toronto housing bubble

Toronto's housing bubble was just ranked the worst in the entire world

Toronto now ranks first overall on the Swiss wealth management firm's list of global cities at risk of housing bubbles, rising from third place in 2020 and second place in 2021.

In this year's report, the 6ix overtakes Frankfurt, Germany, as the single most overvalued housing market on the planet.

Toronto's index score of 2.24 marks a sizeable leap over the 2.02 score from 2021, with UBS considering any index rating above 1.5 as a city facing a "bubble risk."

"Real house price levels in Vancouver and Toronto have more than tripled in the last 25 years," explains the report, citing "An urban housing shortage amid strong population growth and falling mortgage rates" as "the two main culprits of the long-term property bonanza in both Canadian cities."

Though Vancouver housing prices are now comparable to Toronto's, the former city holds its 6th place position from 2021.

Toronto hit an average home price of $1,061,876 in September, and despite that figure representing a decline from the $1,090,422 average from the previous September, the city's increasingly precarious housing situation is raising even louder alarm bells than the year before.

The report states that "the most recent housing frenzy that began in 2019 as mortgage rates fell has continued into 2021. Property price growth in Toronto accelerated to its highest rate in five years, with house prices now 17 per cent higher than a year ago."

But those same mortgage rates are now way up, placing unexpected pressure on homeowners and buyers, and raising concern among industry experts.

This isn't a localized event, with UBS stating that "mortgage rates have almost doubled on average across all cities analyzed since their lowest point in mid-2021."

UBS points to worrying signs of a bursting bubble, including home buyers "Up-sizing during the pandemic on the back of strong income growth," and "leveraging up at the fastest pace since before the financial crisis."

Here's the full list of cities appearing on UBS' Global Real Estate Bubble Index for 2022, from riskiest to least risky housing market:

  1. Toronto
  2. Frankfurt
  3. Zurich
  4. Munich
  5. Hong Kong
  6. Vancouver
  7. Amsterdam
  8. Tel Aviv
  9. Tokyo
  10. Miami
  11. Los Angeles
  12. Stockholm
  13. Paris
  14. Sydney
  15. Geneva
  16. London
  17. San Francisco
  18. Boston
  19. Madrid
  20. New York
  21. Singapore
  22. Milan
  23. Sao Paulo
  24. Dubai
  25. Warsaw
Lead photo by

Jack Landau


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