Homes buiit

Home buyers

ROYAL LEPAGE has just
Teleased one of the largest
surveys of real estate con-
sumers ever conducted in
Canada.

The survey, which  in-
cludes over 6,600 British
Columbia residents who
bought or sold homes in
1986, points out major dif-
ferences between B.C. real
estate consumers and those
in the rest of Canada.

**Because of the scope of
this survey, we are just
beginning to scratch the sur-
face of our findings,’’ com-
ments Ozzie Jurock, presi-
dent, Royal LePage Resi-
dential Real Estate Services.

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3300

PE ee

“However, some significant
trends are obvious. For ex-
ample, people who bought
homes in B.C. in 1986 were
considerably older than the
national pattern, and there
were also fewer first-time
buyers here than in Canada
as a whole.

“Surprisingly, more single
people bought homes in
B.C.,"" adds Jurock. ‘‘Near-
ly 27 per cent of all buyers in
B.C. were single, while na-
tionally, singles accounted
for under 24 per cent of the
total.”

“First-time buyers, by
comparison, represented just

over 29 per cent of the mar-
ket in B.C., compared to

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NEWS photo Stuart Davis

LOOKING EAST from Tempe Crescent, the duzens of new homes recently built in the Tempe Heig-
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older in

over 37 per cent of the na-
tional market.”’

The largest differeice be-
tween B.C. and the rest of
the country cccurred in the
multi-time buyer group
(people who have bought
more than two homes just
under 32 per cent of the
total. In B.C., over 43 per
cent of the buyers fell into
this more experienced cate-
gory.

Like the national picture,
the popuation age group that
has been most active in
terms of home buying in
B.C. were the so-called baby
boomers. In the Royal
LePage study, the 20 to 39-
year-old age group = ac-
counted for 53 per cent of all
home buying activity in

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B.C., and 63 per cent of the
national market.

“It would appear,’’ says
Jurock, ‘‘that the Canadian
tradition of homeownership
is just as strong, or even
stronger among the baby
boom generation. Canada
has always been one of the
best-housed nations in the
world, with one of the
highest percentages of home
ownership.

“Owning a home evi-
dently continues to be seen
as an excellent investment.”’

The Royal LePage survey
also traced the characteri-
stics of home sellers (ven-
dors), with results largely
similar to those for the buyer
groups.

The most significant dif-

ference between home sellers
in B.C., compared to the
rest of Canada, is evident in
the number of people who
have sold more than two
homes in their lifetime. In
Canada, this group ac-
counted for 32 per cent of all
vendors in 1986, while in
B.C. almost 55 per cent were
multi-time veaders.

In other areas of Canada,
younger consumers and
first-time buyers are major
segments of the market,’’
says Jurock, ‘In B.C., on
the other hand, it appears
that more mature consumers
are leading the market.

“The findings of our
survey are producing the
first real, quantifiable in-
sights into the demographic
pee Se a te

._C., study shows

characteristics of real estate
consumers,’’ says Jurock.
“To our knowledge, no
other organization has ever
conducted a study as com-
prehensive as the one we're
now undertaking.

“In the future, we will
break down the findings and
examine other provinces and
individual cities. We also
plan to correlate the various
categories, sO we can deter-
mine such things as the type
of housing young people are
buying, the age of first-time
buyers, and how much peo-
ple are spending for dif- -
ferent types of housing.

‘‘We suspect, for instance,
that not all single buyers are
young: some may be divorc-
ed or older singles.

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