home searches conducted between March and May on Point2 Homes reveals that most home buyers are interested in homes which cost between $300,000 and $400,000 which is significantly below the national average of $500,000. When it comes to luxury homes of $1 million and up, only 7% of Canadians are looking for one. The data available for each province and city helped us gain an insight into what home buyers are looking for. Take a look below at what we found:
The most searched-for houses in Canada are $300,000 homes. 25% of Canadians are looking for one
Although the housing market in Canada has seen prices climb month after month, having reached a record of $509, 460 in May, it seems that many Canadians are still hoping to find something well below this price. Nationwide, 25% of all home searches on Point2 Homes were targeting properties close to $300,000 while in Manitoba, New Foundland, Quebec, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, the percentage of such searches went even higher, making $3000,000 homes the most sought-after.
Another price which home buyers searched after was $400,000, making homes with this price tag the next most popular in Canada — 22% of home buyers were conducting searches using this price. Folks in Alberta and Saskatoon are the biggest fans, it seems — 30% and 29% respectively of all home searchers were looking for a home around this price.
Moving to the higher end of the market, we discovered that homes which cost around $750,000 are being targeted, as one might expect, primarily by house hunters in British Columbia and Ontario, the provinces with the hottest real estate markets in Canada. Luxury homes with price tags of $1 million and up are popular in searches done in British Columbia and Quebec.
A look at the lower end of the market reveals that the majority of house hunters in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island are hoping to find properties which cost $200,000 at the max. In fact, in the latter two provinces, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, a significant percentage of home buyers are hoping to find properties for the princely sum of just $100,000.
A detailed breakdown of the most popular home price searches by province:
Millennials are out looking for a home in Canada’s biggest cities. What are they looking for?
Moving from the province-level to the city-level, we see that the same interest in homes below the market average price persists. This might be due to the fact that most searches came from a younger group of potential home buyers (ages 24-44). The exceptions are Edmonton, AB, Saskatoon, SK and Winnipeg, MB, where most Canadians were interested in pricier homes than the average.
The biggest surprise came from Toronto and Vancouver, where the most popular home searches targeted properties which cost way below the average. In each of these cities, the majority of home searches were done by younger people, aged 24-34 and 35-44, most of them women. The possibility that they are looking for a first home, possibly a condo, is quite high.
Central Canada: Home Buyers in Mississauga and Burlington Are More Interested in Pricey Homes than Torontonians
Home price indexes show that the housing market in Ontario is hotter than ever, having registered strong gains since the beginning of the year. However, the hope that there’s a more affordable house out there waiting hasn’t left many Ontario dwellers. Searches for homes priced as low as $300,000 were frequent even in bigger cities such as Ottawa, Hamilton, Windsor and London.
In Ottawa, most searches were being conducted, at a tie, by people in the 55-64 age group and by a younger group, aged 25-34. In Hamilton, most searches were being conducted by people in the 45-54 age group.
A surprise in Ontario came from cities such as Mississauga, St. Catharine’s and Burlington, more people have shown an interest in pricier homes than the average. 25% of all home searches in Mississauga set as maximum price $750,000, while the average home price in May was $100,000 less. The home buyers’ age group might be able to have a say in this, as a significant percent of searches were conducted by Canadians aged 45-54.
British Columbia: Most home buyers are targeting homes between $500,000 and $750,000
Province-wide, the most sought-after homes in British Columbia are the ones with a price tag of around $400,000, whereas in the province’s most important cities many home seekers were interested in properties which range between $500,000 and $750,000.
In Victoria, most people who looked for a house on Point2 Homes are aged 55 and up and the most searched homes were those priced around $500,000. In Vancouver and Surrey the most sought-after were homes around $750,000, which is not surprising, given the fact that they have the most expensive real estate markets in the province.
Those interested in luxury homes searched in Burnaby, B.C.’s third city by population, and Coquitlam. In Burnaby, 46% of all home searches targeted properties of $1 million and up.
Cities in Alberta and Saskatchewan follow the nationwide norm
Mirroring the trend for the entire Canada as a whole, most people in Alberta’s bigger cities are searching for homes costing around $400,000 and very few are searching for upper-end homes. In Edmonton, where the housing market has managed to maintain stability for a while now, 34% of all searches targeted $400,000 homes. Most Edmontonians looking for a house on Point2 Homes were Millennials aged between 25 and 34.
In Calgary we have almost the same situation: a younger group of home buyers, aged between 25 and 34 years and almost the same percentage (32%) of searches for homes priced around $400,000.
In neighbouring Saskatchewan, where the market has also cooled off during the past months, search results reveal the same interest in mid-range homes. In Saskatoon, 36% of all home buyers, mostly Millenials were interested in $400,00 homes while in Regina it’s $300,000 homes which are the most popular (33% of all searches).
In Atlantic Canada, homes of $200,000 and $300,000 are the norm in searches
Atlantic Canada may be the place for the adventurous, but it’s clearly not an area where people like to invest large when it comes to homes. In Saint John, New Brunswick; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Charlottetown, PEI the most popular searches were for homes of around $200,000.
Canadians not willing to compromise on living space
Although when it comes to price, Canadians are trying to be rather thrifty, regarding space, they are not willing to compromise. Most Canadians who searched on P0int2 Homes were looking for homes which have at least 3 bedrooms and this is true for all provinces we monitored. Studios and 1-bedroom apartments don’t present that much interest for home buyers, as searches for this type of property were in the single-digit range. This means that an agent will have to wait longer to sell a studio:
Here’s how the situation looks like at the province level:
The same interest for 3-bedroom homes stands when it comes to the most important cities in Canada. In Toronto, Vancouver, Hamilton, Mississauga, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnipeg, searches for homes with 3 bedrooms ranged between 40% and 50%. The preference for bigger homes is more obvious in cities in Alberta than in other provinces. Only in a few cities from British Columbia such as Burnaby and Richmond — where home prices are higher — it seems that smaller, 2-bedroom homes are more popular.
