If you’re looking for a home in the Greater Toronto Area (not necessarily a house) for under $550,000, you might want to check out Brampton’s Queen Street Corridor, Fairview in Mississauga, or North York’s Flemingdon Park.
These areas are all on Canadian digital real estate platform Wahi’s list of most affordable neighbourhoods in the region, with sale prices between $448,000 and $487,000.
The company arrived at the numbers by looking at the median sold price for all properties in neighbourhoods with five or more sales in October.
The most expensive neighbourhoods were York Mills in North York, the Annex in old Toronto, and Bayview Hill in Richmond Hill.
York Mills had a median price of $3.565 million.
These neighbourhoods, with more larger detached homes, “skew towards the most expensive,” said Wahi economist Ryan McLaughlin, noting areas with more condos are less expensive.
McLaughlin said it was notable to see the Annex so high on the list of expensive neighbourhoods, as the homes there aren’t that big.
“Those aren’t mansions in there, those are really beautiful, nice central townhomes and row homes, ” he said.
This shows how valuable it is to buyers to have a home in such a central downtown Toronto neighbourhood.
“You’ll give up three quarters of your square footage and have to pay the same price, potentially.”
Meanwhile, in Brampton, there have generally been “substantial drops in price,” so it’s not surprising to see a neighbourhood there as the most affordable.
According to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, the average price in October across all properties for that city was about $934,000, down about 31 per cent from $1.346 million in the real estate peak in February 2022.
If you’re looking for a place that’s cheaper but still close to downtown Toronto, you might want to look at Corktown.
The neighbourhood made number five on the least expensive list, with a median sale price of $516,500 in October.
Socrates Apallas, a real estate broker with Living Toronto Real Estate Co., said it makes sense that Corktown made the list.
“This lower east part of Toronto has had a lot of new (condo) units come online in recent years. So there’s a large supply of junior one-bedrooms,” he said.
“You can see that in this neighbourhood, there’s a lot of choice for first-time buyers entering market.”
Wahi’s McLaughlin noted that when talking about affordability, it depends what you’re looking for.
There are a lot of condos, particularly smaller ones, on the market right now, and prices have dropped.
But semis and small detached homes in desirable neighbourhoods like Leslieville are still competitive and selling fast, because that’s what growing families want.
So you’re less likely to find a bargain there.
“If you’re the kind of person that wants to buy a studio or a one-bedroom in Toronto, now is your moment,” he said, although he notes there’s a chance prices may decline further.
“But not everyone who’s buying a home wants to buy a studio or one-bedroom.”
