Brampton cracks Top 5 list of most-searched cities for GTA real estate in 2023

Many prospective home buyers turned their attention to Brampton properties last year, helping make the city one of the most-searched areas for real estate in the GTA.

The numbers come from the year-end wrap up from real estate website Zoocasa and it may come as no surprise that Toronto took top spot for the city with the most real estate searches in Ontario.

But with the average Toronto listing peaking at $1,171,300 last year, Zoocasa says homebuyers expanded their searches to other parts of the GTA including into Brampton.

Of all the GTA municipalities, Brampton narrowly cracked Zoocasa’s list of most-searched for cities in the GTA at No. 5. Narrowing in even further to Peel Region as a whole, Downtown Brampton particularly stood out as one of the best places to buy real estate in Peel Region last year.

Other popular GTA home searches that rounded out the top five included Mississauga, Hamilton, Oakville and Oshawa at numbers one through four respectively.

As for who was searching, Zoocasa says many came from higher-priced cities with larger populations “potentially driven to look outside of their current cities because of rising mortgage costs.”

Canada’s housing market had significant ups and downs in 2023, with Zoocasa calling it a “rollercoaster” year between interest rate hikes, rising mortgage rates and inventory challenges for most of the country.

With home prices rising Zoocasa says condos were in demand most of the year, attracting buyers with their more affordable prices. But with the population growing at a record pace even the condo market saw prices climb out of reach for some buyers.

And the number of buyers slowing down also allowed supply levels to rebound in some key markets, like the GTA.

Zoocasa says a build-up in housing supply “is desperately needed” to meet market demands, pointing to pre-construction housing projects that were scaled back or cancelled in 2023 due to high borrowing costs.

For more on listings available in Brampton visit www.zoocasa.com.