Expand your horizons if it’s a house you want
A detached home in Toronto is nearing the $1M mark

TheStar.ca
June 27, 2014
George Carras

Looking for a detached home, and not a condo?

Tired of getting outbid whenever a rare new listing comes on the resale market?

Have you taken a drive across the 905 and learned first-hand just how scarce the supply of new detached homes really is in the GTA? And that no matter how far out you go, it seems you still can’t afford one?

Well, it could be time to expand your horizons even farther afield, out into the Greater Golden Horseshoe, or GGH. It’s the bustling region that forms a horseshoe-like shape around Lake Ontario, from Niagara Falls out to Kitchener-Waterloo and east across the GTA to Peterborough.

Approximately 8.8 million people, or roughly one in every four Canadians, live in the GGH. And many parts of this vast region offer relatively affordable detached-home options.

Affordable, that is, compared to the City of Toronto, where the average price of a detached home is $943,055, according to a Toronto Real Estate Board report released last month. That’s an increase of 9.2 per cent from the previous year.

The primary factor behind the rising detached-home prices and the lack of available single-family homes in the GTA is the growth plan, called Places to Grow that was introduced by the Ontario government nearly a decade ago. The legislation called for development to be concentrated in existing urban areas, and that limits the number of new detached-home communities that could be built inside the boundaries of the GTA.

For a young family looking to buy a new detached house (generally between 2,400 and 2,600 square feet on a 40-foot lot), prices can vary significantly across the GTA — sometimes as much as 100 per cent in the north and west areas of the region.

The price of that home in Vaughan would be $872,101, more than double the price of the same home in Barrie at $432,000.

By comparison, the price of that home in the westerly GGH markets of Kitchener, Waterloo and Guelph falls somewhere between $489,993 and $506,774, which is approximately $275,000 less expensive than it would cost in Mississauga and $120,000 less than in Brampton in the GTA.

Bottom line: if you’re looking for a new detached home, you’re likely going to have to drive until you qualify. And that will mean exploring all corners of the GGH.

One of the main election promises from Ontario’s recently re-elected Liberal government was to introduce a new $29-billion transit plan, with approximately half of those funds earmarked for the GTA and Hamilton area.

Improving transit will help mitigate some of the GTA’s biggest challenges by making it easier for people to move around the region, but the problem will not be solved overnight.

So, if you want to understand all your options in the market today — whether they are in the GTA or the GGH, new or resale, ground-oriented or highrise — it’s a good idea to consult a professional.

Contact a member of the Toronto Real Estate Board and let them help you expand your horizons.