A recent poll, done for Royal Bank of Canada and taken by Ipsos Reid, has found that while the majority of Canadians think that now is a good time to buy a home – but an even higher majority said that they personally don’t plan on buying a home right now.
The survey, which questioned 2,006 Canadians online between the time of January 24 – January 30, found that 59% of Canadians think that now is a great time to buy a home, and that those thinking about it shouldn’t wait even a year before doing so; the number was up 4% from those who thought the same thing last year. Still, both last year’s results and this year found that an even larger majority of Canadians still couldn’t be convinced that now was the time to buy for them.
This year, 73% said that they weren’t likely to buy a home within the next two years – that’s up from the 71% that said the same in 2011. So if such a large number of people think that it’s a good time to buy, why are even more so hesitant to?
It comes from an uncertainty as to where the housing market is headed, whether home prices are going to stagnate or inflate, and whether or not a potential mortgage would equal a home’s value in the coming years. Marcia Moffat, RBC’s head of home equity loans and home equity financing, said in a statement along with the survey results, “There’s a mix of opinions on the housing market as Canadians still feel confident about real estate but are a little uncertain about where the market is heading and when it still makes sense to buy.”
But even though the larger majority doesn’t think they’ll buy within the next two years, most of us are still optimistic when it comes to the state of our housing market. 88% believe that investing in real estate is the smart way to go, while 68% said that they’ve seen the value of their home increase over the past two years. And, what might be most optimistic of them all, only 47% think that home prices would climb within the next two years – and that falls in line with what many experts have been predicting as well.
The survey results were also released at the same time as a Royal LePage report, which stated that sales and mortgages were up “unusually high” in the early part of the year. It’s thought that what contributed mostly to this were the two rounds of mortgage wars with the banks.
