Toronto closing on Vancouver as Canadas priciest real estate market
Joel Schlesinger
The Vancouver Sun
Vancouver has had more listings recently than Toronto, helping to narrow the price gap between the two cities. Photo by Darryl Dick /The Canadian Press
Vancouver has a challenger in the title for Canada’s most expensive real estate market — Toronto — a new report finds.
TD Economics published a report on price movements in the nation’s two largest cities, finding the gap between pricing is today the smallest since 1991.
In December, average prices in Greater Toronto Area were about four per cent less than the Greater Vancouver Area, the report notes (though it did not provide a precise average price for either city).
Yet Canadian Real Estate Association data as of Dec. 31 suggested an even tighter spread between these markets with benchmark home price in the GTA at $1,208,000, compared with the GVA at $1,230,200. That is less than a two per cent difference in price.
The TD report attributes the tightening price gap to the 15 per cent foreign buying tax in the GVA in place since 2016. Additionally, higher land transfer and school taxes on expensive homes in the Vancouver region further dampened growth.
Prices in the GVA still rose about 13 per cent since 2018, but the GTA saw an increase of 40 per cent over the same span. Another factor has been supply, which was not as tight in the Lower Mainland in 2021. There, new listings grew by about 16 per cent compared with the Toronto region, which only saw listings grow by about six per cent.
Another tailwind for GTA’s price growth has been investor demand, making up about 24 per cent of buyers compared with the Vancouver region at about 21 per cent.
The report notes the price gap will likely narrow more in 2022, but investor demand could be “a wildcard” and may swing back with more investors favouring the Vancouver area.
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