A new publication from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) provides a comprehensive overview of the country's housing market, using updated statistics from the most recent census (2001) and materials from several other sources. The Canadian Housing Observer provides a fascinating look at where Canadian housing is today and where it may be headed.

Canada's population grew to more than 30 million in 2001, but population growth is dropping because of a declining birth rate and an aging population. That means that immigration is becoming more important to population growth.

In recent years, 70 per cent of new immigrants have settled in Toronto (45 per cent), Montreal or Vancouver. Between 1996 and 2001, the population of urban areas grew by 5.3 per cent, while the population living outside those areas dropped by 0.4 per cent. That's why real estate in the urban centres has become such a hot commodity.

There are 11.6 million dwellings in Canada ‗ almost double the number of homes in 1971. Two-thirds are owner occupied. The rate of home ownership is up from 63.6 per cent in 1996, to 65.8 per cent in 2001, the largest increase in the last 30 years. Condominiums are a fast-growing segment of the market. Between 1981 and 1996, the number of owner-occupied condos tripled to more than 500,000. Many more condominiums are rented out by their owners.

Single detached homes represent 57 per cent of all dwellings, while 18 per cent are low-rise apartments and nine per cent are high-rises. Quebec is the only province in which single-detached houses make up less than half of the housing stock.

Canada's houses are getting larger. Houses built from 1996 to 2000 were about 25 per cent larger than houses built from 1961 to 1977. In the 1990s, the square footage of new homes continued to increase, climbing about four per cent from 1990 to 2000.

And while the size of our houses is getting larger, the number of people living in them is shrinking. The average household size was 2.6 people in 2001, down from 3.9 people in 1961. CMHC says people living alone accounted for more than one-quarter of all Canadian households in 2001, double the proportion in 1971.

To pay for those big houses, Canadians borrowed $94.4 billion to finance 915,200 housing units in 2001. In the first half of last year, mortgage lending continued to grow. The average mortgage loan amount rose by 6.1 per cent between the first half of 2001 and the first half of 2002, to reach $108,700 per home.

In 2002, the monthly mortgage payment for an average-priced home in Vancouver was $1,904, the highest in the country. In Toronto, the payment was $1,743, and in Calgary it was $1,253. The largest urban centres with the cheapest monthly mortgage payments were Quebec City at $648 and Winnipeg at $619.

Although competition for mortgages business keeps growing, CMHC reports that banks still accounted for 81.6 per cent of total mortgage approvals in 2001.

Equity in their principal residence represented about 40 per cent of the average net worth of homeowners in 1999. In previously reported study results, CMHC says homeowners' median net worth rose by 20.7 per cent between 1984 and 1999, while renters' median net worth declined by 41.4 per cent during the same period.

In 1996, it was estimated that 1.8 million Canadians had difficulty finding affordable housing. This number declined by 2.6 per cent for renters and 2.8 per cent for homeowners between 1997 and 2000. The number of lone-parent families with affordability problems declined by an estimated 24.7 per cent, thanks to growth in employment and incomes, but the number of senior-led households with housing affordability problems increased by 16.3 per cent during this period.

In 2001, 67 per cent of homes were more than 20 years old, compared to 54 per cent in 1991. That, along with the number of resale home transactions, has kept the country's renovation contractors busy. Only one in 12 homes were reported in need of major repairs in 2001. More than three-quarters of homeowner households say they had at least one repair or renovation expenditure, and the average amount spent was $2,585.

Last year, the Canadian Real Estate Association reported a record number of existing home sales (421,227), at an average price of 188,138. There were 205,034 new home starts in 2002.

Published: April 10, 2003

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Jim Adair is editor of REM: Canada's Real Estate Magazine, a business publication for real estate agents and brokers. He has been writing about Canadian real estate, home building and renovation issues for more than 30 years. You can contact Jim at .