People Are Abandoning Toronto For Cheap Houses & Smaller Cities Are Feeling The Impact

There’s no question about it — the pandemic has changed the rental and housing market in Toronto and beyond. With people working from home, there is less reason to be close to the downtown area. Some residents have decided to move farther away, where they can have more space for less money.

According to The Financial Post, tons of city-dwellers are leaving Toronto behind, and it’s causing a ripple effect in smaller municipalities.

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This ripple was first felt when residents decided to abandon the downtown core of Toronto.

Their decision to move into the suburbs for more room, more green space and cheaper rent then caused those suburbs’ housing markets to shift, reports the outlet.

The Financial Post uses Hamilton, a suburb close to Toronto, as an example.

As the Hamilton housing market was swiftly changing, many decided to move even farther away from the big metropolises.

“It’s this domino effect where people are moving further and further out,” Conrad Zurini, a Hamilton-based broker, told The Financial Post. “It’s this flight to affordability and greater value.”

Danielle Grant of Ambitious Realty Advisors says that, as a result, millennials in Hamilton are being forced to move as far as St. Catharines as local housing prices go up with demand.

Narcity spoke to Paul Danison of Rentals.ca on this trend.

While Danison says he hasn’t seen a mass exodus from Toronto, he confirmed that there is a noticeable trend of residents leaving cities for more affordable and spacious locations.

Danison said that it does work like a domino effect — the farther away from the city you are, the cheaper life gets.

"People are coming out from the city and they're looking for more square footage for less rent," said Danison.

"They want a home office, they want more green grass, they're working from home now and don't have to go into the office every day."

Zurini agrees. "A home has to be an office, maybe two offices, a classroom, a gym — much more than they were before," he said to the Financial Post.

While most of the homes in the GTA are upwards of $1,000,000, Ontarians could choose to move away from the city and buy much more affordable homes.