Tausi Insider

Smaller communities have taken bigger housing market hits from rising interest rates than bigger cities, but have still had greater increases overall in property values since the start of the pandemic when compared to Toronto and Vancouver. The most desirable small communities, such as those within a couple hours of Toronto, uniformly saw skyrocketing prices over the pandemic as people left big cities for remote work. But similar to how those markets had larger value increases during the pandemic, they’re also seeing larger decreases as the Bank of Canada increases interest rates. The recent drops have been significant in Ontario municipalities such as St. Catharines and London, where the average selling price in December, 2022, was down between 14 and 15 per cent from 12 months prior, according to data provided by real estate marketplace Zolo Realty. The drop was even more steep in Belleville, which was down 25 per cent in December. Those numbers are large when compared to a year-ov...