Evolving housing conditions in Canada's census metropolitan areas, 1991-2001

The rate of homeownership in Canada increased from 62.6 percent in 1991 to 63.6 percent in 1996 and 65.8 percent in 2001.21 During the second half of the 1990s, growth in owner households accelerated, while the number of renter households scarcely grew at all.22 The consequent increase in the national ownership rate between 1996 and 2001 was the largest gain for any five-year intercensal period si [...] Even after the effect of age was removed, increases in homeownership were still evident in the majority of CMAs, especially in the second half of the decade (see Table 2.7). [...] In the new home market, the all-CMA inventory of completed but unoccupied homes shrank by two-thirds from 1990 to 2002, with most of the decrease occurring in the first half of the period. [...] The improvement in household incomes in combination with declining mortgage rates was more than sufficient to counter the effects of the more rapid increases in housing prices and rents described in the previous section. [...] The decline in the proportion of rented units accounted for by the RMS universe may have been greater than suggested by these figures given the increase in the rate of undercoverage in the 2001 Census (see footnote in sub-section 2.2); in other words, had the coverage rate for the 2001 Census equaled that of earlier censuses, the number of renter households enumerated in 2001 would have been corre