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.

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.

RentSeeker.ca – Canada’s largest real estate search website and apartment finder, which provides real estate marketing services for most of Canada’s largest Landlords and REIT’s and also publishes real estate data which is used by economists, journalists, government, and media outlets, published a NEW INFOGRAPHIC today showing…

The Cost of Housing across Canada and the U.S. and the Income Needed to Purchase a House, Based on Current Housing Values and Interest Rates.

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For media inquiries, or to share this INFOGRAPHIC, please contact us.

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