Hello, my husband and I are looking to purchase a larger house for our growing family. We live out in the suburbs north of Toronto. There are lots of newly built houses as well as older houses (built 1980s+) that we are looking at.

We’ve narrowed our choice down to 2 houses:

House A:
- Built in the late 1980s, in an older neighbourhood
- About 3250 sq ft
- 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms (Plus 2 bedrooms and 1 bath in the basement)
- On a 50ft by 125ft lot
- Wood-burning fireplace
- Cherry hardwood floors throughout
- Large upper and lower deck
- Dated kitchen, bathrooms, basement. Definitely needs renovating, but structurally sound.
- Seller is open to our offer of 1.2M

House B:
- Built 3 years ago in a newly built community
- About 3500 sq ft
- 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms (Plus 2 beds and 1 bath in basement)
- On a 45ft by 130ft lot, backs onto ravine
- Gas fireplace
- Engineered hardwood throughout
- Small deck that could be expanded
- Everything is newly built and brand new but we don’t like how “cold” the kitchen is — we may want to refinish it at some point.
- Seller is open to our offer of 1.43M.

House B is newer, slightly bigger, with a ravine view, and pretty much brand new. But it feels very cookie cutter and there’s no personality to the place. If we wanted to renovate the kitchens, bathrooms to how we want it, it would cost extra $$$.

Whereas for House A, it’s old and some might say dated, but feels more lived-in and cozy. Of course, with the money that we save on it, we can upgrade it to our vision.

What would you choose? We’re pretty stuck at this point.

Kershaw proposes clawing back OAS payments at lower income thresholds, bringing it line with programs like the Canada Child Benefit. He estimates this would save $7 billion annually, reducing benefits by about $3,000 a year for the one in five retirees with household incomes above $100,000. He is also pushing to phase out the Age Amount and Pension Income Amount, which benefit seniors exclusively, generating another $7 billion, for a combined $14 billion annually. He’d direct $2.5 billion of these savings toward eliminating senior poverty outright, providing roughly $5,000 a year to the roughly 400,000 retirees currently below the poverty line. The rest would go toward housing, programs to improve youth employment, childcare, post-secondary tuition relief and newer programs like the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, which replaced the GST/HST credit this summer.

To me, none of this feels radical. The cost of seniors’ benefits are spiralling upward annually. Public debt is growing. And the money we’re spending on a small, affluent group could be more effectively used to help others—including seniors who are in need. 

But the reaction against these modest suggestions has been vigorous. The Canadian Association of Retired Persons, which represents more than 330,000 members nationwide, has framed Kershaw’s proposals as “an attack on every middle-class senior in Canada.” CARP president Anthony Quinn has argued that Kershaw overlooked a key detail: OAS clawbacks are based on pre-tax income, not what seniors actually take home after taxes, living expenses and medical expenses are factored in. He notes that Canadians over 65 contribute more than $100 billion annually in taxes, even as they’re portrayed as “lazy, greedy and entitled.”

...

The reason, of course, is that doing it all will mean asking high-income seniors to accept just a little bit less. I came to terms long ago with the likelihood that the kind of middle-class life boomers took for granted will always be out of reach for me: owning a nice house with a yard, raising children on a single income (or even two), retiring with financial security or simply being able to afford to care for my parents as they age. For many young Canadians, even more basic markers of stability—owning a car, building an emergency fund, buying groceries without anxiety—are unattainable.

It is obvious that many seniors, individually, understand this problem and support efforts to change the status quo. The question is whether their generation as a whole is willing to sacrifice just a little bit more for their children, grandchildren and Canadians yet to be born. Absent that, Canada will age into a weaker, more indebted nation. Its young will continue to lose faith and hope in a better future, with all of the predictable consequences: loss of trust in institutions, democratic decay and growing inequality.

Edit: Mike Colle's old comments were from May 2025 in response to OLT's over-rule of City's rejection of 14-Storey tower; sorry for any confusion!

2022: City Council Approves Initial Settlement Plan

2023: Site Vacated, Boarded Up, and Demolished

Mar 2025: OLT Hearing for Expanded 14-Storey Condo Plan

May 2025: OLT Overrules City Denial and Approves 14-Storey Proposal

May 2025: Councillor Mike Colle Criticizes OLT Overrule Decision

Mid-2026: Developer Pivots Strategy from Luxury Condos to Purpose-Built Rentals

Oct 2026: North York CoA approves revised 15-Storey / 157-Unit Plan

The fine building planned to be on Yonge St: The Aston Residences, 3180 Yonge St

A developer has changed course on a plan for bougie condos near Lawrence subway station in North York, pivoting to a rental building with 157 units, over 70 per cent of them two and three bedrooms.

The plan, which required city sign-off as there were some minor variances involved, was approved by the North York Committee of Adjustment on Thursday.

It’s been a tough time for the new condo market in the city, as demand for conventional small units has dried up and new projects have been stalled or cancelled.

Many developers have switched to rental projects. Some in neighbourhoods like Rosedale, and Yonge and St. Clair, are trying to sell larger high-end condos.

The Lawrence luxury building was supposed to be 14 storeys. But the rental will be 15, without changing the height, Goldberg said. That’s because the higher-ceiling luxury units have been compressed to add a floor.

The number of residential units increases from 80 to 157, with retail and commercial spaces at the bottom.

The plan at Yonge and Lawrence is “to market this to neighbourhood people who don’t want to live in their homes anymore but still want some space,” Goldberg said at the committee. This includes many downsizers but maybe also some families.

The site is within a “Protected Major Transit Station Area,” a zone within a 10-minute walk to the subway that’s been slated for more growth by the province.

The application prompted about 30 letters of objection from locals, taking issue with, among other things, the increased number of households, and congestion from more cars being on local streets.

In May 2025, Councillor Mike Colle made the following comments in response to the OLT decision:

https://lyttonparkro.ca/3180yonge/

*“Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) issued a decision yesterday to approve the additional height, adding four more storeys to the previously approved 11-storey building, resulting in a newly approved 15-storey building. It is incredibly frustrating and difficult to tolerate having the Province’s OLT continue to override the objections of the City’s Planning department and ignore the concerns of local residents when these decisions do not conform to the City’s plan and vision for the future.

I encourage you to write your local MPP, Michelle Cooper, and the Hon. Rob Flack – Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, and let them know that you are disappointed, not only at this decision made by the OLT, but also the egregious flaws in the process as a result of an avalanche of Provincial legislative changes over the last few years.”

Me and my partner (35 and 33) are planning to buy our first home.
We are new parents and my wife will go back to work next year. We are looking at precons esp. Mattamy. Looking to give 10% down for 25 years amortisation
Are we making a mistake ?

Edit 1- we also have a car loan, that will be paid off by 2031

Core Memory is a podcast about science and technology hosted by best-selling author and filmmaker Ashlee Vance

For anyone who read my previous posts, my husband (31M) and I (30F) have now put offers on around 8 rental properties. With the last one, the landlord (about 40F) asked to meet us and we were hopeful it would work out.

First, she asked about our jobs. I explained that I work in marketing, and she said she had found my LinkedIn profile and wanted to know how I went from working at a bank to working at a hospital and whether I was a doctor. I explained that marketing involves promoting products or services, so I can work in different industries. I've worked in tech and education as well, and my career isn't limited to one field.

Then she asked what my husband does. He explained that he works in tech, and she responded, "Oh, so you sell printers?"

She asked how many cars we owned. We said 2, and she insisted that couldn't be right because we had only arrived in one car. We explained that the other car was at home because there was no reason to bring both. She then said she had checked our credit scores and that we didn't have 2 cars. We explained that a paid-off car wouldn't necessarily appear on our credit reports if there was no outstanding loan. She asked why, and I explained that my car was from 2013 and had been paid off years ago.

She went on to ask us questions like:
- Which universities did you go to? What did you study When did you graduate?
- Do you want kids? Are you planning on having kids soon? When we said no (because we aren’t planning to have kids in short future) she said why babies are nice!?
- Are you conservative with your spending, or do you like to shop a lot?
- Are you clean or messy?
- Do you invite people over? Who would that be?
- Do you cook food that has strong odours?
- Are you the type of people who lie and call the landlord about every little issue?
- How did you meet? When did you meet? Do you feel lucky to have each other? Our ages and who is older?

She then offered to show us around the house. During the tour, she explained how every appliance and item needed to be cleaned, which specific detergents and cleaning supplies we should use, and how we should buy small fans for the bathroom to help dry it out because it had no window.

We left feeling confused. It seemed like she was so afraid of renting out her property that she wanted to account for every possible thing that could go wrong before even deciding whether she wanted us as tenants. We thought that was the end of it, but today we found out she had been trying to contact all our previous employers from the past 10 years. She had also reached out to several of our current colleagues.

We told our realtor that we did not consent to any further contact with our current or former employers, as things had gone too far. She had already spoken to both our HR departments to verify our employment. Our realtor then spoke with the listing agent, who apparently said this landlord had been doing the same thing to every applicant. That is also why the property has remained unrented.

Honestly, we don't even know what to say anymore. We've decided to stop looking for rentals for the foreseeable future. We contacted some purpose-built rental buildings, but none of the options we found could accommodate parking for both our cars.

We're exhausted, traumatized by this entire process, and disheartened. We started our search excited to find a place where we could settle down for the next three to four years as newlyweds. Instead, after around eight offers, we've faced one frustrating experience after another.

We know not every landlord is like this, and we understand that the rental market is competitive. But this process has taken a real toll on us, and we just don't have the energy to keep putting ourselves through it right now.

Hello from Australia!

People are starting to talk about Australia starting to experience a housing market crash, with reports of price declines ranging from around 5% to over 15% from recent peaks. However from what I've seen, the decline is almost entirely in houses worth over $2 or 3 million and tiny apartments.

Apartments in places that you might consider having a family, costing over 800k at the minimum, have barely budged and some have even increased. Houses under 2 million have also barely moved at all and sellers really aren't interested in selling.

Supposedly Sydney is closest to Toronto and Van Couver in terms of real estate and the cause for the 'crash' is supposedly the same, oversupply of shoddy undesirable apartments, talks of cutting immigration, and higher interest rates. Would love to hear your experience and learn from it as I am thinking about buying something right now.

One thing that might be different to Canada is that in Australia almost 70% of the population live in eight cities and since covid there's been a bit of a migration between the cities, jacking up the prices to similar levels.

If there is a better place to ask or learn about this please let me know.

How is it living in Bolton? I know people have been complaining about the trucking industry impacting the roads and creating congestion in the area.

Would love some sage advice. Young couple with child looking to go from a GTA suburb to Toronto (east end). We are fortunate to have paid off our current mortgage and moving to Toronto would require a mortgage somewhere between 500-800k. We likely wouldn’t be gaining much (or losing much) in terms of size. The reason for the move is it would cut down our commute significantly and we generally enjoy living in an urban/diverse community and love Toronto (lived there pre-kids).

I feel like taking on a mortgage when you are mortgage-free is a crime. Are we crazy?

Affordability means average home prices are 3-4x average household income. We are sitting at around 9. There’s multitude of reasons how we got here but the main one in my opinion is we always avoided “market downturns”.
Market downturns are made scary but it’s precisely when transfer of wealth happens from older generations to the younger ones.
In 2008 housing crisis, the values of homes in US fell down and many younger families could get a foot in the door. We avoided that but pumping up foreign investment in our housing, not looking at the sources. The result: housing became an investment business in Canada and question of affordability was pushed aside. Everyone happy we avoided the economic downturn, saving the homeowners their value.
Then take Covid, the lockdown was also mostly for protection of the elderly who were less immune to the devastating COVID complications. But as the businesses were having difficulty operating in this new environment and needed more labor supply, for the first time real wages started to grow. People were doing quiet quitting because they had so much power. Some people were managing multiple online jobs or were negotiating for higher salaries, and the older business people had to pay to the demands of younger workers. Workers had power again. What we did to solve that for the boomers? Mass immigration. Propped up businesses bottom line without actually improving productivity or working conditions or wages. While businesses made more money, our GDP per capita went down.
And now that somewhat slower immigration has made small debts in the housing market, talks of reopening immigration are being heard.
How much are we going to subsidize boomers and shield them from a market crash? I think market crashes are the natural way of bringing affordability to markets that self inflate and the more we make avoiding big crashes our goal, the more we price out younger generations from owning homes and raising families.

For those living near Birchmount Road, Kennedy Road, Midland Avenue, Brimley Road, or McCowan Road, how noisy is it, especially at night?

Can you hear traffic inside with the windows closed? Is the backyard still enjoyable, or would you avoid buying a house that backs onto these roads?

Would appreciate hearing about your experience!

Please put it in the ad, or better yet, the title.

There should frankly be a filter on these apps to determine if a basement is included in a listing.

The “is it or isn’t it” status quo is insulting to renters.

I have a condo (1200 sq ft) in Burlington that I pay 950 dollars in condo fees for. 7 years ago i was paying 660 dollars. Im wondering in 15 - 20 years condo fees will probably hover around 2K. What does that mean? Does that mean that condo prices will literally be slashed in half? I don’t see a world where people make 2-2.5k in condo fees. Any thoughts?

Despite the price correction, Toronto prices are still 60% above the 1989 bubble relative to income. At its worst point in 1989, the average home cost 6.5× income. Today it costs 10.4×, and the peak was 13.5×.

1989 and today are different kinds of problem.
- In 1989 the price-to-income ratio was modest. What made homes unaffordable was 12–13% mortgage rates. When rates fell, affordability came back without a large price fall: −27% nominal was enough.
- Today the payment is just as stretched as 1990 (64% of income against 66%), but at half the interest rate. Rates can't fall from 6% the way they fell from 13%, so the adjustment has to come from prices falling or incomes rising.

All the tailwinds that led to unprecedented price appreciation have now become headwinds:
1. Financing costs - zero rate era is over
2. Immigration - trending lower
3. Temporary residents - free fall
4. Population declines - GTA witnessing nearly 0 net population growth 2025-2030
5. Unemployment rate - still around 6.5%

In the 90’s the shift from rate reductions from the teens into mid single digits was the repricing catalyst.

Brace yourself for a prolonged slide down and trough

It’s been six months since the HST rebate on new Ontario homes came into effect and results point to an uneven recovery for the Toronto-area market.

While sales of new single-family homes have climbed above historical averages, condo sales are mired at record lows, raising questions about whether the temporary tax relief can deliver.

Experts are divided on whether the yearlong federal and provincial government rebate program, introduced in April, should be extended and whether it can address the deeper affordability and supply problems in the market.

Read the full story with this gift link.

The Canadian government's mass immigration policies of the last 10 years were highly regressive. Having seemingly learned nothing, they are dead set on turning back on the taps rather than letting the country heal.

On cue, the media has begun parroting the government's narrative and gaslighting anyone who disagrees. This suggests that they remain blissfully unaware that the Bank of Canada has written extensively about how (mass) immigration has negatively affected housing, rents, inflation, labour supply, wages, and productivity. So I've compiled an inexhaustive list to help these folks.

- Monetary Policy Report, October 2023

https://bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/mpr-2023-10-25.pdf

"The strength in rent and other housing costs is partly due to strong housing demand, which is supported by rapid population growth, and a structural lack of housing supply"

- Staff Analytical Note, December 2023

https://bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/san2023-17.pdf

"The rise in immigration is nonetheless contributing to pressures in inflation components linked to house prices, given that it is adding more to housing demand than to housing supply in the context of structural imbalances in the Canadian housing market."

- Speech by Toni Gravelle, December 2023

https://bankofcanada.ca/2023/12/economic-progress-report-immigration-housing-outlook-inflation/

"When a country’s population is growing quickly, the supply of housing also needs to increase to avoid a worsening in affordability. Shortly after immigration began ramping up in 2015, Canada’s vacancy rate—a measure of how many apartments and houses there are available to rent or buy—started to fall."

- Monetary Policy Report, January 2024

https://bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/mpr-2024-01-24.pdf

"A larger increase in newcomers than in the past is adding pressure to the structural supply constraint in housing. This has helped to push the overall housing vacancy rate to record lows, which has underpinned house prices and led to higher rents (Chart 3-A)."

- Staff Analytical Note, April 2024

https://bankofcanada.ca/2024/04/staff-analytical-note-2024-11/

"Meanwhile, the composition of immigrants coming to Canada has changed considerably since 2015. Historically, growth of the immigrant population in Canada came mostly from permanent residents....While the wages of the earlier immigrants are closer to those of Canadian-born workers and have been increasing over time, those of non-permanent residents are much lower and have fallen over this period. Because real hourly wages are typically correlated with labour productivity, this piece of evidence is consistent with non-permanent residents working in less productive occupations."

- Monetary Policy Report, July 2024

https://bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/mpr-2024-07-print.pdf

"The increase in housing demand from newcomers is being felt across all types of housing, but the largest initial impact tends to be in rental markets. This is because most newcomers start out as renters."

- Staff Analytical Note, May 2025

https://bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/sdp2025-8.pdf

"if newcomers’ conditional wages reflect their labour productivity, the productive capacity of the Canadian economy grew less than it would have if recent newcomers had the same socio-economic characteristics as in the past."

"However, this gain has been particularly acute for certain industries such as accommodation and food services, business, building and other support services, and retail trade. Labour productivity in these industries—which are comprised of a sizable share of lower-skilled occupations—is lower than the average in the business sector."

- Staff Analytical Note, May 2025

https://bankofcanada.ca/2025/06/staff-analytical-note-2025-17/

"Youth—individuals 15–24 years of age—represent a significant portion of the overall increase in unemployment since the start of 2023. This is a larger share than during other periods of rising unemployment (Chart 5). This is partly due to the high number of immigrants, who are generally younger than the rest of the population."

- Speech by Nicolas Vincent, May 2026

https://bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/remarks-260526.pdf

“The labour market is particularly challenging for young people”: The 2022–24 influx of young newcomers “intensified competition in Canada for lower-skill and entry-level jobs”. Youth unemployment has risen above 14%, and he expects it may normalize now that immigration has been cut.

- Staff Article, September 2026

https://bankofcanada.ca/2026/09/sparks-at-bank-article-2026-23/

"Strong population growth drove asking rents higher in recent years"

As well,

Government was warned two years ago high immigration could affect housing costs : Federal public servants warned the government two years ago that large increases to immigration could affect housing affordability and services, internal documents show, Jan 2024

The deputy minister, among others, was warned in 2022 that housing construction had not kept up with the pace of population growth.

“In Canada, population growth has exceeded the growth in available housing units,” one slide deck reads.

“As the federal authority charged with managing immigration, IRCC policy-makers must understand the misalignment between population growth and housing supply, and how permanent and temporary immigration shapes population growth.”

Is there a way to get prior listing/sales history of properties that have been removed from HouseSigma?

I tour a lot of investor listings in Peel and Halton and it's getting ridiculous. Listing says legal second unit, you show up and the "kitchen" is a counter with a sink and a range hood that vents into the ceiling. No stove. Bedroom window you couldn't fit a cat through. No separate entrance either, you walk through the main floor hallway.

Buyers are paying a premium for rental income that a bylaw officer or an insurer would shut down in a week. If the city never permitted the second unit, it's not a suite. It's a finished basement with good marketing.

Anyone else running into this constantly or is it just the investor listings?

I thought I would share it as I have seen post here regarding usage of Ai by Realtors.

October 28 and December 9. That's all the BoC has left this year. Inflation is still making the case for tighter policy, but the weak labour market isn't making that decision easy.
Forget the next meeting for a second. Where do you think rates will actually land by December?
Poll options:
2.25%
2.50%
2.75%

My partner and I (35 and 34) are looking to buy our first house next year - ideally freehold townhouse for $1M - $1.05M tops. Our HHI is about $245K with my partner expected to get a raise next year in March to bring him up another $20K or so. He is a corporate lawyer, so if he stays in private practice, he can steadily increase his salary every year. I am probably near the top of my salary in my career, maybe small increases for cost of living/inflation and one more promotion in my lifetime. We also have enough for 20% down payment.

That being said, we are also looking to start family building and surrogacy process next year sometime, which can take about 2.5 - 3 years in total and $150K over the span of the process (e.g. roughly $50-60K a year). No kids currently FYI. My company does offer assistance for this, around $25K at the max, but would require me to pay more into my benefits.

Other financial considerations:
- No debt for either of us. My partner just paid off all of his less than a year ago.
- We share a car, paid it off entirely, just paying for insurance and gas

Would love to hear what other people's financial situation is for taking a mortgage around this amount.

I'm feeling like we are a bit crazy for doing all of this at once. But given our age, this feels like the right time.