These neighbourhoods are not feeling the effects of Toronto's overall housing price downturn

It was widely reported earlier this summer that, as far as Toronto's housing prices were concerned, winter had finally come. Whether it was a true reflection of systemic change brought on by the Ontario Liberals' recent housing reforms, or just the result of knee-jerk reactions to them, the city's long-overheated market had finally started to cool.

Except where it hadn't.

Across the parameters of the 416 area code, 40 per cent of the 65 housing districts have actually gone up in pricing for detached homes over the last quarter, according to data from Re/Max Integra.

Those gains range, in terms of their level of consequence, from being modest and marginal to quite impact. The largest of them occured in the C02 district, which covers the territory north of Bloor up until midtown Toronto and west of Yonge up until Dufferin (including Yorkville, the Annex, and Bloorcourt). It rose by 27.95 per cent, though Re/Max maintains that much of that was skewed by a number of higher-end sales.

Other areas that saw significant gains were the townships of Brock, Caledon, and Halton Hills, which rose 22.7, 8.6, and 7.8 per cent in gains, respectively. After C02, the highest jump in the Toronto core was E01, an east end district that houses the Riverdale and Greenwood-Coxwell neighbourhoods. It rose by 7.59 per cent.

Examined under the context of how the market has unfolded over the past year-plus stretch, it's very notable that certain regions have still been able to experience the growth that they have.

"Homebuying activity in the GTA has been a tale of two markets—a tight, record-breaking first quarter and a softer second quarter, characterized by easing sales and overall average price—a result of the introduction of the provincial government's Fair Housing Plan," says Christopher Alexander, Regional Director, Re/Max Integra, Ontario-Atlantic Region. "The first quarter of 2017 shattered all existing TREB records for Q1 dating back to 2007, with over 25,000 residential unit sales reported, an increase of 12 per cent over Q1 of the previous year, and average price appreciation of 29 per cent during the same time period. Given current conditions, it's really quite remarkable that, against the unprecedented strength of the first quarter, we still saw 40 per cent of GTA neighbourhoods outperform Q1 price appreciation."