Homes purchased jointly by friends or people who are related without being spouses? The phenomenon is increasingly common, if we are to believe a survey conducted in August 2023 by Royal LePage among its brokers: 31% of them had noted an increase compared to pre-pandemic years.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
“I see a lot of people who want to buy together,” confirms notary Geneviève Barbe.
His firm, Barbe & Cimon Notaires, located in the center of Montreal, specializes in co-ownerships, particularly undivided ones. She currently works with Desjardins and the National Bank, the only two financial institutions to grant independent mortgage loans to each of the co-owners.
Me Barbe has observed a renewed interest in undivided co-ownership since a reform in 2020 imposed certain more restrictive rules on divided co-ownership.
The previous week, again, the notary had received a consultation from three friends who wanted to acquire a joint property.
“They were looking for a triplex because they couldn’t qualify to buy on their own. They wanted to buy all together with a common mortgage so that everyone could use their own home, with the help of a joint ownership agreement where we would confirm the rights and obligations of each person in relation to the building. »
According to another survey conducted in August 2023 by Léger for Royal LePage, 6% of homeowners in Canada co-own a home with a person other than their spouse.
Half of them (49%) said they would not have been able to afford property on their own.
Co-owners other than spouses
• 6% of Canadian owners
• Financial accessibility weighed heavily in 76% of cases.
The co-owners
• Children and parents or in-laws: 74%
• Brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law: 15%
• Amis : 7 %
• Other than relatives or friends: 8%
Source: survey conducted in August 2023 by Léger for Royal LePage. More than one answer was possible.
A long-experienced mortgage representative at Desjardins, Stéphane Daigneault maintains that purchasing double occupancy “is something that has always existed”.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY DESJARDINS
Stéphane Daigneault, mortgage representative at Desjardins
These are often people who did not qualify for themselves. Often, it is one of the couples who has more difficulty qualifying alone. We will have many members of the same family – a brother and a sister with their respective spouse, for example – who will try to find a duplex, a triplex or a quadruplex, with double occupancy. They will keep one or two tenants. We see that frequently.
Stéphane Daigneault, mortgage representative at Desjardins
In the suburbs
Although rarer, the phenomenon is not non-existent in the periphery.
“Out of 175 transactions last year, I had maybe two who bought, for example, with a sister, a brother or a friend,” indicates real estate broker Stéphane Girard, director of RE/MAX D’ICI SG , an agency in Lanaudière which covers Terrebonne and Mascouche in particular.
He cites the case of two friends who bought a single-family house together with accommodation in the basement “to live downstairs and upstairs with their spouses”.
“It’s a house that someone would normally have bought on their own,” he says. He would have rented the accommodation or dismantled it. »
The approach is not without its drawbacks, he notes.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Stéphane Girard, director of RE/MAX D’ICI SG
“There is always one accommodation smaller than the other. Who will take the smallest, who will take the largest? And there are the children who arrive next, which can lead to small arguments. »
Another resurgent phenomenon is that parents who sold their house a few years ago to live in a home or buy a condo are reinvesting with their children in the acquisition of an intergenerational home. “It’s selling faster than before and it’s selling better,” observes the broker.
Intergenerational homes also know their problems, of which brokers are, if not privileged, at least indirect witnesses.
“The son separates from his girlfriend and his new girlfriend does not get along with the mother-in-law,” illustrates Stéphane Girard. I see him often. »
“I’m not saying it doesn’t work, it’s a good idea all the same, but it takes a good understanding. »
Indeed, a good cohabitation agreement often depends on the good agreement that has been signed beforehand.
2024-02-11 14:31:30
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