Southern Ontario housing markets continued to grow in the two years after the Fair Housing Plan (FHP) was introduced by the former Liberal provincial government, reports Zoocasa.

This online brokerage recently analyzed MLS data in order to analyze on how every major housing market in Ontario has fared since the FHP was announced in April 2017.

What happened?

The FHP introduced 16 measures designed to chill the market, including rent controls and a foreign buyer tax. Its real effect was psychological, however, as both buyers and sellers were operating under a cloud of uncertainty. Prices and sales immediately cooled. But that was two years ago — what’s the story now?

Zoocasa found that markets in southern Ontario, in contrast to the York Region and the eastern suburbs, remained largely unscathed, having posted steady gains since then.

Cause of market increase

The success of this region is likely due to the fact that properties are still fairly affordable, and the job landscape is strong. Windsor homes shot up a full 25 per cent in price to $344,000 while London homes climbed 19 per cent to $430,000. Buyers priced out of Toronto are likely to have contributed to levels of high demand in this city.

Smaller cities also doing well

Other smaller, more affordable cities also did well.

Barrie homes for sale shot up 7 per cent to $563,530 and Kitchener real estate rose 5 per cent to just over $500,000.

York Region, eastern, western Ontario, not doing so well

Meanwhile, York Region, which is mostly full of expensive single-family homes, got hit the hardest. Prices fell upwards of -30 per cent and activity stalled.

Similarly, western cities along Lake Ontario proved to not be as resilient. Expensive Oakville sank 18 per cent, neighbouring Burlington by 4 per cent and Brampton by 6 per cent.

The eastern suburbs, for reasons that are unclear, considering that they too are also affordable, also plunged in price. That includes Oshawa down 17 per cent, Whitby, down 15 per cent and Ajax down 12 per cent.

Looking forward, it’s too early to say what the FHP holds for the future. The government is now Conservative and they’ve already rolled back rent controls and created a new housing guide, called Housing Supply Action Plan.

Ontario housing market infographic

Check out the infographic below for a full ranking of Ontario cities.

By Zoocasa

Zoocasa.com is a leading real estate company that combines online search tools and a full-service brokerage to empower Canadians to buy or sell their homes faster, easier and more successfully. Home buyers can browse real estate listings on the website or the free iOS app.

Numerous end of year summary reports indicated that the Canadian real estate market effectively achieved a soft landing. Over the past year and half, the industry has experienced a seismic shift that has brought the astronomical prices of 2017 back down to Earth. Rising interest rates, foreign homeowner taxes and rising household debt have all been strong forces acting on the market.

All of these factors have created an environment where housing affordability measures are at all time highs, and are expected to increase. Many of the top cities in Canada are expected to see rental rates increase anywhere between 7-11% by the end of 2019, and despite the dip in buying prices, rental prices are showing no signs of slowing down.

RentSeeker.ca takes a look at the top 10 most and least expensive cities to rent in Canada.

Top 10 Most Expensive Cities For Rental Apartments in Canada

#1 – Yellowknife, NWT – Average Rent Price = $1581/month

Yellowknife is #1 on the list of the most expensive cities to rent in Canada!

#2 – Vancouver, BC – Average Rent Price = $1507/month

Vancouver comes in 2^nd place for most expensive cities to rent in Canada.

#3 – Toronto, ON – Average Rent Price = $1360/month

Toronto is the third most expensive city to rent an apartment.

#4 – Victoria, BC – Average Rent Price = $1264/month

Fourth is Victoria on our list.

#5 – Kingston, ON – Average Rent Price =  $1238/month

Kingston ranks fifth as the most expensive city to rent in Canada.

#6 – Ottawa, ON – Average Rent Price = $1214/month

Ottawa is the sixth most expensive city to rent an apartment.

#7 –  Barrie, ON – Average Rent Price = $1198/month

Barrie takes the 7^th spot on the most expensive list.

#8 – Oshawa, ON – Average Rent Price = $1153/month

Oshawa is the eight most expensive city in the country to rent an apartment.

#9 – Kelowna, BC – Average Rent Price = $1139/month

Kelowna is #9 on our list.

#10 – Edmonton, AB – Average Rent Price = $1125/month

Edmonton rounds out the list of the top 10 most expensive cities to rent an apartment in Canada

Top 10 Least Expensive Cities For Rental Apartments in Canada

#1 – Thetford Mines, QC – Average Rent Price = $461/month

Thetford Mines is the least expensive city to rent an apartment in Canada!

#2 – St. Georges, QC – Average Rent Price = $478/month

The 2^nd least expensive city to rent an apartment is St. Georges.

#3 – Victoriaville, QC – Average Rent Price = $506/month

Victoriaville is #3 on the list of least expensive cities in Canada to rent an apartment.

#4 – Edmundston, NB –  Average Rent Price = $511/month

The fourth least expensive city to rent an apartment is Edmundston.

#5 – Matane, QC – Average Rent Price = $514/month

Matane is #5 on our list.

#6 – Trois-Rivieres, QC – Average Rent Price = $534/month

The sixth least expensive city to rent an apartment in Canada is Trois-Rivieres.

#7 – Saguenay, QC – Average Rent Price = $547/month

Saguenay ranks #7 on our list of the least expensive cities to rent in the country.

#8 – Drummondville, QC – Average Rent Price = $556/month

Drummondville is the eight least expensive city to rent an apartment in Canada.

#9 – Sherbrooke, QC – Average Rent Price = $588/month

In 9^th position for least expensive city is Sherbrooke.

#10 – Kentville, NS – Average Rent Price = $672/month
Taking #10 on our list of the least expensive city to rent an apartment in Canada is Kentville.

According to CREA, the national number of sales rose 3.9 per cent month over month, and 2.6 per cent from November 2016 – the fourth month in a row to see gains, but the first time since March that activity has been stronger than last year’s levels.

This is mainly due to the downturn witnessed in the Toronto real estate market and throughout the Greater Golden Horseshoe following the implementation of the Ontario Fair Housing Plan in April. However, it was a slight recovery in these markets that has fueled national November growth, with an increase of 16 per cent in Greater Toronto accounting for two thirds of all sales.

The MLS Home Price Index rose 9.3 per cent from 2016, while the average sale price increased 2.9 per cent to $504,000. Excluding Toronto and Vancouver would strip out over $120,000, to $381,000.

Stronger Sales Will Be Temporary

However, Canadians shouldn’t get used to this uptick in sales activity, as much of it may be due to buyers rushing into the market to get ahead of the Guideline B-20 rules that will take effect on January 1st. Experts say these rules, which will stress test all new mortgage applicants, will reduce affordability for the average buyer by 20 per cent.

CREA President Andrew Peck believes this has led to temporary buyer urgency during what is usually a seasonally slower time for real estate, as buyers snap up Toronto townhouses, condos and detached homes before seeing their affordability slashed.

“Some home buyers with more than twenty per cent down payment may be fast-tracking their purchase decision in order to beat the tougher mortgage qualifications test coming into effect next year,” stated CREA President Andrew Peck. “Evidence of this is mixed and depends on the housing market. It will be interesting to see whether December sales show further signs of home purchases being fast-tracked.”

Stated Chief Economist Gregory Klump, “National sales momentum remains positive heading toward year-end. It remains to be seen whether stronger momentum now will mean weaker activity early next year once new mortgage regulations take effect beginning on New Year’s Day.”

INFOGRAPHIC: Toronto and Vancouver Lead Pre-B20 Rush

This buyer anxiety appears to be concentrated in Canada’s largest markets – in an INFOGRAPHIC compiled by Zoocasa, it’s clear other major centres are experiencing steady activity throughout the autumn season, compared to strong upticks in the Toronto and Vancouver markets.

[INFOGRAPHIC]  from Zoocasa.com 

By: Penelope Graham, Zoocasa

Penelope Graham is the Managing Editor of Zoocasa.com, a leading real estate resource that uses full brokerage service and online tools to empower Canadians to buy or sell their home faster, easier, and more successfully.

RentSeeker.ca’s now socially popular rental market INFOGRAPHIC’s reflect data compiled from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s (CMHC) Fall 2017 report and includes vacancy rates and the average rent costs for apartments across Canada including;

• Studio Apartments
• 1 Bedroom Apartments
• 2 Bedroom Apartments
• 3 Bedroom Apartments

*for media inquiries or to share our INFOGRAPHIC, please contact us at media@rentseeker.ca

(Click on the INFOGRAPHIC to enlarge)

Join the conversation and let us know what you think….by following RentSeeker on Twitter and Facebook!

This new interest rate increase is the second 0.25 basis-point increase since July, and it is also now widely expected that another +0.25 is to be expected in October.

Source: Bank of Canada

With Canada’s Housing and Rental Markets already having been a hot news topic for Canadians over the past decade with housing prices continued rising pricing year-over-year,  the new interest rate hikes which have already lead to higher mortgage rates, has created a very anxious environment for many Canadians, and a topic of much discussion for many economists, banking institutions, policy makers, and media commentators.

RentSeeker.ca, one of Canada’s largest and most popular real estate listing and reporting websites, today published a new INFOGRAPHIC showing the average cost of rents and housing prices across all 10 provinces and 3 territories with a newly released affordability index showing how much average income per household is spent on housing.

British Colombia tops the list with 24% of income spent on housing costs, with Ontario following in close second with 23%. View all the data points for all 13 provinces below:

 for media inquiries or to share this [INFOGRAPHIC], please e-mail at: media@rentseeker.ca

About us: RentSeeker.ca is one of Canada’s largest online real estate listing and reporting sites and has been featured on; Global News, CTV News, Huffington Post, MoneySense Magazine, BNN, Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, CBC News, Financial Post, and CNBC.

Join the conversation by following RentSeeker on Twitter and RentSeeker on Facebook!

That’s a considerable chill, even for the typically cooler July market says Lauren Haw, Broker of Record at Zoocasa Realty.  “The typical month-over-month decline from June to July is 15 per cent, this year we saw a 30 per cent decline in the same period, indicating an increased velocity in the slowdown,” she says.

The sale downturn effectively yanked on prices too – the average price for all combined home types was $746,218 last month- a 6 per-cent decline from June, though 5 per cent higher year over year. All home segments were impacted, from detached homes sales (with sales down 29.4 per cent month over month and prices down 5.25 per cent to an average of $1,000,336), to Toronto condos (sales dropped 22.3 per cent, and prices 3.46 per cent, to an average of $501,750), to Toronto townhouses (down 29.5 per cent, with sale down 1,84 per cent to $541,144).

However, those numbers look at the GTA in aggregate – some markets are certainly weathering the downward trend better than others. For those looking at renting vs buying, here is an INFOGRAPHIC from leading Canadian rental website RentSeeker.ca showing Canada’s least and most expensive cities to rent an apartment.

To illustrate how various regions are faring, real estate resource Zoocasa has compiled the data into a heat map, indicating the differences in sales and price growth (or lack thereof) per region. Check it out below:

By: Penelope Graham, Zoocasa

Penelope Graham is the Managing Editor of Zoocasa.com, a leading real estate resource that uses full brokerage service and online tools to empower Canadians to buy or sell their home faster, easier, and more successfully.

Intro

In fact, whether a home is located within a popular school district, or near a school that is highly rated, is a main consideration for 39 per cent of Canadians looking to move, according to Zoocasa’s 2017 Housing Trends and Sentiments Report.

In the past, it’s been a chore for buyers to thoroughly research and align schools and their catchements with their home search, but a new tool, recently launched by Zoocasa, now promises to streamline the process, with Canada’s first comprehensive school search function for home-buyers. The new tool allows buyers to find schools per boundary, including elementary, secondary, public and catholic institutions. They’ll also be able to see how those schools rank, based on current and five-year historical EQAO and Fraser Institute ratings, and an average rating within every boundary. Apartment search website RentSeeker.ca also offers renters to search apartment rentals near schools and universities across Canada on their student search page here.

So, how much more can hopeful parents expect to pay to move within a highly coveted school district in Toronto? As much as $821,580, according to sold home prices in the city’s six boroughs.  To illustrate how much of an impact school zones can have on buyers’ wallets, check out Zoocasa’s infographic Top of the Class: The Cost of Homes in Toronto’s Top Elementary School Boundaries, below:

Infographic

By: Penelope Graham, Zoocasa

Penelope Graham is the Managing Editor of Zoocasa.com, a leading real estate resource that uses full brokerage service and online tools to empower Canadians to buy or sell their home faster, easier, and more successfully.

With housing prices and rental costs having increased year-over-year for much of the past decade in many cities including Toronto, and continuing to rise to unprecedented levels creating what many are calling a “Canadian housing crisis”, the Premier has introduced a set of 16 comprehensive measures with claims that “it will help more people find an affordable place to call home, while bringing stability to the real estate market and protecting the investment of homeowners”.

The Fair Housing Plan has caused quite a bit of debate with many proponents arguing both; for, and against, the new proposed legislation.

Many would-be home-buyers and renters have shown support for the new rules, and are hoping they will help stabilize and even bring down the cost of home ownership and cost of renting.

While others argue that the new rent-control rules are “the exact opposite” of what is needed to deal with housing affordability problems.

To understand the new Fair Housing Plan and new rent control rules, leading Canadian real estate website RentSeeker.ca published a new INFOGRAPHIC showing a summary of the new legislation and how it affects;

• New Renters
• Existing Tenants
• Home-Buyers
• and Landlords

(for media inquiries or to share our INFOGRAPHIC, please e-mail us at media@rentseeker.ca)

Let us know what you think about the New Fair Housing Plan by joining the conversation with RentSeeker.ca on Twitter and on Facebook.

With so much internal discussion over the last decade or so by economists, investors, and policy makers about Canada’s real estate market in internal debate,  Canada has also been making many global lists of most expensive cities to live, with real estate prices rising and reaching unprecedented levels.

According to Business Insider, Vancouver ranked #3 on the most expensive cities to live in, around the world, with the following caption showing how real estate prices are impacting the economy, both locally and globally.

Vancouver, British Columbia: House prices in Vancouver rose the equivalent of a full year’s household income in only a year; it had a median multiple of 11.8.

In a recent article published on Huffington Post,  RentSeeker.ca presented multiple factors that could impact the Canadian housing and rental markets in 2017,  to try and provide some clarity and insight into various possibilities that can impact the real estate market for the coming months and year.

To provide an overall snapshot of Canada’s rental market, leading Canadian real estate search website, RentSeeker.ca,  published a New INFOGRAPHIC showing the Top 10 Most and Least Expensive Cities to Rent Apartments across Canada.

As expected Vancouver and Toronto are listed in the Top 10 Most Expensive Cities to Rent in RentSeeker.ca’s New INFOGRAPHIC with average rent costs for a 1 bedroom apartment in Vancouver showing at $1,159 (while the real-time asking price for many newer rental properties in Vancouver is probably closer to $1,700 to $2,300 according to data from RentSeeker.ca).  Average rents for 1 bedroom apartments for rent in Toronto came in at $1,132 (while once again, the real-time asking price for newer apartment rentals on the market are closer to $1,300 to $1,400).

At the top of  the list of the Top 10 Least Expensive Cities to Rent was Shawinigan in Quebec with average rents for a 1 bedroom apartment according to Canada Mortage and Housing Corporation coming in at $381.

View the full INFOGRAPHIC from RentSeeker.ca here:

(for media inquiries, or to share our INFOGRAPHIC, please e-mail us at media@rentseeker.ca)

*Data from this INFOGRAPHIC, and the above article, showing average and real-time rent prices in cities across Canada is based on data from Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC), and apartment finder RentSeeker.ca.

Join the conversation by following RentSeeker.ca on Twitter and RentSeeker.ca on Facebook!

However, home prices have heated substantially more in some markets than others; while prices rose in 70% of all markets, reports CREA, much of reported price growth is being driven by activity in the Greater Toronto Area.

“Housing market trends continue to differ by region. Homes are selling briskly throughout the Greater Toronto Area and nearby communities,” stated CREA President Cliff Iverson. ‘Elsewhere, competition among local buyers is less intense, so listings take longer to sell.”

Regardless of what province and city though, it’s safe to say that real estate has been a robustly performing investment, as buyers who entered the market even just 12 months ago have seen impressive gains on their initial down payments.

Just how much have those real estate investments paid off? To find out, Zoocasa compiled the latest February CREA data to see how home prices have appreciated over the last year,

Toronto: A Runaway on Returns

Toronto real estate prices have had a banner year, and those who have already purchased in the Big Smoke have lots to cheer about. They’ve received the largest return on their down payments by far – a whopping 139%, based on a 20% down payment of $137,056 made on the average home price of $685,278 last year. These price rises have spilled into the surrounding region with “unprecedented growth” reported in the Golden Horseshoe, as housing markets in Hamilton, London and Kitchener-Waterloo heat up.

Rents in Toronto according to RentSeeker.ca’s new real-time pricing data of apartment listings across the country, showed One Bedroom Apartments in Toronto renting for $1,255, with Two Bedroom Apartment Rentals in Toronto renting for $1,496, and Three Bedroom Apartments for Rent in Toronto renting for $1,651.

Vancouver: A Slide in Prices

The numbers for the west coast city may seem alarming, as prices have seen a considerable tumble from last year’s peaks. A down payment purchase of $207,827 made on the average home price of $1,104,188 saw a -49% dip, as Vancouver prices fall below the million-mark.

However, Lauren Haw, CEO and Broker of Record at Zoocasa, emphasizes there’s no need for Vanouverite home buyers to panic. “It is important for real estate investments to be considered over the long-term. The nature of real estate as a levered investment means that year over year fluctuations serve to magnify short term returns or losses,” she says. “When the burden and potential risk of debt is properly accounted for, the ability to lever your down payment can lead to impressive equity returns.”

Calgary: A Slight Uptick

Despite several years of economic hardship resulting from slowing oil prices, Calgary’s housing market has new reason for optimism, with prices strengthening $11,659 year over year. That means a buyer who paid $90,635 on a home priced at the average $453,175, is seeing a 13% return this year.

Calgary rents according to RentSeeker.ca, showed 1 Bedroom Apartments in Calgary renting for $1,031, with 2 Bedroom Apartments in Calgary renting for $1200, and 3 Bedroom Apartments for Rent in Calgary renting for $1,471.

 Halifax: Stronger Conditions on the East Coast

Meanwhile, in the Maritimes, last year’s home buyers are experiencing a 19% average return based on a $10,444 improvement in the city’s home prices, now priced at $279,362.

Follow Zoocasa and RentSeeker.ca on Twitter and Facebook and join the conversation on Canada’s Housing and Rental Markets!