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Almost 50% of Canadians with children under 18 are planning to help their kids buy a home, mostly by postponing their retirement, a new survey has found.
The Leger survey, commissioned by FP Canada, found that 48% of these parents want to help their children buy a home, up from 43% in 2017.
Among the respondents, 39% expect to postpone their retirement to help their kids buy a home (up from 27% in 2017), 30% plan to use some of their retirement savings (up from 21%), and 26% plan to tap into their home equity (up from 23%).
The financial strain of helping their children led to 34% of parents saying that they’d have trouble paying off debt, up from 22% in 2017.
The survey also found that parents in urban areas were more likely to use their retirement savings or home equity to help their children buy a home.
Almost one-quarter (24%) of respondents who had children older than 18 said that they had already helped their kids buy a home. However, parents older than 55 were more likely to have done so than younger parents, 27% vs 15%, respectively.
Meanwhile, 32% of respondents in Atlantic Canada, Manitoba and Saskatchewan had helped their children buy a home – a higher proportion than in any other regions.
Leger surveyed 1,557 Canadians on April 26-29 using its online panel, according to an Investment Executive report.
