Toronto (GTA) Real Estate

A new report published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) this week shows there is a massive gap between the minimum wage and the wage needed to afford rent in almost every major province.

In Vancouver and Toronto, the report explains, even two full-time minimum-wage workers would need to spend more than 30 per cent of their combined income to pay for a one-bedroom unit.

In Vancouver, Toronto, Kelowna, Victoria, Ottawa and Halifax, the rental wage for a two-bedroom unit is more than twice the provincial minimum wage in each city.

The flurry of activity seen throughout the spring, which followed the Bank of Canada’s temporary pause in rate hikes, is “tempering off,” economists have observed.

According to the latest statistics from the Canadian Real Estate Association, national home resales rose just 1.5% month-over-month in June, a sharp drop from the 16.3% increase seen from April to May.

In cities across the United States, property assessment and sale data is readily available to the public. In Ontario, it’s fiercely protected.

The Star used publicly accessible computer terminals at Toronto City Hall that allow residents to look up assessment records, but only one address at a time. Over the course of a year, we built a data set of roughly 20,000 residential properties.

Toronto homebuyers that snapped up a property last month paid more on average than they did a year ago but less than they would have if they closed the deal in May, the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) said Thursday.

The Ontario housing board made the same observation about last month's sales figures and attributed the trends to a mix of market conditions that have left interest in buying a home high but mortgage rates tough to grapple with and supply tight.

The cap does not apply to rental units first occupied after Nov. 15, 2018. Landlords can also apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board for increases above 2.5 per cent.

The cost of building homes and apartment complexes across 11 major Canadian cities was up 54 per cent in the first three months of 2023 compared with the same period in 2019, according to Statistics Canada data released last month.

The increases are especially striking in Toronto, with costs up around 85 per cent for single-detached houses and town homes, and 64 per cent for apartment buildings.

Canadian real estate prices are rising, and that’s bad news if you’re looking for cheap credit. Statistics Canada (Stat Can) reported new home prices made the first increase in nearly a year. In a research note to investors, BMO warned the increase is just one of many housing data points that shows shelter is back to driving inflation. That helps to justify the recent central bank rate hike, and potentially opens the door to further hikes.

According to the survey, 36 per cent of first-time homebuyers in the GTA say they received a lump sum payment from parents or relatives to purchase a home. About 29 per cent said they received financial help with their monthly mortgage payments.

Forty-four per cent of first-time homebuyers in the GTA said the financial assistance they received was a gift.

About 29 per cent of first-time homebuyers in the GTA said they purchased a home in a different neighbourhood or region than they had originally planned due to affordability issues and 37 per cent said they purchased a smaller home than they had planned.

Josh Matlow is still hot on the campaign trail, announcing on Tuesday his plan to cut property taxes in half for new purpose-built rental apartments. Qualifying buildings must include no less than 5% of units offered at a below-market rate.

Students are being faced with higher rents anda shortage of supply and some experts say post-secondary institutions need to co-ordinate enrolment levels with the availability of housing.