New data from Statistics Canada suggests that one-fifth of all residential properties in the Region of Waterloo census area were owned by investors in 2020.
The report from Statistics Canada tracks the concentration of properties owned by investors, with Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP) publishing data on investors for the first time earlier this month.
According to Statistics Canada, in Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge, there are 174,820 total property types – including single-detached homes, semi-detached homes, row houses and condominium apartments.
Of these, 34,484 have been identified as an investment property – meaning a property that is owned by someone who has at least one residential property that is not used as their primary place of residence
This means 19.7 per cent of all homes in the region are an investment property.
When broken down by property type, condominium apartments were by a large margin the primary choice for an investment property with 9,375 of the region’s 15,255 apartment condos – or 61.5 per cent - being used as an investment property.
Next was row houses, with 5,685 of 20,370 row home properties being used as investment property. This means 27.9 per cent are investments.
Of the regions semi-detached homes, 2,575 of the 12,380 are investment properties, equaling 20.8 per cent.
Single-detached homes saw the lowest proportion being used as investment properties with the report showing 9,115 of the total 115,440 being used as investment properties, or 7.9 per cent.
This means Waterloo region has a substantially higher number of apartment condos being rented when compared to the provincial average of 41.9 per cent.
Waterloo region was higher in the proportion of row houses being used compared to the provincial average of 20.8 per cent.
Meanwhile, the provincial average for semi-detached houses used as investment properties was 15.1 and single-detached homes was 14.2 per cent, respectively.
