Mat Clancy, president of the Kingston and Area Real Estate Association (KAREA), has been watching friends, family, and clients alike move back to Kingston from places like Toronto for the past couple of years and he doesn’t expect that trend to stop anytime soon.
“I mean, if you can buy a house for half the price or even a third of the cost of a home in Toronto, in a city where it takes you 15 minutes to drive anywhere and you get to have a nice big backyard and still work in the job that you were doing, why wouldn’t you want to do that?” says Mr. Clancy.
Like Kingston, many smaller cities and larger towns, also known as secondary markets, are experiencing a significant housing market boom as people want their home-buying dollars to go further, aren’t tied to a lengthy daily commute and are spending significant amounts of time at home.
According to KAREA, June home sales in Kingston were up 10.1 per cent above the five-year average and almost 19 per cent above the 10-year average. On a year-to-date basis, home sales totalled a record 2,593 units over the first six months of the year, a spike of 51.9 per cent from the same period last year.
“Throughout this pandemic, quality of life has become a bigger priority for people,” says Mr. Clancy. “And in my opinion, a house used to be a place that many people just went home to sleep at night and that was it. But when everyone got locked inside their houses, they started to question, ‘Well maybe I should buy a house somewhere I’m happy to be.’”
Even certain house amenities, which were once considered a liability in a real estate deal, are now seen as a significant bonus.
“Five years ago, when the market was considered a little more normal, a swimming pool could be considered a detriment to a house sometimes,” he explains. “Whereas now if you have a house with a pool [on the market] people go crazy over it.”
Indeed, this search for quality of life, which often translates into more living space both inside and outside the home, has definitely been a catalyst for the real estate market boom in many smaller communities, experts say. With commutes no longer being as much of a worry, the boundaries of where people move can expand to be hours away from an urban centre.
Lethbridge is a two-hour drive from Calgary and is currently the hottest real estate market in Alberta. Much of that comes down to the type of lifestyle recent buyers in this market want to live and the affordability of these properties outside that major urban centre.

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Sourced From: SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL DAINA LAWRENCE – GLOBE AND MAIL