TORONTO – Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the high price of housing in the Greater Toronto Area is having a widening effect on other Ontario real estate markets.
CMHC says it appears that people have gone further afield to buy a single-family home such as a detached or semi-detached house.
It says Barrie to the north of Toronto and the St. Catharines-Niagara area to the south have been more influenced by the GTA’s sky-rocketing housing prices since the 2008-9 recession than before it.
The CMHC report says Hamilton is the Ontario market that’s most sensitive to housing prices within the Greater Toronto Area.
It estimates that a one per cent change in GTA house prices could increase or decrease Hamilton prices by two per cent after three years.
A similar but smaller multiplier effect would be felt in Guelph, Brantford, Kitchener, Barrie, Peterborough and St. Catharines.