Smaller markets like Sarnia-Lambton are reaping some benefit from Toronto's red hot housing market.
The president of the local real estate board, Steve Park, made the comment on CHOK's The Talk Show with Sue Storr Tuesday morning.
Sarnia-Lambton Real Estate Board President Steve Park (Submitted photo)
"For 25 years, as long as I've been in real estate, every time someone listed their house they said 'Well, we just want that Toronto buyer to come,' and they never did because it was like there was a wall in London," says Park. "That has changed in the last five to seven years and yes, they are retiring in Sarnia. They're not doing that in droves, but they are doing that a lot more then they were, five to seven years ago."
Park says the local market is doing very well but the average sale price has increased by only about 5%. He thinks, in part, expensive pricing in Toronto is driving people to smaller population centres.
Park adds, however, that increasing interest rates to cool Toronto's housing market will have an impact across the country.
"Any interest rate increase takes away your ability to borrow money," he says. "So it will affect the Sarnia market. How much? Neither one of us has a crystal ball. I don't think that's the answer. I think there's ways that Toronto can do it municipally. You can't raise interest rates for just investors or just Toronto people, but you could put certain taxes on vacant properties. A lot of these guys are just speculating. They're not even renting them out, they're just buying them and leaving them."
Toronto Mayor John Tory was scheduled to meet with the federal and Ontario finance ministers Tuesday, to discuss the housing market.
The average price of a detached house in the Toronto area was $1.21-million in March.
-With fles from Stephanie Chaves