Buying a house in Hamilton costs $300K more than it did 6 years ago, data shows

• By Spencer Rioux
• Posted Monday, Feb 12, 2024 10:18 am

Buying a house in Hamilton costs $300K more than it did 6 years ago, data shows

Data also shows the number of homes sold in 2023 was the lowest Hamilton has seen in 25 years

Seven years ago, Vicky Amato bought a home with her husband in Hamilton's lower city.

But now she's going through a divorce, which forced her out of the house — and now she can't afford to buy a new home in the city.

She says she doesn't make enough money to buy a home and struggles to afford rent downtown, but also has too much money to access support from the city and community services.

Amato said she will likely have no choice but to move to a more affordable city.

"I don't want to go ... who wants to leave their home and everything they know and all their friends and neighbours?" she said.

Hamilton homes are selling for roughly $300,000 more than they were in 2018. (Bobby Hristova/CBC)

In 2018, the average sale price of a home in the city was roughly $569,000, according to Realtors Association of Hamilton-Burlington (RAHB) data. Last year, it was $885,000, which is higher than past years but lower than 2022.

"It's absolutely crazy," RAHB president Nicolas von Bredow said.

Why have home prices soared in Hamilton?

He said people coming to Hamilton from pricier places to live, like the Greater Toronto Area, increased the local demand for homes, which raised the cost of homes in the city.

"Hamilton was a diamond in the rough," von Bredow said. 

Jim Dunn, a McMaster professor and director of the Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative agrees, saying demand in the city became "supercharged" over the past few years.

"Buying a home is probably not going to be possible for a lot of people," he said.

He said low interest rates before and early into the pandemic made it cheaper to borrow money and people who already built up equity in their home could afford to buy property in a market like Hamilton — and do so well above...[READ MORE]