Property Values Vary Significantly by Race

PDF - Report

This report is part of our Inequalities in Housing Finance series that analyzes housing finance outcomes by race. Understanding existing housing outcome inequalities is a first step to eliminating discrimination in housing.

Housing wealth — the value of one’s home, less any debt associated with the home — is a key indicator. It can reveal disparities and potential discrimination.

Project overview

To examine the issue, we started with exploring how property values vary across different racial groups. We used data from the:

2016 Census
2011 National Household survey
2006 Census

We examined individual data, instead of household data which is typically used, to include additional demographic information. Census property values are estimates of the property value by the homeowner.

We used assessment data to ensure a proportional distribution of housing types and verify the findings from the census.

Author:: CMHC
Document Type:: PDF
Date Published:: April 27, 2022

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Key findings

Black, White, Arab, Aboriginal, Filipino and Latin American Canadians homeowners had the lowest average property values.
There are large differences in property values between rural and urban locations — and across income groups. There is a negative correlation after controlling for demographics, location and income for Aboriginal, Black, Latin American and Filipino groups relative to the "White" control group.
The gap between the populations with the highest average property value and the lowest average property value has been increasing as property prices have increased rapidly in certain markets.

Implications for the housing industry

These preliminary results indicate differential outcomes in terms of housing wealth and average property values by race.

This is not unequivocal evidence of discrimination and a number of different factors may explain the differences. A combination of factors likely contribute to the housing outcome disparities highlighted in this article.

More analyses, looking at additional outcomes of the housing finance sector will follow in this series. This collective research will help identify the groups and aspects of the housing finance market that require more comprehensive analysis.

About the Inequalities in Housing Finance Research Insight series

The Inequalities in Housing Research Insight series highlights how housing outcomes differ by race and other characteristics. They also differ across other areas, including:

homeownership
mortgage rates
household debt

The data collection phase of CMHC’s discrimination work is important because it identifies areas of focus for future work. These Research Insights will also encourage other industry partners to focus on areas of key concern.

This series is an outcome of our commitment to eliminating unfair discrimination in housing in Canada.