New data released today from the Canadian Housing Statistics Program provide information on ownership of residential properties by non-individuals in Nova Scotia, Ontario and British Columbia. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation published a report using these new data, Residential Property in British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia: An Overview of Non-individual Ownership, which also includes analysis of the ownership structure of vacant land across the three provinces.
The data tables include information on non-individual entities, referring to firms and governments. For the purpose of this release, they are classified into the following categories: corporations, governments, and sole proprietorships and partnerships. Information on selected sectors in which those entities operate, following sector groupings from the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), is also included in this release.
Among firms and governments, corporations own the majority of residential properties
Across the three provinces, corporations are the most common legal type of non-individual owners of residential properties, followed by governments. Corporations include businesses and non-profit organizations, while governments include federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments. In terms of NAICS sectors, entities belonging to the real estate and rental and leasing sector, the public administration sector and the construction sector are the most common non-individual owners of residential properties.
In Ontario, three-quarters of non-individual owned properties are held by corporations, compared with 68.9% in Nova Scotia and 57.3% in British Columbia. The share of non-individual owned properties held by governments is highest in British Columbia (39.0%), followed by Nova Scotia (22.9%) and Ontario (20.1%).
In Nova Scotia, 28.8% of residential properties held by corporations are owned by the construction sector, compared with 22.5% in Ontario and 21.4% in British Columbia. Among the residential properties owned by corporations, the real estate and rental and leasing sector accounts for the largest share in Ontario (31.1%) and in British Columbia (23.4%), while in Nova Scotia it represents about one-quarter of the properties held by corporations.
The average assessment value of a residential property owned by corporations is highest in British Columbia at $1.3 million, compared with $630,000 in Ontario and $330,000 in Nova Scotia. In British Columbia, corporations account for 84.7% of the total assessment value of non-individual owned properties, while in Ontario and Nova Scotia this share is closer to 80%. Residential properties owned by governments represent around 10% of the total assessment value of properties owned by non-individuals in each province.
