For some residents in Toronto, condos used to be seen as starter homes — less space and less effort, young people would start here before moving up the ladder into a home later on. But according to new data, that’s not the case anymore — with home prices steadily rising, the average house in the city now costs double the price of the average condo. And to afford upsizing, you’d need to save your entire salary for nine years to be able to do it.
The report from Point2Homes found that the average condo in the city will cost you $758,400, while the average home price now sits at $1,520,169. That’s a $761,769 difference — or double the price of a condo — to upsize. With a median income of $79,876, the average person would need to manage to spend $0 of their salary for 9.5 years in a row to have enough saved to afford the move from condo to home.
The rest of Ontario doesn’t show much promise either — houses are at least double the price of condos in Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham, Burlington, Oakville and Richmond Hill. And it’s Richmond Hill, not Toronto, with the biggest price discrepancy between condos and houses; with a difference of $996,125, you would need to save your income for 10.4 years to be able to make the move. It would take 6.8 years of saving in both Vaughan and Mississauga, 7.1 in Burlington, eight in Oakville and 8.4 in Markham.
But it’s not all bad in the province; two Ontario cities made the list of Canadian cities where the price gap is easiest to close. In Kingston, with a price difference of $115,600 between condos and homes, it would only take 1.5 years of saving your entire income to afford a home. Windsor’s price gap is not far behind at $135,750, requiring two years of salary saving.
As expected, it’s a very different story over in Quebec — seven of the 14 cities where the price gap is easiest to close in Canada are in our northern neighbouring province, including its capital Quebec City. The capitals of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta, Winnipeg and Saskatchewan also made the list.
