Which households need repairs, and how much more do they cost?

If you’re a homeowner, chances are you’ve had to do all types of repairs to your home. Whether you do it yourself or hire a contractor, the bill can be steep, no matter what the job might be.

Recently released results from the 2022 cycle of the Canadian Housing Survey (CHS) show that a considerable proportion of housing in Canada needs either major or minor repairs.

More than 1 in 14 households need major repairs, and nearly 1 in 4 needs minor repairs

The survey, undertaken as a collaboration between Statistics Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, found that, in 2022, 7.3% of all households in the provinces were living in housing in need of major repairs, such as defective plumbing or electrical wiring, or structural repairs to walls, floors or ceilings. Nearly one in four households (24.0%) needed minor repairs, such as missing or loose floor tiles, bricks or shingles, or defective steps, railings or siding.

Nationally, about 1 in 10 households in rural areas needed major repairs (9.8%), while more than one in four of those in medium population centres needed minor repairs (27.0%).

Households in certain areas of the country were significantly above the national averages. For example, about one in seven households in rural areas of Nova Scotia (14.1%) and Saskatchewan (14.1%) needed major repairs, while more than one-third of households in medium population centres in Nova Scotia (35.0%) needed minor repairs.

Conversely, other areas fared better. One-fifth of households in large population centres in British Columbia (20.0%) needed minor repairs, similar in proportion to large population centres in Alberta (21.0%).

Property age could be a factor in many of these needed repairs. For example, the majority of residential properties in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia were built before 1991. In Ontario alone, nearly 1.2 million properties were built in 1960 or earlier—not far off the nearly 1.4 million properties built from 2001 to 2022.

Rising inflation, higher renovation prices

Although the headline inflation rate has slowed in recent months after hitting a 40-year high in June 2022, years of price increases have put a squeeze on household budgets.

Prices for homeowners’ maintenance and repairs increased by nearly one-fifth (+19.2%) from September 2018 to September 2024. This category includes material costs such as paint, drywall, shingles and flooring as well as the labour costs associated with painting and roofing.

From the business side, the newly launched Residential Renovation Price Index (RRPI) shows the increase in prices charged by contractors for various projects in Canada’s 15 census metropolitan areas, going back seven years. For example, from the second quarter of 2018 to the second quarter of 2024, the price of the composite (average) of the eight residential renovation project types tracked by the RRPI increased by more than half (+55.4%).

The eight projects the RRPI tracks include roofing, windows and doors, interior additions or remodels, and exterior additions or improvements.

Looking ahead

Data collection for the next cycle of the CHS (2024 reference year) started in October and will go until March 31, 2025.