Canadian Housing Statistics Program (CHSP)

Investor status of property owner, category

Owner-investor status indicates whether the property owner uses their residential property as an investment.

An owner is considered to be an investor if they meet at least one of the following criteria:
- They are a business or government that owns at least one residential property, excluding Canadian non-profit organizations.
- They are a non-resident or an owner who lives outside the province in which they own the residential property.
- They own two or more residential properties.
- They own a property with multiple residential units and do not occupy the property.

An owner is considered to be an investor-occupant if they meet all of the following criteria:
- The owner is a person.
- They own a single residential property.
- The property owned has multiple residential units.
- The owner uses at least one of these units as their primary place of residence.

A non-investor is an owner who is neither an investor nor an investor-occupant. An owner who lives in the same province as where the property is owned and owns a single property is considered to be in this category, regardless of how the property is used, so long as it is not a property with multiple residential units.

Inclusion in the Canadian non-profit organization category is determined based on the first-level status of the enterprise in the Business Register, with the exception of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which is considered a non-investor despite its for-profit status.

Property owner refers to a person or an entity included in the classification of 'business and government' (such as corporations, governments, sole proprietorships and partnerships, and other legal types) that has property title transferred to, recorded in, registered in, or otherwise carried in their name.
A property may have more than one owner or an owner may have more than one property, therefore the count of owners and properties can differ.

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

• Owner-investor status