RE/MAX Imperial Realty Inc., Brokerage
Toronto
Ontario's capital and Canada's largest city, with 158 neighbourhoods living very different lives — in Toronto, you house-hunt by neighbourhood, not by city.
Toronto sits on the north shore of Lake Ontario. It is Canada's most populous city and the capital of Ontario, home to 2,794,356 people in the 2021 census. The city covers 631 square kilometres, and City Hall divides it into 158 neighbourhoods for planning and statistics. It is also the core of the Greater Toronto Area, the city that commuting and business in the surrounding municipalities revolve around. Downtown is condo towers and offices; the old city keeps whole streets of older homes; and Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough spread out as broad low-rise districts. A one-bedroom condo downtown and a detached house in an outer neighbourhood are both "Toronto," but the price and the daily pace have little in common.
Overview
Today's Toronto was created by amalgamation in 1998, when the old City of Toronto merged with Etobicoke, York, East York, North York and Scarborough. That is why the old city has century-old streets and Victorian houses, while a short drive away the postwar suburbs begin, with wider streets and larger lots. The entire south edge is Lake Ontario shoreline — beaches and waterfront trails running its length — and the city ferry crosses to the Toronto Islands, mostly parkland with a small residential community, where Torontonians escape the summer heat.
Green space is part of the city's structure: more than 1,500 parks and about 8,000 hectares of parkland, with the ravines of the Don and Humber rivers running from the north end down to the lake and whole neighbourhoods built around them. Downtown holds the financial district, head offices and major cultural venues, and the 553-metre CN Tower stands on the waterfront as the landmark everyone navigates by. Population grew only 2.3% between the 2016 and 2021 censuses (Chart C2) — the city is largely built out, so growth now comes mostly from renewal within it — while the total remains the largest in Canada.
Neighbourhoods
Downtown Core
The city's core — the Financial District, Union Station and the CN Tower — with the densest cluster of towers
Condos
The Annex
Next to the University of Toronto's main campus, with well-kept Victorian streets and Bloor Street's bookshops, restaurants and cinema
Detached, semis, condos
Leslieville
A former industrial area in the east end turned residential; Queen Street East is its main street, lined with small shops, cafés and restaurants
Semis, townhomes, condos
The Beaches
A lakeside neighbourhood by Woodbine Beach and the boardwalk; the Queen streetcar runs straight downtown
Detached, semis
Willowdale
An established North York community along Yonge Street, served by three Line 1 subway stations — condo towers on Yonge itself, low-rise streets on either side
Detached, condos
Agincourt
A long-standing Scarborough community with its own GO station on the Stouffville line; shops and restaurants line Kennedy Road
Detached, semis, townhomes
Schools & transit
Schools.Publicly funded schools are divided among four boards by language and faith. The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) runs the English public system — the largest school board in Canada, with 579 schools and about 235,000 students. The Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) runs the English Catholic schools, and two French boards, Conseil scolaire Viamonde (public) and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir (Catholic), run the French-language schools. The University of Toronto's main campus and Toronto Metropolitan University are both downtown, York University sits in North York, and public colleges include George Brown, Seneca and others across the city. Each board sets its own school catchments and adjusts them from time to time, so check a specific address with the board before you buy.
Getting around.The TTC is the backbone inside the city: subway Lines 1, 2 and 4, with streetcars and buses feeding the neighbourhoods. Line 5 Eglinton, the Crosstown light rail line, opened in February 2026 and crosses midtown along Eglinton Avenue with 25 stations, giving east–west trips a new route. For regional travel, all seven GO Transit train lines converge on Union Station downtown, where you can also connect to VIA Rail intercity trains; the UP Express runs from Union Station to Pearson Airport in about 25 minutes, every 15 minutes. Drivers use Highways 401, 400 and the QEW plus the city's Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway — but peak-hour congestion is routine, so commute time is worth factoring into any home search.
Market data
September 2026 · updated monthly with the market report
The four types total 1,924 of the city's 1,937 sales; the other 13 were other home types. Townhouse is TRREB's combined category for Toronto (freehold and condo townhouses published together).
The month in one line: A balanced market, leaning slightly toward buyers. Sales and new listings both eased, prices sit below last year, and buyers have more to choose from than a year ago.
For the full monthly picture — sales-to-new-listings ratio, benchmark prices and the breakdown by home type — see the Toronto section of the market report. See the market report