This is how much Toronto's home prices have changed over the last 5 years: report
The cost of living in Toronto went up nearly 20 per cent between 2017 and 2022 – but that’s less than half the increase seen in the city’s housing prices over the last five years, according to a new report.
Real estate website Zoocasa.com crunched the numbers in a blog post published earlier this week in which living expenses were compared against the benchmark home price in 15 Canadian cities over the two five-year periods.
- Download our app to get local alerts on your device
- Get the latest local updates right to your inbox
In Toronto, the report showed that the Market Basket Measure (MBM), which represents the costs of goods and services like food, clothing, and shelter for an average family of two adults and two children, was at $55,262 in 2022.
The MBM, which Statistics Canada cites as the official measure of poverty in a given city, was $46,975 in 2017, meaning that the cost of living has jumped 17.6 per cent in those five years.
While that may seem like a lot, Toronto’s benchmark home price has risen by 42.8 per cent since 2019.
According to Zoocasa, which sourced its real estate data from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), the benchmark home price in Toronto five years ago was $746,500. Now, in 2024, that number is $1,065,800.
“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,” Carrie Lysenko, CEO of Zoocasa, said in the report.
The report notes that although Toronto and Vancouver had the third and second-highest MBMs in 2022 (Calgary was 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 gone up 100.1 per cent and 82.4 per cent, 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 this study by Zoocasa.com. (Zoocasa)
Conversely, in two of the 15 cities surveyed in the study, the benchmark home price actually lagged behind the MBM.
In Regina, for example, the 5-year change in home price was 8.7 per cent while the MBM between 2017 and 2022 was 16.1 per cent. Similarly, in Edmonton, the average home price went up by 9.1 per cent while the MBM hit 18 per cent.
“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,” Lysenko said on this point.
“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.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.