Canadian immigration boosts housing market

July 10 2009 by Mark Johnstone

Canadian immigration has boostshousing market

Canadian immigration boosts housing market

Canada’s banks have begun to report an upturn in the housing market that they claim has been boosted by immigrants building and buying their own properties.

May and June saw a 10.8% and 8% rise, respectively, in homebuilding starts. TD Economics’ economist, Pascal Gauthier, says that June marks, “the second consecutive monthly increase in starts after a long string of nearly uninterrupted slides that started last fall." This suggests that the market for home-building has ‘bottomed out’ and is now recovering.

Gauthier added that, “the Canadian economy has certainly passed the worst of what can be expected in terms of residential investment contraction.”

Scotia Economics says that an increase in people who made the move to Canada from abroad and buying their own homes has helped the industry recover. According to figures from the 2006 census, 72% of immigrants lived in homes owned by a member of their household, up from 68% in 2001.

Scotia’s senior economist, Adrienne Warren, says that encouraging foreigners to live and work in Canada is essential to the future of the country’s property market. She says, "given Canada's aging population and relatively low fertility rates, longer-term household formation and housing needs will be largely determined by immigration.”

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