This month, I’m discussing both the real estate market and a potential increase in property taxes.
If you’re interested in the specifics of the market, you can see the stats here.
There were more sales than I expected to see, perhaps prompted by a drop in interest rates. If there was anything surprising, it’s that there wasn’t an even further decrease in condo prices. Judging by the amount of interest (or lack thereof) in the condos currently on the market, I’d have expected that owners who really needed to sell would be more accepting about the current state of the market and be willing to negotiate.
So far in January, I’ve seen a ton of new listings, but I don’t think we’ll see a huge number of sales until we’re further into the spring market, like March or April. But it’s so hard to make predictions, not knowing the fallout from what’s happening in the US, not to mention potential elections here.
There are always opportunities in the market, it just depends on what you see as an opportunity. There are a number of condos available for sale that have been sitting for a while. If you’re an investor with a lot of cash to put down, there are deals to be had.
If you’re curious about what’s happening in your neighbourhood, send me a message.
The other news that will directly impact all homeowners is the proposed property tax increase coming for 2025, which works out to a total of 6.9%. There is an actual tax increase of 5.4% and a city building levy of 1.5%.
It sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that the taxes are calculated on assessments from 2016. If the city kept the tax rate the same but homeowners were taxed on the 2024 value of their home, people would be in shock.
To put it into dollars and cents, if your home was worth $1M in 2016, the proposed increase (city council will vote in February) would be $388. Annually.
There is a program for seniors who earn a low income (and may have been living in their home since the 50s) to apply for a tax grant. Hopefully the majority of Toronto homeowners can find an extra dollar a day to add to our property taxes.
The bottom line is that yes, property taxes have gone up by 24% over the last three years, but It’s about time. We’ve had the luxury of super low taxes and, although everyone wants to dump on Olivia Chow because the increases are happening during her tenure, I think we can blame past administrations that let things get to this point. And still, we have a very low taxation rate. For example, someone living in Ottawa would be paying almost $12,000 in taxes on a million dollar home, compared to $7,153 in Toronto.
Nobody wants to pay more tax than they have to, but I am ok with the idea of paying more because the city is suffering. The only other option is for the province to fund more, but that would mean it has more control of our city, which is something we definitely don’t want. Let’s just hope that city council uses the funds wisely and we see improvements.