A Bank of Montreal report suggests first-time home buyers are increasingly turning to the “Bank of Mom and Dad.”
BMO’s 2015 Home Buying Report found that 42% of first-time buyers told an online survey that they expected their parents or relatives to help pay for their first home.
That’s up 12% from last year’s report.
The bank also said 40% of the first-time buyers said they couldn’t afford a home without financial help from family.
The study found the first-timers were anticipating a downpayment of about $59,413 on average and had a budget of $312,700 for the purchase — slightly less than last year’s average price of $316,100.
The bank also found that 42% of current home-owners surveyed said they were looking for family help with the purchase. Their average budget was $473,000 and their average downpayment was $123,214.
The BMO report is based on online interviews with a random sample of 2,007 people aged 18 years or more between Feb. 24 and March 5.
The polling industry’s professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error as they are not a random sample and therefore are not necessarily representative of the whole population.