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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.