What Toronto Neighborhoods Are Doing The Best?

The topsy-turvy year of 2009 is over with. At the beginning of the year, the housing market in the Toronto area was suffering horribly with record drops in home prices and home purchases. However, as spring turned to summer, home prices began to rise and with them came the buyers and the sellers. By the fall, Toronto was setting new records for growth in real estate sales and prices. However, depending on where you buy or live in Toronto, the neighborhood will have faired differently.

 For example, in the high-price and upscale neighborhoods of Bridle Path, Forest Hill and Rosedale, growth has been much slower and none of these neighborhoods have reached their record high prices that they achieved only a few short years ago. Between 2007 and 2009, the King and Uxbridge neighborhoods experienced a drop in home prices by a whopping 30 percent.

In all, the Toronto Real Estate Board looked at 86 different areas in Toronto and in 17 of those areas, prices are still down rather than up like in other neighborhoods.

 Neighborhoods that are doing very well include North Pickering, Milton and Orangeville, While the high-priced neighborhoods have seen a 30 percent drop, these neighborhoods have seen price increases of 40 percent over the past two years.

 Overall throughout Toronto, the average home sales have been about 8.9 percent above what they were in 2007, which shows that on the whole, the Toronto area has been fairing very good after a tough go of it in 2008. Housing prices continue to rise throughout Toronto and Toronto is only outmatched across Canada by the tremendous growth in the real estate market in Vancouver.

In fact, Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary are seen as the three cities and areas that are helping to lift up the entire Canadian housing market. Housing prices and sales are down in some provinces like Manitoba and parts of Alberta, but the big sales in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary make up for this. Thanks to these three cities, the real estate market is bringing the entire Canadian economy out of recession, faster than any industry experts thought was possible.

 Will 2010 see the same type of growth? Only time will tell but all signs point to continued growth between now and June 2010 when the Bank of Canada is expected to raise its record low interest rate.