Hamilton home prices still climbing, but ‘torrid pace’ expected to slow
Hamilton's scorching housing prices are still on the rise thanks to demand from Greater Toronto Area buyers - but pandemic competition is finally starting to slow, according to Royal LePage.
The real estate company's housing price survey shows the aggregate year-over-year home price - the average of all forms of housing, including condos, towns and single-family - jumped 23.8 per cent to $760,000 in the second quarter.
Those findings come after the Hamilton-Burlington realtors' association reported a local year-over-year price jump of 30 per cent in February.
Royal LePage is forecasting continued price increases - but not at the same torrid pace," according to president Phil Soper, who said competition is beginning to slow after record industry growth spurred by a pandemic inventory shortage.
We appear to have passed the peak of price appreciation," he said in a release for the survey.
Most regions in Canada surveyed by the company saw double-digit housing price growth year over year, with Hamilton actually sitting under the 25 per cent national average. In Milton and Oshawa, detached homes saw a 40 per cent jump.
But the company is still forecasting prices to climb in Hamilton, which remains a popular commuting target for transplanted Toronto-area residents on the hunt for a new home.
The median price of a single-family home in Hamilton jumped 23.4 per cent over the last year - but that's still a comparative deal compared to the $1 million-plus median price of aggregate housing in Toronto.
The rising price tag for Hamilton homes has so far earned dire warnings of a housing bubble" and the dubious label in one study as one of the top three most unaffordable cities in North America.
A lack of both affordable homes and rentals has also left 5,000 individual tenants or families on a wait list for housing help.
City council recently asked staff to draft a potential bylaw designed to tax owners of vacant homes in an effort to up the number of available rentals.
Matthew Van Dongen is a Hamilton-based reporter covering transportation for The Spectator. Reach him via email: mvandongen@thespec.com