Your parents don't own a house? You're less likely to own one yourself, according to StatCan

Canadians whose parents are property owners were twice as likely in 2021 to own a home than those whose parents are not, according to a new report by Statistics Canada.

Canadians whose parents are property owners were twice as likely in 2021 to own a home than those whose parents are not, according to a new report by Statistics Canada.

The report, "Parents and children in the Canadian housing market: Does parental property ownership increase the likelihood of homeownership for their adult children?" found that parents' wealth could — through gifts, inheritances, social capital and investment in education — make it easier for their adult children to afford a down payment or meet their mortgage payments.

The findings come as house and condominium apartment prices have increased sharply in recent years and even affordable rentals are becoming hard to find in many cities.

With a growing number of millennial and Gen Z Canadians priced out of the housing market, StatCan researchers Michael Mirdamadi and Aisha Khalid looked at how a burgeoning "inheritance culture" might be working to concentrate property ownership among families with intergenerational wealth.

Using administrative data from the Canadian Housing Statistics Program, Mirdamadi and Khalid focused on tax filers born in the 1990s. They found that the rate of homeownership in 2021 was 17.4 per cent for the adult children of homeowners and only 8.1 per cent for the adult children of non-homeowners.

Adult children whose parents owned multiple properties were nearly three times more likely to be homeowners, with a homeownership rate of 23.8 per cent, than the adult children of non-homeowners.

Furthermore, 52.8 per cent of people born in the 1990s who own multiple properties also have parents who own multiple properties, while only 10 per cent of those who own multiple properties have non-homeowner parents.