The $1 million price drop - bustling metropolis sees property prices take a huge dip

Daily Mail​

a day ago

Home values have dropped by millions of dollars over the last three years in the Greater Toronto Area, a new analysis found.
Ten neighborhoods saw the median sale price of a single-family home fall by 40 percent or more since 2022, according to new research by Wahi, a Canadian real estate listing website and app.
Houses in Canada reached their peak values in April 2022, after two years of historically low supply and rock-bottom interest rates spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic.
'Prices for single-family homes have held up better than condos, but Wahi's latest analysis shows how much market trends can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood,' Wahi CEO Benjy Katchen said in a statement.
Four neighborhoods in Brampton, the third largest Toronto suburb, were in the top ten in terms of largest percentage drops in value.
They included Huttonville (-53 percent), Vales of Humber (-50 percent), Northwood (-44 percent), and Westgate (-40 percent).
These areas are among the hardest hit, but the downward trajectory is widespread, with 289 of the 344 neighborhoods that Wahi analyzed having lower prices this year than in April 2022.
Windfields, an upper-middle class area northeast of downtown Toronto, had the biggest home price decline as a raw number.
The median sale price of a Windfields home declined by $3.1 million since 2022, when a property cost a whopping $6.3 million.
Windfields saw a $1 million bigger drop than Wanless Park, the next biggest loser at a $2.2 million decrease over the same period.
Some experts view these price cuts as the market coming back down to earth from an artificial pandemic-era boost caused by quantitative easing.
Between 2020 and March 2022, home values across the nation surged by about 65 percent.
This didn't last because the Bank of Canada, like the US Federal Reserve and most other central banks around the world, raised interest rates to stifle inflation.
Higher interest rates make it harder for home buyers to obtain favorable mortgage terms, while also incentivizing home owners to stay in their current residence.
Although Canada has been gradually lowering rates since June of last year, the market is not expected to experience same historic levels of price growth as it did in the pandemic, according to a report from the Bank of Montreal.
In March 2025, Bank of Montreal Senior Economist Robert Kavcic said that even though resale prices have found a floor in many markets, it will take years before homes return to their 2022 peak values.
Assuming there is a stable economy, steady wage growth and neutral interest rates, the investment bank predicts the market will return to 2022 highs in 2029.
A recent report from TD, the second largest consumer bank in Canada, offered a rosier outlook on the housing market going into 2026.
'There's been a cloud of uncertainty that has contributed to the negative buying sentiment that's weighed on the housing market,' TD Economist Rishi Sondhi said.
'TD Economics thinks some of that uncertainty should wane in the back half of this year and dissipate even further into 2026.'
Sondhi acknowledged that condos in Toronto have declined and said they will likely continue to do so through to the end of the year.
The bank forecasts that condo prices will have dropped by 15 to 20 percent since 2023.
The ebb in prices doesn't have to be a bad thing, Sondhi added, saying it could be a signal for a resurgence just around the corner.
'Affordability in the GTA condo space has improved because we have seen declining prices since the third quarter of 2023,' he said.
'So, as prices have come down, affordability has improved, which could help the condo market get off the ground a little bit more in 2026.'
All data included in Wahi's analysis is sourced from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board and Information Technology Systems Ontario.