The majority of Canadians continue to believe in the strength of the real estate market
According to RBC, Canadians’ confidence in the real estate market remained unchanged in December despite concerns about the economy as a whole. High home importance also continued to stimulate potential home buyers outside of major metropolitan areas to seek affordable and larger properties.
While the majority of respondents were worried about the financial impact of COVID-19 (78%), less than half of the respondents surveyed were concerned about the impact of the second wave of the pandemic on the real estate market (43%). Furthermore, only 19% consider the pandemic has reduced competition in the real estate market and made it easier to buy a home.
The study also found that 56% of Canadians are looking to buy a new home with their spouse or partner at some point and 51% would like to buy a detached home.
About two in five respondents who said they want to buy a home in the next two years said they currently want to increase the size of their home. Besides that, Canadians responded that they are most interested in buying a property in the suburbs (38%), followed by rural areas (26%). Only 14% of respondents said they would like to buy a house in a large metropolis.
Meanwhile, 59% of the respondents also said that the cost of housing in their area is not affordable. An average Canadian budget ($445,237) is below the national average cost of real estate so that nearly half of the respondents surveyed said that if they wanted to buy or own a large home, they would probably have to move out of the city in which they live in (45%).
In addition, 80% of Canadians surveyed believe owning a home is a good investment. Although the majority of respondents agreed that we are now in the worst period of the crisis, or that it has not yet arrived (79%), over half said that the cost of housing in the near future will only rise (52%). In fact, 60% of respondents believe that home prices in their area are overpriced, while 56% say affordability will only get worse in the near future.
We’ve reported that MoneyGram International announced a five-year extension to its partnership with Canada Post. This renewal allows MoneyGram customers to continue to transfer money and pay bills at over 5,000 Canada Post locations throughout Canada.
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