‘Bank of mom and dad’
GLEN SCHAEFER
The Vancouver Sun
More B.C. first-time home buyers got financial assistance from their parents in 2016 than in previous years, according to an informal poll of the province’s notaries public.
The notaries handle more than 60 per cent of B.C. real estate transactions, according to Society of Notaries Public of B.C. director Dan Boisvert. About 150 notaries took part in the year-end survey, and of those who took part, 72 per cent said first-time buyers “typically” got help from their parents to buy. A year earlier, 57 per cent of the notaries surveyed said first-timers typically got help.
“It’s our anecdotal comments on what we see in our offices,” said Boisvert, a Tsawwassen notary, adding that notaries don’t formally track where their clients get their down-payment money.
In his own practice, Boisvert said, the majority of first-timers he sees are getting some parental help.
“It’s a statement you often hear, even so much as ‘thank God for my parents,’ especially when they’re buying a half-million dollar, $600,000 home.”
The notaries say most parental help comes in the form of gifts, but some parents are named on the property title or in promissory notes with the expectation of being paid back.
“What really happens with first-time home buyers is they save up money, they go and look at something and all of a sudden they get stuck in some kind of bidding war,” Boisvert said. “Or they get the deal all into place and as the numbers come in they realize they haven’t got enough. Where do they go? Where does anybody in their 20s go when they need a quick 10 grand? The bank of mom and dad.”
Boisvert said that despite 2016’s rise in Lower Mainland property values, demand from first-time buyers has remained strong.
Realtor Dan Morrison, president of the Greater Vancouver Real Estate Board, said he had no hard statistics on parental help, but he knew first-hand about the bank of mom and dad.
“It’s certainly not a new thing, but it’s certainly been happening a lot more the past couple of years,” Morrison said. “Me, personally, I helped both of my sons buy in the last couple of years.”
Morrison said parents who own their own homes are helping their offspring now “rather than waiting 10, 20, 30 years from now when we leave it to them.”
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