Toronto Home Prices
The cost of living in Toronto increased by about 20% between 2017 and 2022, but this is less than half of the growth witnessed in the city’s home prices over the same five years, according to a new analysis.
Zoocasa.com, a real estate website, calculated the data in a blog post published earlier this week, comparing living expenditures to benchmark property prices in 15 Canadian locations over two five-year periods.
In Toronto, the Market Basket Measure (MBM) (opens in a new tab), which measures the expenses of goods and services such as food, clothes, and shelter for an average family of two adults and two children, was $55,262 in 2022.
The MBM, which Statistics Canada uses as the official measure of poverty in a certain city, was $46,975 in 2017, indicating that the cost of living has risen 17.6% in those five years.
While this may seem like a lot, Toronto’s benchmark house price has increased by 42.8% since 2019.
According to Zoocasa, which gets its real estate statistics from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), the average property price in Toronto five years ago was $746,500. That figure has risen to $1,065,800 by 2024.
“With home prices rising at a rate much faster than the cost of living, many Canadians are finding it increasingly difficult to find affordable housing options,” Zoocasa CEO Carrie Lysenko stated in the research.
The report notes that although Toronto and Vancouver had the third and second-highest MBMs in 2022 (Calgary had the highest at $55,771), benchmark home prices in those cities did not increase as “significantly” as they did in smaller ones like Moncton and Halifax, where home prices have increased by 100.1 percent and 82.4 percent, respectively, since 2019.
The cost of living between 2017 and 2022 is compared to the benchmark home price between 2019 and 2024 across 15 Canadian cities
In contrast, in two of the 15 locations assessed in the study, the benchmark house price fell behind the MBM.
In Regina, for example, the 5-year rise in home price was 8.7 percent, whereas the MBM from 2017 to 2022 was 16.1 percent. Similarly, the average home price in Edmonton increased by 9.1 percent, while the MBM rose by 18 percent.
“Even in cities where the cost of living is on the rise, the relatively stable home prices present a unique opportunity for homebuyers to enter the market,” according to Lysenko.
“This underscores the importance of exploring options beyond the primary metropolitan areas or single-family detached homes for those seeking affordability in today’s market.”
My best read on trading is this Book
Toronto Home Prices Toronto Home Prices Toronto Home Prices Toronto Home Prices