Best Toronto-area Cities for Real Estate Appreciation

[Dylan Bergum]

Hi there,

I am looking to purchase a single family home in the Toronto/Southern Ontario area to live in for the foreseeable future.

I currently live in Toronto and am looking at several Toronto-area cities to purchase in. These include:

• Barrie
• Innisfil
• Hamilton
• Brantford
• Kitchener
• Cambridge
• Guelph

Does anyone have any opinions on which city is most poised for future appreciation?  I know Brantford is the most affordable and was listed as one of the top cities for Canadian real estate in 2019, but i am hesitant because of the crime rate. 

Barrie/Innisfil also seems like a good option as it is quite affordable and north of Toronto, which puts it in a good position as Toronto keeps growing. 

Any opinions? Feel free to let me know of any other cities I might have missed.  I am not looking to go east of Toronto which is why I left out the eastern cities. 

[Antonio Yong]

Hey Dylan,

I like Kitchener - Waterloo for it's diverse employers (e.g., Manulife, Sunlife, Google, Shopify, University of Waterloo, Laurier, etc.,) and Transportation (e.g., VIA Rail, GoTrain, LRT). There's a lot of development in the city now and many have coined the city as the Silicon Valley of Canada. It's appreciated a lot over the past couple of years and it's hard to find cash flow now. With this being said, I started to look at investment properties in Brantford. I ended up buying an investment property in Brantford and I'm still learning about the market - but the city appears to be gentrifying. If you stay out of the Downtown area and buy in the right neighbourhoods, it can be a solid investment.