Would You Live Outside of Toronto for Affordable Homeownership?

Is it possible to survive life outside Toronto? I never would have thought so, but I actually have a few friends who manage to not only live outside the Big Smoke, but even to enjoy their lives. Not sure I want to try it myself, but if I ever do, I may consider one of the booming housing markets that aren’t Toronto or Vancouver.

Global News says while home prices were up 8.1% nationwide in May compared to a year ago, when you take Vancouver and Toronto out of the picture, it’s more like 2.4%. Home prices nationwide average $450,886, but that drops to $344,988 when you take out the two housing market gorillas. Here are five markets they offer up where home prices posted healthy gains, and yet prices remain (relatively) affordable:

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about Hamilton and its evolving status as a community that offers not only reasonably priced homes, but also all the amenities and even some of the culture we claim we need when we move to the nation’s two hot spots. Hamilton saw a 10.1% increase last month over the same month last year, and home prices there now average $447,019. It’s even commutable, if you don’t mind spending a few hours a day on the road.

In Windsor-Essex, average home prices are $205,695 and May posted a 12.2% year-over-year gain. It makes sense for many who want to stay close to friends and families, but don’t need the GTA to make a living.

In Thunder Bay, cited in March by MoneySense Magazine as offering the best value for the buck, home prices hit $224,860 after a 5.4% year-over-year increase in May.

Meanwhile in the west, affordable compared to Vancouver doesn’t make a home affordable. The two communities Global names as offering good value are still priced out of reach for many. In lovely Victoria, a 6.3% increase saw home prices rise to $527,770. In Fraser Valley, B.C., they enjoyed a 7.2% increase year-over-year, to bring average home prices to $574,577.

A recent report by RBC Economics says affordability in Toronto and Vancouver continues to decline, with further mortgage rate cuts helping make homeownership a reality in markets where prices aren’t going up too quickly. The Housing Affordability Study measures the percentage of income required to service homeownership at current market values, and found that it takes 27.1% of household income to manage a condo and 47.9% to own a detached home.

In this age of job sharing and telecommuting, would you leave Toronto for a cheaper home? Would you change jobs if you had to? What community would be your first choice?

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This all punctuates the fact that homeownership in the GTA is still barely a pipe dream for a lot of families. For many, just getting dinner on the table is a challenge.

The City just released its anti-poverty plan, aimed at helping to create prosperity for all residents by 2035. The 48-page report, “TO Prosperity: Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy,” says that Toronto has the highest rates of child poverty, more working poor and the largest inequality gap of any city in Canada.

The report, written by Community 2 Community, a social agency, advocate and leader coalition, was put together after consultations with hundreds of residents living at the poverty line after dozens of meetings over the last six months.

The goal is for the report’s recommendations to be in front of the executive committee at the end of this month and council early in July, before final strategy goes to council in the fall in time for the 2016 budget. In an interview with the Star, Deputy Mayor Pam McConnell said that ideally, every budget decision would be weighed against its impact on poverty and inequality, and that systemic change that embeds poverty reduction into corporate culture are what it will take to make real, lasting change — sounds unlikely, but I’m going to believe that it’s possible anyway.

The strategies focus on housing stability, services, transportation, and food access. Among the recommendations are to encourage landlords to make energy and efficiency retrofits, allow the city to enact inclusionary zoning, and to create financial incentives to build more affordable housing. On the services spectrum, recommendations include new, accessible, fair and equitable registration processes for city programs; expanded dental care for low-income people; boosted before and after school programs for kids; and increasing the number of subsidized daycare spaces. Transportation recommendations include improved service to the inner suburbs, discounted fares for low-income residents, and a long-term public transit strategy from Ottawa.

Better food access has the potential to not only mitigate hunger, but help build community as well, with recommendations that include making it easier for residents to use parks, rec centres and public spaces for community ovens, farmers’ markets and communal kitchens, increased access to public land for community gardens; increased school nutrition programs and more nutritious food for distribution at food banks.

Other recommendations include the vague “quality jobs and living wages” — meaningless in itself, but a nice idea. Also, that city contractors be required to pay a living wage and that start-up funds be provided for newcomers and those leaving mental institutions, hospitals, homeless shelters and jails.

Of course, that last one is bound for controversy from the “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps! Nobody helped me!” school of thinkers, who tend toward myopia.

It’s hard to believe in a city that offers so much to so many, that 25% of our children and 20% of adults are living in poverty, of which, 46% are recent immigrants, 37% are single moms, 33% are racialized groups, and 30% are people with disabilities.

Personally, I like author John Green’s line: There is no Them. There are only facets of Us.

Feature image: Thunder Bay