Image: Condominiums in Chilliwack. / Dreamstime / Mark Hryciw

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Home ownership

Chilliwack and Abbotsford mortgage-free homeowners below the national average

May 19, 2024 | 6:00 AM

CHILLIWACK — More than one-third of homeowners in the Fraser Valley are mortgage-free according to a new national study released by Casivoo, an online gambling analysis website.

Thunder Bay in northern Ontario ranks at the top across Canada with 47 per cent of homeowners being mortgage-free. From a total of 37,700 private households, 17,745 have paid off their mortgages.

The top city in British Columbia is Victoria. The provincial capital is ranked fourth nationally with 43.2 per cent or 46,305 homeowners living mortgage-free.

Chilliwack is ranked at 20 nationally and sixth in B.C. According to the survey, 37.7 per cent or 11,355 homeowners have paid off their mortgage. The Abbotsford-Mission area is ranked 36 across the country with 34.1 per cent or 15,890 mortgages paid off by homeowners.

Across Canada, 40 per cent of homeowners are living mortgage-free.

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The survey was compiled through data collected by Statistics Canada in the 2021 census.

However more telling may be those who are living with a mortgage. According to a report from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada last year, the financial well-being of Canadians with a mortgage is worsening. The report found that at the end of 2022, just 34.7 per cent of Canadians with a mortgage say they will have no problem meeting their financial commitments. That was down nearly 25 per cent (56.9) from just a year and a half earlier.

Homeowners without a monthly mortgage payment are generally in a better financial position to weather the higher interest rates and rising inflation rates in recent years. Not surprisingly, the report found the stress level for homeowners with a mortgage is growing at a faster rate than other groups such as mortgage free homeowners and renters.