Posthaste: Blame Toronto for driving housing prices up 178% in this city

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For a change, Toronto and Vancouver aren’t the worst culprits when it comes to housing price increases over the last decade, a new survey has found.

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The survey, by online search and real estate brokerage company Zoocasa, tracked price changes in 19 Canadian cities from 2013 to 2023 and found the largest increases were recorded outside Canada’s major urban centres in smaller cities mostly in Ontario’s highly populated golden horseshoe region in the southwestern part of the province.

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During that 10-year period, the crown for the largest increase on the list of cities went to London-St. Thomas, Ont. where prices jumped 178 per cent from $221,800 to $616,700, for a benchmark single family home — a nearly $400,000 increase. Second on the list was the nearby Niagara Region. Prices there rose 174 per cent from $229,800 to $629,700.

While Toronto wasn’t among the top five, the city likely influenced the list’s ranking, Zoocasa said, as house hunters were driven out of the area by a crushing lack of affordability.

“Some of this price growth was likely driven by priced-out GTA buyers moving into comparably more affordable markets, including London & St. Thomas, Niagara Region, Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph & district, which all experienced rapid price growth in the past decade,” Zoocasa said in press release.

Among the remaining top five cities, all within a two-hour drive from the Greater Toronto Area, were Kitchener-Waterloo at number three, where prices rose 159 per cent from $307,900 to $798,100. Guelph and district, where prices increased 137 per cent from $376,100 to $892,800, ranked fourth while fifth was Hamilton-Burlington, where prices rose 130 per cent from $373,800 to $861,100.

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In Toronto, which ranked seventh on the list, prices increased 116.6 per cent from $587,800 to $1,273,300. Vancouver placed 12th, with an increase of 84.5 per cent from $1,064,500 to $1,964,400.

Zoocasa blamed decades-low interest rates for catapulting home prices in Toronto and Vancouver well into six-figure territory.

“During the early pandemic, low interest rates catalyzed a surge in the real estate market, pushing GTA single-family home prices above $1,000,000 for the first time,” Zoocasa said.

Looking across the country, national benchmark prices rose 86.6 per cent from $417,100 to $779,100.

While most of these prices are sobering, there still remain pockets where prices are more palatable with increases under 20 per cent, Zoocasa found.

For example, prices in Regina rose a modest 6.3 per cent or $18,800 during the decade, while Edmonton experienced an increase of 13.4 per cent — $49,900 — from $372,500 to $422,400.

St. John’s and Saskatoon recorded the next smallest increases of 16 per cent and 19.2 per cent, respectively.

Benchmark prices came from the Canadian Real Estate Association in December of each year analyzed.

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• The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation will release its annual rental market report at 10 a.m. ET
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Today’s Posthaste was written by Gigi Suhanic, with additional reporting from Financial Post staff, The Canadian Press and Bloomberg.

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