Ontario real estate prices could be hit hardest in these areas

The Ontario housing market has been hot for years, but that may soon change, and some areas may be more affected than others.

A new report from the Canadian financial services firm Desjardins says the Canadian housing market has reached a “breaking point”.

Since the Bank of Canada began raising interest rates to fight inflation, house prices have been falling steadily. Desjardins says the average house price in Canada fell 2.6% each month in March and 3.8% in April.

These reductions must continue, the report said, and will be most significant in Ontario, where house prices could fall by up to 18 percent.

“We expect the Ontario housing market adjustment to be driven by declining sales and price activity in smaller centers outside major urban areas,” the report said.

“We believe that prices will fall the most in the communities that have had the largest price increases during the pandemic and therefore the most erosion in affordability.

As a result, prices will fall in just a few hours outside of Toronto, the report said.

Of those regions, Bancroft could see the biggest drop in prices, followed by Chatham Kent and Windsor-Essex, the report said.

(Source: Desjardins)

Toronto real estate agent Desmond Brown told CTV News Toronto that he “always thought that the first communities to feel lower prices would be the remote communities around Toronto.”

“The price stability we saw was completely unrealistic,” Brown said.

He therefore believes that prices in these regions may soon fall to pre-pandemic levels.

PRICES IN TORONTO MAY REMAIN HIGH

While prices may soon fall in rural areas, Brown says he believes the Toronto market will cool more slowly.

“Toronto has a much better chance of prices staying higher than remote communities,” he said. “This is because the city is the economic engine of the country [and] There is still a huge demand for people to live in Toronto, although today we see a more hybrid working model. ”

The report lists Toronto in the five lowest regions for which prices are expected to fall.

With files from Tom Yun