A big Ontario real estate franchise has broken down Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) data to show where prices for detached homes are increasing most quickly.
The analysis arrives via a new RE/MAX Hallmark report, which finds the average price of a Toronto detached home in the first six months of 2016 hit $1,230,340, up by 10 per cent or more in 90 per cent of the city’s neighbourhoods when compared to the same period last year.
RE/MAX Hallmark, a franchise of US-based brokerage RE/MAX with 14 offices in Ontario, looked at TREB districts — that often include several nearby neighbourhoods — to present the data on on a “heat map.”
The hottest district by average price increase was C13, which spans the Banbury, Don Mills, Parkwoods-Donalda and Victoria Village neighbourhoods.
Here, the average price of a detached home from January to the end of June this year was $1,821,777, up a sizzling 36.4 per cent compared to the first six months last year.
Ken McLachlan, a RE/MAX broker-owner, says the typically larger lot sizes in the area are appealing to developers, who snap up properties, tear down existing homes and build “mini mansions” in their place. “There’s a lot more land down there,” he explains.
“Developers can go in there and buy this property and put up a newly constructed home on the footprint that they’re buying… so the values are going up there,” McLachlan continues. He tells BuzzBuzzNews some of these new homes can sell for around $4 million.
Ontario’s Greenbelt policy, which protects areas outside the city (including farmland) from development, has driven demand for this, he says.
The only other district to see prices surge by more than 30 per cent in that time was C15, or Hillcrest Village, Bayview Woods – Steeles, Bayview Village, Don Valley Village, Henry Farm and Pleasant View.
Detached homes in this district went for an average of $1,649,510 from January to the June’s end, an increase of 31.8 per cent over the average for the same period in 2015.
Generally speaking, McLachlan acknowledges there would be “some difference” in price growth among different neighbourhoods within the same district. But those differences wouldn’t be “overwhelming” to the point of skewing the numbers, he says.
“Typically in those districts there’s about two or three communities,” he says. “They’re quite close neighbourhoods, usually.”
Unsurprisingly, the most expensive district (C12) through this year’s first six months encompasses the Bridle Path, known colloquially as Millionaires’ Row and home to hulking estates, including one formerly owned by Prince.
C12, which also covers York Mills, St. Andrews-Windfields, and Sunnybrooks, boasted an average detached home price of $3,412,579, an increase of 18.2 per cent over the first half of 2015.
With an average price of $630,542, the most affordable district for detached homes is the sprawling W10, which is made up of Rexdale, Clairville, Thistletown-Beaumond Heights and Smithfield. Prices in this relatively low-priced district are up 18.2 per cent.
But W9, just to the south, is where prices are appreciating at the slowest pace of all 36 districts that RE/MAX mapped. The average detached home price over the first half of the year was $816,344, 6.1 per cent higher than what was recorded during that timeframe a year ago.
“The housing stock probably isn’t as strong out there, that’s what’s going on right now,” McLachlan speculates, admitting he doesn’t know the area well enough to say for sure. “Quality of housing, the convenience to downtown, the community environment up there” are all possible factors influencing prices, he says.
Based on the numbers, McLachlan does highlight one of the market’s positives, however. “I would say W9 is a good starter market for a lot of people right now,” he notes. “It’s actually good that it’s not going up so high.”
