Thread by @JohnPasalis

A brief thread on the urban exodus we keep hearing about.

Firstly, it’s not just anecdotes – you can see here that the outer suburbs have seen the biggest increase in sales year over year since the market picked up again in June 1/

That said, we are not seeing a hollowing out of the city.

Simcoe saw 1,420 more home sales this year vs last year compared to 937 in Toronto.

The big % difference is because total sales in Simcoe are far lower than in Toronto. 2/

While there is a clear behavioural shift, it’s a small percentage of the population.

Everyone isn’t leaving the city to move to the country.

While downtown homes are still very competitive, we are seeing a slow down in the condo market (rentals and resales) 3/

There are a lot of different factors contributing to the slowdown in the condo market from both the demand and supply side.

One of these of course is the health risks when living in dense buildings, crowded elevators etc 4/
thestar.com/news/gta/2020/…

Another is that one of the main attractions to downtown living is the nightlife (restaurants, night clubs, live concerts etc) but all of this has either stopped or slowed down significantly which has eliminated one of the main selling features of downtown living 5/

But I do think that these trends are short term and will last as long as COVID.

Once the fears of COVID are behind us recent grads will still prefer downtown living and a vibrant nightlife to living in the sleepy suburbs 6/

But the bigger question will be, how many new jobs will there be downtown once COVID is behind us.

One of the main drivers of downtown condos has been the increase in the number of jobs in the downtown core.

But with big employers eager to reduce their office footprint downtown, will that also mean fewer jobs downtown 2-3 years from now.

And even if the jobs have gone virtual WFH, will a 500 sqft condo be big enough to live and work in? /
theglobeandmail.com/business/artic…