OTTAWA — A Canada Mortgage and Housing survey suggests that a family member provided help with a down payment for nearly one in five first-time homebuyers.
In its annual mortgage consumer survey, CMHC says 18 per cent of first-time buyers received a gift from a family member as part of their down payment.
The agency also noted that those who received financial help from family were less comfortable with their current level of mortgage debt and less likely to have other assets to supplement their needs than others.
CMHC says they were also less confident about knowing where to turn if they run into financial trouble.
The survey was conducted amid concerns that record household debt is a key risk for the Canadian economy.
CMHC’s annual mortgage consumer survey was completed in March online and included 3,002 recent mortgage consumers.
The polling industry’s professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.