Foreign owners are taking a larger share of the condominium markets in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada’s housing agency said.

Foreigners owned 3.5% of all condos in Vancouver and 3.3% in Toronto, Canada’s largest city, according to a report Thursday from Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. which surveyed property managers. That’s up from the 2014 share of 2.3% and 2.4%. In the downtown core, foreign buyers made up 5.4% of Vancouver condo buyers this year and 5.8% in Toronto, both up from last year.

Politicians have been under pressure from many quarters including Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, HSBC Holdings Plc and local residents to start monitoring offshore money that may be pushing up home prices, particularly in Vancouver. The average price for a detached home rose 9% to $1.02 million (US$760,000) in Toronto in November from a year ago while Vancouver home prices soared 18% to $752,500.

The housing agency reiterated that more information is needed on the subject and it’s looking to fill that gap, it said in the report. Next steps could include surveying realtors, developers, and banks, and gathering data from municipal land registries or other levels of government.

“A lack of accurate and reliable data makes it difficult to determine if or how foreign ownership may be affecting the market,” Evan Siddall said in a speech Thursday to the Montreal Board of Trade. “It’s clear that we need to capture more detailed information on both foreign ownership and investment intentions.”

So far, the agency’s data is limited to condominiums and based only on a survey of property managers who are asked for the total number of apartments owned by people whose permanent resident is outside of Canada. Offshore buyers can keep their location and identity secret, Siddall said in a speech last month.

CMHC’s results are lower than third-party reports that found foreigners make up a much larger portion of home buyers in Canada’s two most expensive real estate markets. A Sotheby’s survey of realtors in 2013, for example, found that international buyers made up 40% of luxury sales in Vancouver and a quarter in Toronto, according to the CMHC report.

The Ottawa-based agency released the data as part of its Housing Market Insight series, and will publish about 40 more reports on different cities and housing topics throughout 2016.

CMHC : Foreign Owners Took a Bigger Piece of Toronto, Vancouver Condo Markets in 2015 by Katia Dmitrieva |Bloomberg News |Financial Post