Toronto is Grow­ing Up

The Toronto Real Estate Board President’s col­umn as it appears each Fri­day in the Toronto Sun Resale Homes and Con­dos section

Toron­to­ni­ans are crazy for con­dos. Last month there were 2,361 condo sales in Toronto and the GTA, an increase of 25% from the pre­vi­ous July.

While sales of all hous­ing types have been robust through­out the past cou­ple of months, Toronto condo sales are mak­ing a stronger con­tri­bu­tion to the big pic­ture than ever before.

In lit­tle more than a decade, Toronto condo sales have gone from com­pris­ing a quar­ter of all GTA real estate trans­ac­tions to account­ing for almost one in every three homes that changes hands. In cen­tral Toronto con­dos now rep­re­sent 60% of resale real estate transactions.

As a result of the Toronto condo boom the pop­u­la­tion of the down­town core grew by 10% in the last five-year cen­sus period, rep­re­sent­ing the largest five-year pop­u­la­tion increase in the core through­out the last 30 years.

And there’s more to come. Accord­ing to the Canada Mort­gage and Hous­ing Cor­po­ra­tion the sea­son­ally adjusted annual rate of hous­ing starts rose in the Toronto area by 10% in June from the pre­vi­ous month to 24,000 units. This can mainly be attrib­uted to con­do­mini­ums as multi-family devel­op­ments were up 15% from the prior month.

The pop­u­lar­ity of Toronto con­do­mini­ums has sky­rock­eted because they appeal to peo­ple from so many dif­fer­ent walks of life. Toronto wel­comes nearly 100,000 new­com­ers to Canada each year from coun­tries like India and China, where high-rise liv­ing is the norm. As such, the Toronto condo mar­ket is a nat­ural fit.

Well-educated young adults who are on a career path also see Toronto condo liv­ing as an afford­able and con­ve­nient option, given its prox­im­ity to busi­ness and city life. Indeed many from the twenty and thirty some­thing age choose devel­op­ments that reflect their personality.

Whether you’re a media buff, into retro chic or have a pen­chant for fine art, there’s a Toronto condo designed specif­i­cally with your needs in mind.

Empty nesters and those who pur­chase prop­erty around the globe are also drawn to Toronto con­dos, given their spec­tac­u­lar archi­tec­ture and lux­u­ri­ous features.

A recent report by Urba­na­tion sub­stan­ti­ates their wide appeal; indi­cat­ing that in the sec­ond quar­ter of this year Toronto new condo sales increased 223% from Q1, to 2,963 units.

Even if you’re not drawn to this hous­ing type, our new ver­ti­cal city has an eco­nomic ben­e­fit to all GTA residents.

It obvi­ously ben­e­fits hous­ing indus­try related pro­fes­sions, but it also has a pos­i­tive impact on a num­ber of other sec­tors. In fact, accord­ing to a study by the Cana­dian Real Estate Asso­ci­a­tion, one out of every 100 jobs depends on spend­ing asso­ci­ated with resale hous­ing trans­ac­tions, on things like ren­o­va­tions, fur­ni­ture and appli­ances. This study also found that the aver­age resale hous­ing trans­ac­tion in Ontario gen­er­ates more than $47,000 in eco­nomic spin­offs. Even the small­est busi­nesses ben­e­fit from con­do­minium com­mu­ni­ties, which pro­vide a steady stream of clien­tele to their ground floor shops.

New hous­ing units also put addi­tional funds into the City’s cof­fers through prop­erty taxes. And inten­si­fi­ca­tion offers the oppor­tu­nity to improve, rather than dis­perse, city ser­vices like tran­sit, waste removal and recre­ation facilities.

As the fifth most pop­u­lous urban cen­tre in North Amer­ica behind Mex­ico City, New York City, Los Ange­les and Chicago, Toronto is grow­ing up, both lit­er­ally and fig­u­ra­tively as it matures into a world-class city.

Tom Lebour is Pres­i­dent of the Toronto Real Estate Board, a pro­fes­sional asso­ci­a­tion that rep­re­sents 28,000 Real­tors in the Greater Toronto Area.

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