No surprises here, Toronto and Vancouver rank among the world's most expensive housing markets.
According to CBRE's 2019 Global Living Report, Toronto is the 12th most expensive housing market in the world with an average home price of $575,557 (USD). Vancouver held its position as the fourth most expensive housing market with the average home selling for $815,322 (USD).
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Vancouver isn't the only city on the list to hold its spot. Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai all held the top three spots with home prices of $1,235,220 (USD), $874, 372 (USD) and $872,555 (USD) respectively.
According to CBRE's head of residential research, Jennet Siebrits, house prices grew in all but five cities on the 35 city list. Of course, some cities grew more than others. Barcelona, Dublin, Shanghai and Madrid all saw double-digit growth, while Toronto and Vancouver saw percentage growths of 1.4 and 4.1, respectively.
CBRE credits "increasing affordability constraints" for pushing some of last year's top performing cities for house price growth further down the list this year.
Courtesy of CBRE.
In CBRE's Toronto-specific report, the commercial real estate and investment firm notes that the city's residential market conditions started to become unsteady in 2017 after the 15 per cent foreign buyers tax was introduced.
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"House price growth was 1.5 per cent last year, which is low in comparison to the annual average of 10 per cent, over the last decade," the report reads. "However, this is a welcome slowdown for aspiring home buyers faced with increasingly severe affordability constraints."
While Toronto ranked 26th for house price growth, the city came in ninth for rental growth in the same period. Rental growth in Toronto has gone up 4.8 per cent in the last year due to near historically low vacancy rates of 1.2 per cent.
According to CBRE's report, the average cost of rent in Toronto is $1,026 (USD) which is approximately $1,400 (CDN) — a figure much lower than national reports. According to Rentals.ca, a one bedroom in Toronto currently goes for almost $900 more a month.
Regardless of the actual cost, CBRE says that the cost and demand for Toronto's rental market is almost sure to continue growing with demand coming from downsizing baby boomers, the city's booming tech industry and sheer lack of supply.
