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Rising house prices and intense social pressure to own a home may be damaging young Canadians’ moral fibre, convincing them that it’s OK to lie on mortgage applications, a new survey from Equifax suggests. The credit rating agency found that 23 per cent of millennials feel it’s acceptable to lie about their income on a mortgage application, double the 12 per cent of the general population. Nearly one-in-five (19 per cent) of this group admitted to falsifying information on a loan application, compared to 12 per cent of respondents overall. That’s up from 9 per cent of all respondents in the same survey five years earlier. Earlier on HuffPost: Surprising number of Canadians lie on mortgage applications. Story continues below.

It’s hard to say for sure why millennials are more open to mortgage fraud, but it likely has to do with the pressure to buy a home in some markets, said Julie Kuzmic, director of consumer advocacy at Equifax Canada. “People are concerned they might miss out, and if they don’t qualify for the home they’re hoping for, they may never be able to buy a home,” she told HuffPost Canada.