Growing Number of Ontario Residents Plan to Move Out of Province

[AndrewX]

Rentals are crazy !! someone told me Newmarket is reasonable.

As home prices remain high and interest rates continue to climb, an increasing number of Ontario residents say they plan to move to another province.

A new survey from LowestRates.ca found that 7% of Ontarians plan to move out of province within the next year. This is up from the 4% who did so over the past two years. Nearly half — 46% — of Ontario residents who plan to move say they will stay in the same town, while 32% plan to move to a different city or town but will stay in the same province.

Over the past two years, these numbers played out differently, with 61% of Ontarians who moved staying in the same city or town, and 36% having moved to different cities or towns within the same province.

“During the market’s peak, we saw a mass exodus from larger cities where homebuyers sought larger properties to suit their lifestyle,” said Leah Zlatkin, licensed mortgage broker and LowestRates.ca expert. “Many buyers were priced out and moved to accommodate what was manageable within their budgets.”

Although some Ontario housing markets have seen prices fall in recent months, Ontario real estate is far from affordable for the average homebuyer. According to the Ontario Real Estate Association, the average price of a home in June hit $881,475 — a 2.8% year-over-year increase.

Affordability in general is a growing issue for Ontario residents, with 32% of those who plan to move within the next year saying they will do so to be able to afford a home. This is substantially higher than the 20% who moved for this reason over the past two years.

But affording a home wasn’t the sole reason Ontarians are looking to move. Lifestyle reasons are a motivator for 22% of residents who plan to move, and 17% say they will move so they can purchase a larger home. This is significantly smaller than the 30% who moved in the past two years to purchase a larger home. Just 8% plan to move so they can downsize, and 3% say they’ll move for employment opportunities.

As employees continue returning to either hybrid or full-time in-office work, Ontarians are once again prioritizing commute times when looking at where to buy.

“If somebody needs to be close to work, they might sacrifice space in order to save on commute time,” Zlatkin said. “If you can find a property located close to public transit like the GO Line or Metrolinx, then it might make sense to move further out.”

Unless homebuyers have a job that is entirely remote, Zlatkin notes, “most Canadians don’t want to be on the outskirts until they are closer to retirement.”

Growing Number of Ontario Residents Plan to Move Out of Province

As home prices remain high and interest rates continue to climb, an increasing number of Ontario residents plan to move to another province.

storeys.com

 

[GameBoy27]

With almost half a million new immigrants coming to Canada each year and Trudeau's plan of increasing that to 1 million, there'll be enough people to fill those spots. Not to mention housing (affordable or not) will continue to be a major problem. It will ensure housing prices also remain high and unaffordable for many.

 

[Ponderling]

Wife had lunch with a gal pal Monday who has moved to Halifax, and is a teacher.
She is on her summer break, and came to town to get her covid booster.
Until recently she did not qualify in NS, but would in Ont, and still owns property here, so kept her OHIP card.
Never heard of inter provincial medical tourism before.

 

[Butler1000]

Wife had lunch with a gal pal Monday who has moved to Halifax, and is a teacher.
She is on her summer break, and came to town to get her covid booster.
Until recently she did not qualify in NS, but would in Ont, and still owns property here, so kept her OHIP card.
Never heard of inter provincial medical tourism before.

There is a time lag when you move but an agreement between the provinces to cover each other. As well we have much better services here than Halifax.

 

[Pleasure Hound]

This kind of crap should not be happening in Canada. Our population density is so small, that everyone should be able to live comfortably. The only thing keeping people away from buying a house is a disgusting amount of greed. This kind of attitude (and housing market) should stay in the US where it belongs.....

I have always said that Ontario is a rich person's province. It shouldn't be, but it is.....still disgusting.....

 

[onomatopoeia]

" A new survey from LowestRates.ca found that 7% of Ontarians plan to move out of province within the next year. This is up from the 4% who did so over the past two years".

This quote is misleading. It should be:

A new survey from LowestRates.ca found that 7% of Ontarians who plan to move plan to move out of province within the next year. This is up from the 4% who did so over the past two years.

The vast majority of Ontarians don't intend to move from where they are now, so they have no reason to take a survey on lowestrates.ca.

 

[curr3n_c1000]

I plan to clean up my sock drawer this year too. We'll see how it goes.

Lets face it, Canada has very little options outside of Ontario.

 

[shack]

This kind of crap should not be happening in Canada. Our population density is so small,

Actually, along the border, where the vast majority of Canadians live, the density is quite high.

 

[Sinfulmarv]

Looking at the prices of 1-bed condos in Ottawa, I suspect most youth are priced out of homeownership without financial support from family.

 

[NotADcotor]

Actually, along the border, where the vast majority of Canadians live, the density is quite high.

And deep in the major city centers where people who want to live in the action or wish to avoid a commute, the density is much higher, and the ability to build anywhere is complicated by policy
It has nothing to do with greed as the other person said. If anything the sorts of people who are most inclined to screech greed are also the ones who unintentionally are behind the problem.

 

[TheDr]

Moving further east from the GTA this weekend. For what a 3 bedroom main floor of a house would cost me where I am now I am getting a 4 bed dethatched whole house on over 2 acres. Still in Ontario though.

 

[GameBoy27]

This kind of crap should not be happening in Canada. Our population density is so small, that everyone should be able to live comfortably. The only thing keeping people away from buying a house is a disgusting amount of greed. This kind of attitude (and housing market) should stay in the US where it belongs.....

I have always said that Ontario is a rich person's province. It shouldn't be, but it is.....still disgusting.....

It's called "supply and demand." It's simple economics coupled with the fact that Toronto is a very desirable place to live. That's what drives housing prices. Do you actually think that if there were a million vacant homes in Toronto, the prices would be anywhere close to what they are?

Trudeau wants to increase immigration to 1 million people a year. There's no way the building sector can keep up. This will forever guarantee high rents and housing prices.

If Ontario's too expensive for you, you have the option to move to another province or country. There's lots of more affordable ones.

 

[Mr.Know-It-All]

Moving further east from the GTA this weekend. For what a 3 bedroom main floor of a house would cost me where I am now I am getting a 4 bed dethatched whole house on over 2 acres. Still in Ontario though.

How does this impact your commute to work?

 

[Mr.Know-It-All]

Trudeau wants to increase immigration to 1 million people a year.

Where did you read this?

 

[Pleasure Hound]

It's called "supply and demand." It's simple economics coupled with the fact that Toronto is a very desirable place to live. That's what drives housing prices. Do you actually think that if there were a million vacant homes in Toronto, the prices would be anywhere close to what they are?

Trudeau wants to increase immigration to 1 million people a year. There's no way the building sector can keep up. This will forever guarantee high rents and housing prices.

If Ontario's too expensive for you, you have the option to move to another province or country. There's lots of more affordable ones.

Hence the exodus form Ontario.....and there's a hole in my bucket.....

 

[GameBoy27]

Where did you read this?

I misheard the number. It's 1.2 million total, between 2021 & 2023. Still, it's going to be hard to keep up with the amount of new housing required.

 

[K Douglas]

You've heard about the massive shortages of nurses, support staff etc. in our ER depts. This is one of the reasons why. They have fled the province. Furthermore, some of our hospitals have still not lifted their mandatory vaccination requirements for workers which is colossally stupid policy at this point. We are in crisis mode.

 

[Spunky1]

After someone told me the price of a house in Calgary I looked into it.
It’s a lot cheaper but so was the hourly wage for my comparable employment there. Only viable option to me is If you can sell your place here and buy something elsewhere with no mortgage and pocket some cash to live off of. Otherwise it’s a case of same shit different pile.
Maybe when I retire?

 

[rhuarc29]

You've heard about the massive shortages of nurses, support staff etc. in our ER depts. This is one of the reasons why. They have fled the province. Furthermore, some of our hospitals have still not lifted their mandatory vaccination requirements for workers which is colossally stupid policy at this point. We are in crisis mode.

There are a lot of things in this country approaching crisis, or already there. Housing is definitely a crisis, when the majority of a generation is priced out of the market without family assistance. We have labor shortages across every single industry, and a massive wave of retirements brought on by COVID. I have never seen the labor situation this bad, and it runs the gambit of highly skilled to low skill. Then there's the inflation we haven't seen in decades, which is necessitating increased interest rates that'll put pressure on our government's record debt levels. Our healthcare system is teetering, and our education system isn't much better.

Every day our country looks more like a house of cards ready to blow over.

 

[GameBoy27]

There are a lot of things in this country approaching crisis, or already there. Housing is definitely a crisis, when the majority of a generation is priced out of the market without family assistance. We have labor shortages across every single industry, and a massive wave of retirements brought on by COVID. I have never seen the labor situation this bad, and it runs the gambit of highly skilled to low skill. Then there's the inflation we haven't seen in decades, which is necessitating increased interest rates that'll put pressure on our government's record debt levels. Our healthcare system is teetering, and our education system isn't much better.

Every day our country looks more like a house of cards ready to blow over.

People don't pay enough attention to that. I read this the other day. It's a big problem.

The burden of government debt falls on Canadian families today and in the future. Like households, governments must pay interest on their debt, which is ultimately paid by Canadians in the form of taxes. Servicing the debt also diverts resources away from services such as health care and education.

Federal debt interest costs alone will hit a projected $26.9 billion (or $696 per person) in 2022/23 and increase to $42.9 billion (or $1,065 per person) by 2026/27. On aggregate, interest payments on federal debt will cost Canadian taxpayers roughly $180 billion during that period.

As the Bank of Canada raises interest rates, all else equal, government debt interest costs also rise. The federal budget does bake some interest rate hikes into the fiscal plan, as private-sector forecasters were anticipating rates to increase gradually over time. However, if for example the effective interest rate on government debt rose one percentage point higher than forecasted, annual interest costs on federal debt would jump from $42.9 billion to $52.2 billion by 2026/27, an increase of $9.3 billion in a single fiscal year.