by Ephraim Vecina
For a growing number of Canadians, shared financial or property goals are now more important than looks when it comes to evaluating potential romantic partners.
The HSBC-sponsored Beyond the Bricks annual survey, which polled 1,077 Canadians regarding their attitudes toward home ownership, found that fully 61% of Canadian millennials hold serious anxieties regarding housing.
A significant proportion of this cohort value the financial (39%) or home purchase (33%) mindsets of the people they choose to date.
This comes with its share of misfortune and heartbreak, as Canadian millennials were 16% more likely to stay in unhealthy relationships due to property, compared to the overall Canadian average of 6%.
Among Canadian millennials who have found their ideal partner, 62.8% said that their last house move was due to finances. These considerations included getting more value for money (25.5%) and relocating to a market with a lower cost of living (23.4%).
“The anxiety millennials (and others) feel is justified. Close to 70% of Canadians own their home but less than 30% do so without a mortgage,” HSBC Bank Canada senior vice president Barry Gollom said.
Compounding the issue is that the demographic continues to labour under high prices and static incomes.
According to the non-profit housing advocacy organization Generation Squeeze, Canadian millennials take an average of 13 years to save for 20% on a median-priced home, while their parents needed just around five years to do so in 1976.
“It’s crushing those who walk in their footsteps,” lead author and University of British Columbia policy professor Paul Kershaw said earlier this year.
Kershaw added that true housing affordability can be reached only if average earnings double (up to $93,400 annually), or if average home prices declined by half (a reduction of approximately $223,000).