BREAKING Pearson gold heist suspect arrested after flying into Toronto from India
Another suspect is in custody in connection with the gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport last year, police say.
As Canadian home prices continue to rise and become increasingly unaffordable, parents are giving their adult children record amounts of money -- even outpacing home price inflation -- to help with the expensive purchase, a move that also widens the wealth gap, according to a CIBC report.
The report, published on Monday, found that roughly 30 per cent of first-time homebuyers and nearly nine per cent of existing homeowners received financial help from family this past year to purchase a house, according to CIBC data. First-time buyers received an average gift size of $82,000, while “mover-uppers” were gifted a whopping average of $128,000 in September 2021.
In 2015, close to 20 per cent of first-time homebuyers received an average of $52,000 in help from family members. During the pandemic, the number of families helping out was steady among first-time buyers and fell slightly among those who had purchased a home before. The overall amount of money parents have given their children since 2015, however, has increased and decreased, tracking fluctuations in housing prices, but outpaced home price inflation by two percentage points at 9.7 per cent per year.
“Overall we estimate that over the past year, gifting amounted to just over $10 billion, accounting for 10% of total down payments in the market as a whole during that period,” wrote Benjamin Tal, Deputy Chief Economist of CIBC World Markets, and the author of the report.
Tal noted that while there has been speculation that suggests many parents have gone into debt to help their children, the numbers do not necessarily support that assumption. Looking at data from credit reporting agency Equifax, he estimated that only 5.5 per cent of parents who gave money to their kids in 2020 to help with their down payment went into debt to finance that money. And while it’s a higher percentage than it was in 2019 in most major cities, especially in Vancouver, the 5.5 per cent rate was still relatively low, he said.
“It seems that a large portion of the gifting comes from parents’ savings, which of course grew notably during the pandemic—allowing for the increases in the size of the average gift,” Tal wrote in his report.
Providing this gift helps narrow the wealth gap somewhat among parents, Tal says, but it creates greater inequality between homebuyers who have help from parents and those who do not.
“That increase in the gap is much larger than the actual gift size as it might make the difference between owning and not-owning a house, with receivers potentially benefiting from future home price appreciation,” he wrote. It can also generate significant interest payment savings if the amount of mortgage being carried by these homebuyers is smaller, he added.
For homebuyers who received gifts that form the bulk of their down payment -- that’s two-thirds of first-time buyers -- the average gift amount rose even higher to $104,000. Among existing home owners using a gifted amount to cover most of their down payment, the average jumped to $157,000.
The average gift size for markets like Toronto and Vancouver are even higher, with first-time buyers in Toronto receiving an average of $130,000 during the first three quarters of 2021, and $200,000 among non-first timers. In Vancouver, those gifts were an eye-popping $180,000 and $340,000 on average among first-time buyers and existing homeowners looking to buy again.
“Given the trend and the size of gifting, it is clear that this phenomenon is becoming an important factor impacting housing demand and therefore home prices in Canada,” the report said.
Another suspect is in custody in connection with the gold heist at Toronto Pearson International Airport last year, police say.
Hailey and Justin Bieber are going to be parents. The couple announced the news on Thursday on Instagram, both sharing a video that showcases Hailey Bieber's growing belly.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Conservative government led by Pierre Poilievre would not legislate on, nor use the notwithstanding clause, on abortion, his office says, as anti-abortion protesters gather on Parliament Hill.
A southwestern Ontario woman has received an $8,400 bill from a hospital in Windsor, Ont., after she refused to put her mother in a nursing home she hated -- and she says she has no intention of paying it.
Studies have shown that ultraprocessed foods can have a detrimental impact on health. But 30 years of research show they don’t all have the same impact.
Miss Teen USA resigned Wednesday, sending further shock waves through the pageant community just days after Miss USA said she would relinquish her crown.
Ontario Provincial Police confirm one person has died after a single-vehicle rollover crash in Sharbot Lake, Ont. that seriously injured five others.
A video circulating on social media of a young girl being hit by a bike has some calling for better safety and more caution when designing bike lanes in the city. The video shows a four-year-old girl crossing Jeanne-Mance Street in Montreal's Plateau neighbourhood to get on a school bus stopped on the opposite side of the street
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.