Poilievre says millennials only able to buy houses with help from 'bank of mom and dad'

Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre said that, for many Canadian millennials, the only way to buy a house was to have help through "the bank of mom and dad."

Poilievre made the comment in a tweet where he pointed out that house prices had doubled under the Trudeau Liberals' time in power.

"Vancouver's average home price? $1.31 million," wrote Poilievre. "The only millennials who can afford a house here are those who have help through the bank of mom & dad," he wrote.

Poilievre was referring to a BNN Bloomberg article titled "Mom and dad to the rescue as Vancouver homebuyers shield paycheques: Realtor," that explores homebuyers who turn to their parents for financial aid to buy a house.

"What we are seeing, feet on the ground perspective, is that people are coming up with very large down payments," said Steve Saretsky, a Vancouver realtor with Oakwyn Realty, in an interview with BNN Bloomberg.

"A lot of gift-giving from mom and dad; and, you know, borrowing on existing home equity. So I don't think people are necessarily going 100 per cent of income."

The article references a reported released at the end of February by Kyle Dahms and Alexandra Ducharme, who found that it would take "431.2 months of savings (at a rate of 10 per cent, using median household income) to cover the minimum cash down payment for a CMHC-insured mortgage on a non-condo home in Vancouver." That's about 35 years.

Poilievre has focused attention onto the housing crisis in Canada for months, noting that Canada has more land in the world than every country not named Russia, yet has higher house price increases than anywhere, besides New Zealand.

"Canada has the second-biggest housing bubble in the world, behind a tiny island in the south pacific called New Zealand. Every country has less housing inflation. So what's causing this massive bubble, is it Justinflation?" said Poilievre in December.

"Vancouver has the second highest home prices in the world, Toronto is number five, above Manhattan, San Francisco, London, England, other places with far less land, far more people, and far more money," said Poilievre.