The ongoing mass departure of people from Toronto as more and more residents face the reality that they will never be able to afford a home here has meant an uptick in real estate activity elsewhere, especially in surrounding suburbs.

This has unfortunately meant a spike in real estate prices in many GTA locales — but, there are some Ontario cities and towns where you can still nab a home for a ridiculously affordable price (by Toronto standards, anyway).

A new report from RE/MAX outlines a number of points about the state of the housing market in Canada at large, including where in the country there are still deals to be had for would-be homeowners.

In Ontario, this may mean moving quite far from the GTA, depending on what your budget looks like.

The five cheapest neighbourhoods for purchasing a residence, based on the latest data, are Bayview, Sault Ste. Marie (where the average price is a mere $100,000); Bellwood, Ottawa ($132,467, on average); East End, Thunder Bay ($137,550); Bellwood, Ottawa ($132,467); Sandy Street, Chatham ($145,000) and West-End Downtown, Sault Ste. Marie ($165,000).

Though places like Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay may be quite the move for a Torontonian, somewhere such as Chatham-Kent is a far more doable three hours, and others further down the list are even closer to home.

West Side, Windsor; East Side, Bancroft; and Onaping Falls, Greater Sudbury are additional regions where houses, on average, cost less than $250,000 — and in Prescott, Brockville; Killaloe and Pembroke, Renfrew County; and Porcupine, Timmins, you can still get a house for exactly that price, on average.

There are the 17 other areas that are on the list, in order from cheapest to priciest, before a single Toronto neighbourhood is mentioned; among them, many that are less than a three hour drive, and some — such as downtown Peterborough and Crown Point, Hamilton — substantially less.

For Toronto itself, the Jane and Finch area is still remarkably cheap, with housing at an average of $400,000, putting it at spot 29 on RE/MAX's list. The next Toronto locale doesn't come up until spot 82, which is Regent Park, where the average home is $700,000. Malvern is soon after, with an average price of $800,000.

All of these figures pale in comparison to the cost of a home in Toronto or even the GTA in general: it will now run you an average of $1,331,176 for any type of home in the former, and $1,108,453 in the latter. And if you want a detached home in the city proper, you'd better be ready to pay upwards of $1.75 million. (Heck, even a plot of dirt is a mill.)

With this in mind, as well as with the new realities of hybrid or remote work, perhaps a move elsewhere isn't all that unrealistic — and could very well be the only option for those who still dream of home ownership.