Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP)

First-time home buyer status of person, status

First-time home buyer status refers to a person who purchased a residential property during the reference period and did not own a residential property previously.

Person refers to an individual and is the unit of analysis for most social statistics programs.

Usage
The population of interest for the first-time home buyer status are residential property buyers who did not own a property during the preceding four years, and is restricted to residents and persons who filed taxes in the previous year.
Derivation
The first-time home buyer status is derived using the Home Buyers' Amount (HBA), a federal income tax incentive for first-time home buyers that may be claimed in the year of the purchase of the property. According to the Canada Revenue Agency rules, a first-time home buyer is a person who buys a property and intends to occupy it within one year. The first-time home buyer or their spouse or common-law partner must not have lived in another home they owned during the preceding four years.
If other buyers who did not claim the HBA are part of the same property sale and are the spouse or common-law partner of the HBA claimant, they too are attributed the first-time home buyer status.

The data for this variable are reported using the following classifications and/or lists:

• First-time home buyer