These are the five hottest real estate markets in Canada — and Toronto and Vancouver aren’t on the list
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Niagara Region — plus 15.3 per cent
Niagara Region home prices registered a year-over-year gain of 15.3 per cent in August.
Terri McCallum, a sales representative/broker at Royal LePage NRC Realty, said Niagara Region, too, benefitted from the Toronto exodus.
“We have a lot of people exiting the GTA and moving this way,” said McCallum. “If you can buy a property and get twice the house for the same money or less than what you’re leaving now, why wouldn’t you?’
If you can buy a property and get twice the house for the same money or less than what you’re leaving now, why wouldn’t you?
Terri McCallum
McCallum said people moving from the GTA to Niagara Region love the low prices. She said low interest rates have contributed to more demand, because people see it as a great time to have a mortgage.
“The pace of life down here is different,” she said. “It’s slower, and we have so much to offer.”
Guelph — plus 14.3 per cent
Guelph recorded a year-over-year gain of 14.3 per cent in August.
“With COVID, the growth has intensified and accelerated a trend that maybe would have happened over a 10-year period,” said Ryan Waller, a real estate sales representative at Home Group Realty Brokerage. “Guelph has a lot going for it from a low unemployment rate, a number of large employers, University of Guelph, and Conestoga College.”
Waller said this price increase has been fuelled by a “GTA invasion.” He estimates about 50 per cent of buyers are coming from the GTA.
“Housing is cheaper relative to the GTA, but still commutable,” he said. “We’ve long said that we’re witnessing a mass migration where Ontarians are down-pricing from larger, more expensive cities to smaller, less expensive cities and towns and pocketing money along the way.”
