Almost 40% of Toronto Lives In “Rare” Detached Homes

High-rise buildings have been dotting the city’s skyline for some time now, but 2 out of 5 Toronto families still live in detached homes. This is according to the latest Census 2016 release from Statistics Canada, which breaks down where Canadians are living. The data also shows that an increasing number of Torontonians are adopting high-rise living, which could justify increased premiums for detached units in the future.

Detached Homes Are The Largest Type of Housing

Detached homes saw the fastest rate of appreciation over the past year, based largely on the premise that they’re disappearing. While that might be true in Vancouver, it’s not the case in Toronto, where detached units are still popping up. There are 846,405 single family detached homes, which account for 39.63% of all housing – a 3.1% increase from the last Census. In a distant second place is the 626,905 high-rise units, which is 29.35% of all home types. The third largest segment was in low-rise apartment buildings, which represents 10.05% of home types. Other types still add up to a significant portion of the market, which you can see on the chart below.

Source: Statistics Canada.

Largest Change By Number

If you’ve seen the skyline transform over the past 5 years, it’s probably not a huge surprise that high-rises accounted for the largest segment of growth. The number of high-rise apartments grew 14.85% from 2011. Followed by row homes, with 10.54% growth. Actually, the largest growth by percent change was observed in “other attached,” such as live/work spaces. That number grew by 27.65%, but there were only 3,555 units – so it’s kind of a data skew.

Source: Statistics Canada.

The misconception that Toronto’s detached units are becoming rare extends largely from the fact that so many high-rise units are being built. While high-rise living is becoming increasingly popular, we’re not knocking down a significant number of detached homes to erect them. Vancouver on the other hand actually is actually doing that to fit in more high-rise units.

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Photo: Jason Baker