Posted at 8:00 a.m.
Despite the increase in the value of houses in Montreal and interest rates, young people still dream of having a property of their own.
According to a new report from Royal LePage, 82% of millennials living in the Montreal area who are not already homeowners believe they will one day.
Some already have a plan: four out of ten Montrealers belonging to this generation think that they will buy their first property in the next five years.
“The appeal of home ownership is culturally very ingrained and we’ve put a lot of emphasis on that,” says Adam Mongrain, director of housing at Vivre en ville, an NPO that promotes sustainable communities. He himself belongs to this generation. “We were always told that it was THE thing to do. And until three or four years ago, it wasn’t so crazy to think it was possible. »
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Adam Mongrain, director of housing at Vivre en ville
The Royal LePage survey was conducted online by the firm Léger among 2003 Canadians aged 26 to 41, between June 10 and 16.
We also learn that more than half of young people who live in the Montreal region believe that they will have to move if they want to buy their first property: 55% of those who are thinking of becoming owners believe that they will have to settle somewhere else.
“I think it’s a tragedy”, launches Adam Mongrain, who is however not surprised by this data.
Especially since, according to the report, if the cost of living were not a problem, 75% of young Montrealers would stay in their city.
At the social level, people do not want to move. Moving is the loss of a network and resources. It’s the loss of grandpa who can come to babysit and the loss of friends in the green lane.
Adam Mongrain, director of housing at Vivre en ville
It is also an ecological drama, he says, because access to property outside the city also means for many the purchase of a car, or even two.
The Royal LePage report confirms that for many young people, affordability of home ownership is not won.
Pollsters asked participants if they believed their wages would increase at a rate that would allow them to buy property in their city.
Answer: 43% of Quebecers and 54% of Montrealers said no.
The median price of a house in the greater Montreal area was estimated at $550,000 last month. That’s up 10% from July 2021, but down 5%, from peaking at $580,000 in April 2022, according to the Association professionnelle des courtiers immobiliers du Québec.
Besides, the market is cooling down a bit. The most recent statistics show an increase in properties for sale in Montreal, which could give hope to future buyers.
Open doors to city life
If living in Montreal is a dream or a project, it’s not given to everyone. Tuesday evening in Montreal, in front of a crowded floor, the organization Vivre en ville launched Open doors, a publication in which the problem of access to property is tackled globally. “The housing crisis has taken root and we all live, inevitably, with it”, can we read in this document which presents four major projects with four key solutions for each of them. The organization believes in particular that the living space deficit in sustainable environments must be filled. And to achieve this, we must encourage densification, curb urban sprawl and increase the residential capacity of areas that are already urbanized. “We need to make more room than people looking for room,” repeated Adam Mongrain, during the launch.
Stephanie Berube, The Press