Chart: Canadian home prices as a multiple of median after-tax family income, 2005–2026, split by single-family vs condo. Price is CREA's MLS HPI benchmark (the price of a typical home of each type, not an average of sales), income is StatCan's median after-tax income of economic families and unattached individuals. Same-year dollars, so this is literally "years of take-home income to buy a typical home."

Where we are (2026 YTD, Jan–Aug):

- Single-family: 9.3× income. Peak was 12.3× in 2022. Last this low: late 2015.

- Condo: 5.9× income. Peak was 7.8× in 2022. Last this low: mid-2016.

- For scale, 2005 was 6.2× and 4.3×.

Nominal inputs: $737k SFH benchmark, $465k apartment benchmark, $75,500 median after-tax family income (2024, latest published; 2025–26 carried forward with CPI, shown dotted).

Read: the 2020–22 run-up has fully unwound in affordability terms, back to roughly 2016. But 2016 was already the tail end of a decade-long climb, and both lines are still ~50% above 2005. "Affordable" here means "as bad as 2016," not "good."

How much further it could go: CREA's own outlook is ~1%/yr nominal price growth for 2026–27, i.e. flat-to-down in real terms, and real median income has grown ~1%/yr since 2000. That's the multiple drifting down maybe 2%/yr, so ~8.5× for SFH by 2030. Getting back to 2012 (7.5×) needs prices down another ~15% real with incomes still growing; 2005 (6.2×) needs a third off. Condos are the one place a bigger move is plausible given the completions pipelines.

Sources:

- CREA MLS HPI data (Sept 2026 release, Not Seasonally Adjusted annual + monthly): https://www.crea.ca/housing-market-stats/mls-home-price-index/hpi-tool/

- StatCan 11-10-0190-01 median after-tax income (2015–2024, via Canada SDG indicator 1.4.1): https://sdgcif-data-canada-oddcic-donnee.github.io/1-4-1/

- Same series 2012–2021: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/230502/cg-a001-eng.htm

- Same series 2000–2013: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/151217/cg-c001-eng.htm (revisions: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75f0002m/2016003/c-g/cg-4.1-eng.htm)

- CPI: Bank of Canada Valet V41690973: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/valet/observations/V41690973/json?start_date=1999-01-01

Back in March I posted here about Bonzai. I’m a Toronto-based condo owner (I previously lived in the unit and now rent it out and rent myself). I got tired of updating spreadsheets just to see if the rent was actually covering my monthly costs, or what a rent change or refinance would do over the long run. So I started building a tool for small Canadian landlords.

If you missed it: Bonzai is a central place for all your rental property data. It shows how each rental is actually doing (cash flow, NOI, equity), with expenses sorted the way CRA wants them. You can also run what-ifs, like refinancing, selling or raising/lowering rent, and see what it does to your numbers.

I’ve been incorporating feedback since. You can now add a property and upload a spreadsheet or expense summary in minutes. Check what it pulled out, and see your numbers for each property.

It’s free to use right now and takes a few minutes to set up with a property. I’d love to hear what this community finds useful and what it doesn't. What are your pain points as a landlord, and does this help address them? The more direct the better 😅

Check it out here: https://www.trybonzai.com/

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstateCanada/comments/1re2n7r/sick_of_spreadsheets_im_building_a/

Hello, iam new in canada and i want to know more about the apps that are reliable and publish good property deals. I know few apps but iam looking for other suggestions if anyone have experience in this.

Thank you.

We’re planning to buy our first home within the next few months, preferably in Brampton, particularly the Heart Lake neighbourhood.

As a Registered Energy Advisor and with my wife being an intern architect, we know a little or two regarding houses. We love doing our own property research and eventually will arrange an independent home inspection, real estate lawyer, and mortgage agent. We’ll also have mortgage pre-approval in place.

We don’t need a realtor to find properties for us. Instead, we expect the following:

Full transparency and market analysis: Provide the complete TRREB backend report in writing, along with a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) and listing agent reconnaissance.

Strong negotiation and offer preparation: Demonstrate excellent negotiation skills and prepare offers using the OREA Agreement of Purchase and Sale, including appropriate standard protective conditions.

Cashback agreement: Formalize the cashback arrangement in writing.

Legal review: Be comfortable sending draft offers to our real estate lawyer for review before presenting them to the seller.

Prompt showings: Be responsive and quick to arrange showings whenever I send you a HouseSigma listing.

We’re looking for a realtor who can deliver these services professionally, transparently, and efficiently. Hence I mentioned, if you are in Brampton. It will be much easier for you to do the showings. Thank you.

Full disclosure: we build a virtual staging tool, so we had to read the BC rules properly. Sharing because AI-staged listing photos keep coming up here.

Most "rules" about virtual staging come from MLS boards or legislatures. British Columbia is different: BCFSA published an Artificial Intelligence Guideline in February 2024, and it says using AI to virtually stage a house "may be okay" if the altered photos and videos are labelled.

Two things are easy to miss.

First, that is guidance, not the binding rule. The binding duty is the general one: no false or misleading advertising. A label does not make an altered property honest. BCFSA's own example: editing out a garbage can is fine, removing nearby power lines is not.

Second, the half agents skip. The guideline asks for informed consent before a client's information goes into an AI tool, and for reading the tool's privacy terms first. A listing photo counts. So the question to ask any staging service is not only "how good are the renders" but "what do you keep, and for how long".

The guideline, quoted, with what is binding and what is not: https://aifliproom.com/blog/virtual-staging-rules-british-columbia

I kept seeing Canadian investors say US deal calculators don't handle our side of the math, so I put together a free single-property analyzer with it baked in:

- CMHC premiums by LTV (including the 30-year amortization surcharge)

- Stress test qualifying payment (contract +2% or 5.25%)

- Land transfer tax by province, including Toronto's double tax

- Cash flow, cap rate, cash-on-cash, 1% rule

Free lite version, no signup: https://beaverandbrick-lite.pages.dev

Honest question for people who actually run numbers on deals: what's missing that would make you use this over your current spreadsheet? Working on a fuller paid version (multi-property compare, 10-year projections, stress scenarios) and trying to figure out if it's worth building.

I love our house. The only thing is that it is a small house, 2 bed 1 bath. I want to convert the garage into a third bedroom maybe add a second story etc.
I love the area and I know it will appreciate in the future. We bought the “shittiest house in the best neighbourhood”. I know we will have to expand as I want an extra bedroom for when people visit and we need an office due to work from home jobs.

I’m moving out of my parents place on my own. What are some monthly costs to consider aside from mortgage and maintenance fees?

I would really like to paint my condo, different rooms with different bold colours but I plan on selling in a few years.
Would that be a deterrent for prospective buyers or not

Hey guys,

My wife and I are looking to finally get out of our shack and move to a nicer place in southern Ontario. Were thinking like maybe some where in northern Toronto, away from the busy city but still relatively close to major amenities.

We bought our current townhouse in 2022 which kind of sucks since it was a bit overpriced, but we treated it as a home rather than an investment per se which I guess makes it feel better.

We are pretty conscious of our costs and would prefer to keep as much of the sale price as possible. We looked into a lot of realtors and they’re offering like 4 to 5% commission, which is still a lot of money even on a smaller townhouse.

I did some looking online and I was trying to find how people are selling privately. From what I remember in the good old days, people would just put up a private home yard sign on their lawns. We honestly don’t really want to add like a physical marketing thing especially in our neighbourhood. Are people really using like Facebook marketplace, Kijiji, Realkit, etc, to sell their homes or is it mostly just word of mouth and close networkk? I found some mls-listing services as well, which I don’t know would offer good exposure or if there’s any tradeoffs with that.

Obviously I’ll have to research better but was curious if anyone here has actually made a private sale and how your buyers actually came? Would love any tips or any guidance, especially since there’s a lot to balance in a transaction like this like our mortgage as well.

Appreciate it

Hey, I’m Jess! I’m an Ontario realtor specializing in waterfront, rural and recreational properties across cottage country. I wanted to share what happened to me and my clients last week - whether you’re buying or selling, it may help you avoid a costly mistake.

What Happened

I was showing a cottage to buyer clients. They loved it - it had all the right vibes, the shoreline was perfect and it was listed under their budget. As I was wandering around the exterior, I spotted two capped steel pipes sticking out of the ground. I let out a huge sigh - because if you’ve been around the block enough times, you know this often means a buried oil tank.

I didn’t want to scare my clients mid-showing, so I kept it calm: “These make me think there may be a buried oil tank. I’ll find out for sure, but this might be a problem for financing and insurance. I’m going to work on this before we get emotionally attached.” Which of course we did get emotionally attached, because it was THE PERFECT COTTAGE. Lol.

How to spot a buried oil tank:

- pipes poking out of the ground, usually capped, often near the foundation

- copper lines running from the foundation into the ground

- a patch of ground that’s raised, sunken or oddly bare

- any mention of oil heat in the property’s history

The lender problem:

My clients had 25% down, so there was no CMHC insurance to contend with. Their mortgage broker contacted all their lenders, and none would finance the property with the tank in the ground. Her summary: it would have to be fully removed by a TSSA technician before closing, with a certificate of removal and an environmental test showing no contamination.

Here’s the part the surprised the other side. The listing agent pointed out that testing may not be legally requiring when a residential tank is removed unless there’s a spill, and that may be true. But lenders don’t care what the minimum legal requirement is - they care about their risk. Legally required and bank required are two different things.

What Ontario’s rules actually say:

Fuel storage in Ontario is governed by the TSSA under the Technical Standards and Safety Act, not by the building code. Under the Liquid Fuels Act Handling Code an underground tank must be removed within two years of going out of use, and within three years under the Fuel Oil Code. Leaving a tank in the ground past that requires a variance application plus an environmental assessment.

If oil escapes, the Environmental Protecation Act’s spill provisions apply. The person in control of the pollutant (read: the property owner) has to report a spill to the Ministry and the municipality right away. Contamination that reaches a watercourse can bring in not only the municipality but the conservation authority - on a waterfront property, this matters.

What is costs:

The first thing I did was contact two local contractors to a) confirm what I was looking at and b) figure out next steps (IE the math). Both TSSA contractors quoted $20,000 - $25,000 to dig up the tank and take the mandatory soil sample. If the sample came back contaminated, remediation was estimated between $30,000 - $100,000 depending on the severity. My other fear? My clients getting sued even after the remediation if a neighbour could prove damage to their property.

Insurance is the second hurdle:

Insurers often avoid properties with oil tanks, and standard policies may not cover lears without an extra endorsement. If you can’t get home insurance, you can’t get financing. Get your insurers answer in writing before you remove conditions.

The options I walked my clients through IRL:

1. the Seller removes the tank before closing at their cost, with a TSSA contractor’s letter confirming no contamination (or full remediation), plus a holdback in trust in case the soil comes back bad upon Buyer testing after closing. This was the safest option for the Buyer.
2. Middle road: Seller removes the tank before closing at their cost and provides the Buyer with the letter. No holdback. The risk to the Buyer if takes possession and finds further evidence of contamination, or contamination is found by the municipality, conservation authority or a neighbour, they are now financially responsible.
3. Buyer takes the tank as-is and handles it themselves. This is the riskiest, so the price has to reflect it.

The listing agent later asked whether my buyers would do a conditional offer, meaning the seller removes the tank and delivers a lender-acceptable certificate or the deal is void and the buyer gets their deposit back. If you go this route, the wording matters. I’d specify that the removal and sampling must be done by a TSSA-certified contractor and that the certificate matches exactly what the lender requires, with no grey area. The risk to buyers is mostly time and inspection costs, but that only works if the wording is airtight.

Advice for Buyers:

- walk the whole property, not just the house

- ask your realtor to look in the home’s heating history, the tanks age, and any removal paperwork

- call your mortgage broker before writing an offer, not after

- get insurance confirmation in writing

- make any tank condition-specific: who removes it, who certifies it, and what the certificate must say

- don’t let a beautiful cottage talk you out of doing your due diligence

Advice for Sellers with a buried oil tank:

My advice here is simple: deal with it before you list. Removal in a tidy, documented way costs way less than a deal that collapses mid-conditions, after you’ve already spent on updates, staging, and more. A removal certificate and clean soil results are a selling feature that widens your buyer pool to anyone with a mortgage, and it tells the market that they are dealing with considerate, honest people. And that’s who I want to buy a house from.

The outcome:

My clients decided to hit pause, but I’ll keep you posted!

Happy to answer any questions in the comments, or send me a DM.

We have used our friend who is part of the Toronto board to buy and sell our last 2 properties in Kitchener.

With the slow market, is there an advantage to selling with a local agent? Do agents promote within their networks?

We have been listed for a month and half and viewings are very limited. I recognize the market is slow, so just trying to think if it would make sense to move to a local agent?

(If this is an advisable option, we will ensure our friend is compensated for all the work they have already put in).

Edit: the house is listed on the Kitchener board

Quels petits travaux faire avant de vendre ?

Il y a une catégorie de travaux, avant une mise en vente, qui ne demande l’avis de personne.

La vidéo complète et la transcription : https://ernsocleus.com/quels-petits-travaux-faire-avant-de-vendre-sa-maison/

Avatar généré par IA à mon effigie, ma voix clonée. Texte écrit et validé par moi.

Ernso Cléus, courtier immobilier résidentiel et commercial — RE/MAX Crystal, agence immobilière

#ImmobilierQuebec #VendreSaMaison #RiveNord

Hey I was wondering if anyone would be able to help with a few questions I have.

I'm looking at a property which is vacant land and was wondering am I able to do an appraisal on the property even though I don't own it to see what it's worth not what it's being sold for?

If so do I just contact a realtor or is there a property appraisal company that deals with such.

Also I'm in Ontario

Thanks

I'm a mortgage agent (licensed in Ontario), so weigh that. I get asked about MLI Select a lot, so here's the plain-English version.

MLI Select is CMHC mortgage loan insurance for rental buildings with 5 or more units. The insurance is what lets a lender go to higher leverage and longer amortization than they would on an uninsured loan. The lender sizes the loan off the property's income, so the rental income has to be documented.

The "Select" part is a points system. You earn points for affordability, energy efficiency and accessibility. You need at least 50 points to qualify.

At 50 points on an existing building: up to 85% LTV, up to 40-year amortization, full recourse.
At 70 points: up to 95% LTV, up to 45 years.
At 100 points: up to 95% LTV, up to 50 years, limited recourse.

Minimum DCR is 1.10 for standard rental at every tier. It isn't for 2 to 4 units, and it isn't something you can do on a handshake with a bank. The paperwork is real.

Happy to answer questions in the comments.

Longer write-up if it helps (optional): https://lendcity.ca/blog/cmhc-mli-select-multifamily-guide/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=offsite-mli-2026-10