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Viral tweet shows average homes in small-town Ontario and L.A. are now the same price

Oh Toronto, lovable but tragically overpriced city that you are, where the housing affordability issue is worse than in such desirable (and many would say better) metropolises as New York, London and now, even L.A.

While the cost of living in the 6ix keeps on rising — the average home in the GTA at large has now reached a terrifying $1.3 million — it's fun to pour salt into the wound by looking at what the price of a place here could buy you elsewhere on the planet.

And, social media posts doing so are really gaining traction from the millions who have accepted their fate of renting for life because they will never be able to afford a home in their native city.

One recent tweet dared to compare housing prices in L.A., where life is beachy and dreams come true, to the good ol' town of Orillia, Ontario, where the population is only around 30,000 and the drive to downtown Canada is about an hour long.

"Average home price in Los Angeles: $900,000. Average home price in Orillia: $900,000," wrote Better Dwelling co-founder and housing advocate Stephen Punwasi last week.

He then quips that "This makes sense because L.A. is the most powerful media city in the world with an economy larger than most countries, and Orillia has a casino and four Tim Hortons franchises," poking fun at how ridiculous Ontario's real estate prices really have become.

According to the latest numbers from Zillow and Realtor.com, the median price of a home in L.A. presently sits at just under $950,000 USD, up from the $795,000 reported in the county by the Los Angeles Times last November.

With the conversion, that's just shy of $1.2 million, which is still less than the current average in not just Toronto proper, but the entire GTA, and also on par with the numbers in many small towns here — not Orillia specifically, according to the latest stats, but maybe nearby Orangeville (HomeFinder.ca lists the average price of a home there to be $1,172,340.)

And there is absolutely no arguing that the quality of life in L.A., one that is agreed to be one of the coolest and overall best and busiest cities in the world, is far, far higher than in Orillia or Orangeville.

Yet another hilarious social media post from the last little while points out the same absurdity, comparing a shiny new $875,000 (USD, mind you) mansion in Texas to what the same price can get you in the Toronto area: a tiny, decades-old bungalow in Oshawa, a.k.a. "the armpit of Ontario," original poster and realtor Tom Kustra notes.

Just like jokes about how little people are paid in Toronto compared to the actual living wage here ($15 minimum wage vs. approximately $22 living wage), wisecracking about real estate prices in Ontario vs. the rest of the world clearly resonates with people.

Unfortunately, as humorous as some of these posts may be in their delivery, the truth behind them isn't funny at all for those of us trying to make a life in one of the most expensive cities to do so on the globe.

Lead photo by

Ontario Municipal Affairs and Housing


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