The average price of a Toronto condo is now $740,000 - Condo prices continue to rise in Toronto, like pretty much everything else lately, as more and more potential homebuyers look up to the sky for cheaper alternatives to detached homes.

Those who entered the condo market last year after prices dipped hard due to the pandemic are likely sitting pretty now, but many others are finding it increasingly hard to afford what used to be the affordable option for home ownership in Canada’s most populous city.

The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) is reporting a “record fourth quarter” for condominium apartment sales in 2021. A total of 5,336 condo units were sold in the City of Toronto proper between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 of 2021 for an average price of $739,683, according to TRREB. The average price during this same period of time in 2020? Approximately $645,000.

This represents an average value increase of nearly $100,000 over the course of just 12 months — a solid return on one’s investment, whether a property was purchased in early 2020 while the market was lagging or pretty much any time before then.

The City of Toronto saw more condos sold than any other GTA region, followed by Peel and York Experts have been warning for a while that such a thing would happen as housing prices grew out of control. With even the suburbs growing unaffordable for most young first-time home buyers, the only places left to go for those looking to own is up into vertical communities, and the data is showing clear evidence of this trend.

The resurgence in the condo market was a key real estate story for 2021. First-time buyers, who arguably remained on the sidelines longer than existing home buyers during the earlier stages of the pandemic, re-entered the market with vigour last year.

TRREB’s Chief Market Analyst Jason Mercer predicted similarly, as other experts have, that condo prices will continue to rise at a clip well into 2022. “In the early days of the pandemic, we saw a spike in condominium apartment listings and a brief lull in condo price growth,” said Mercer. “The situation reversed dramatically in 2021, with the number of available units dropping in the face of strong demand. The resulting double-digit price growth will carry forward into 2022.”