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The lack of condo-ownership data in Canada “is a shortcoming,” Sal Guatieri, senior economist in Toronto for Bank of Montreal, said by phone July 22. “The more data, the better the quality of the data, the better the policy making.”

CMHC’s Condominium Owners Survey will be “factual and provides a descriptive profile of condominium investors,” the documents show. The agency expects to release the results of its survey, which doesn’t give an estimate of the share of foreign and corporate investors, in early August, according to a July 25 e-mail from spokesman Charles Sauriol.

Lowest Rates

National home sales reached the highest level in four years in June and prices in Toronto and Vancouver are up 12% and 29% on the year, a realtor report this month showed. Historically-low mortgage rates are adding momentum, and the Bank of Canada has kept its benchmark policy rate at 1% since 2010.

The survey to be released in August is CMHC’s second attempt. The agency conducted a telephone survey of Toronto and Vancouver condo investors in August 2012 in response to “industry concerns about the extent and nature of condominium investment and its sustainability,” according to a mostly- redacted August 2012 CMHC board presentation. The survey intended to determine what investors planned to do with their units, how long they intended to hold them, what would motivate them to sell, how much they put down and the source of the downpayment.