Nova Scotia and Manitoba lead the country in institutional ownership of rental value
Institutional investors, the category that Statistics Canada groups pension funds into, owned no more than 0.4 percent of houses in any of the six provinces examined in a study released Tuesday, evidence that the largest investors have stayed almost entirely out of the market for single-family homes.
The study, produced through the agency's Canadian Housing Statistics Program, analyzed the 2022 reference year in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia.
Statistics Canada defines institutional investors as the top 0.1 percent of investors by the assessed value of the investment properties they hold, a group made up mostly of businesses that include pension funds, real estate investment trusts (REITs), private funds and large family-owned companies.
Across the six provinces, according to the study, their share of the house stock ranged from 0.1 percent in Prince Edward Island and Manitoba to 0.4 percent in Ontario, which the agency described as mostly absent from that segment.
Where large investors do concentrate is rental property.
Institutional investors held the largest share of rental value in Nova Scotia, at 38 percent, and Manitoba, at 33.6 percent.
In Nova Scotia, Manitoba and New Brunswick, just over 100 investors in each province controlled roughly a third of the total assessed value of rental properties.
Even so, small-scale individual investors, defined as those owning five or fewer properties that are not for personal use, still owned the largest share of rental value in every province except Nova Scotia.
As per the study, that share ran from 35.9 percent in Nova Scotia to 57.1 percent in Prince Edward Island.
StatCan attributed the higher small-investor share in British Columbia and Ontario partly to their large stock of condominium apartments, which are more accessible to individual buyers.
Institutional investors leaned toward newer rental stock in most provinces.
According to the study, they owned 63.1 percent of the assessed value of rental properties built in or after 2011 in Nova Scotia and 61.5 percent in New Brunswick.
Ontario and Prince Edward Island ran counter to that pattern, with small-scale individuals more likely to own recently built rentals, which StatCan linked in Ontario's case to the province's heavier mix of condominium construction.
Despite that presence, the agency found the rental markets it studied to be competitive.
Using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, a standard concentration measure, StatCan reported readings below the 1,500 non-concentration threshold in all 12 census metropolitan areas analyzed.
London recorded the highest score at 133.9, still well under that mark, while Toronto and Vancouver were the least concentrated.
Even in Winnipeg, London and Halifax, where institutional investors held more than 40 percent of rental value, the agency noted that competition can persist because large investors compete against one another.
The finding aligns with 2025 research from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, StatCan said, which found no statistically significant rent difference between units let by REITs and those let by other landlords in the country's three largest census metropolitan areas.
The federal housing agency cautioned, however, that REITs owning a large share of buildings in specific neighbourhoods, a pattern it observed in all three cities, could give them scope to push rents higher.
The study lands against a decade of rising costs.
CTV News reported that Canadian property prices nearly doubled between 2011 and 2021, citing Canadian Real Estate Association data, while rents climbed 42.6 percent over the same period.
The share of owner households fell from 69 percent in 2011 to 66.5 percent in 2021.
The agency framed the work partly against the US experience, where it said REITs and other institutional investors have bought up growing numbers of residential properties, competing directly with individual buyers.
