Toronto Affordability started with a simple, frustrating question: who can actually afford to buy a home here? The headlines quote average prices, and the banks quote mortgage rates, but almost nobody connects the two to real incomes — and certainly not by age. This site exists to close that gap.
What this site is
Toronto Affordability is a free, independent web tool that compares the income distribution of Greater Toronto Area residents against what it actually takes to qualify for a mortgage on a local home. You can enter your income and instantly see where you land in your age group, run the federal mortgage stress test, compare condos against detached homes, and explore prices across fourteen GTA regions — from the City of Toronto out to Oshawa, Brampton, and Oakville.
Everything is built on published, citable data: Statistics Canada T1FF income tabulations, CMHC housing figures, and the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board's market data. Where we make modelling assumptions — such as the simplified qualifying-income benchmark or the property-tax estimate — we document them openly on the methodology page rather than hiding them inside a black-box calculator.
Why it exists
The motivating insight is uncomfortable. When you put the numbers side by side, an average Toronto condo requires a qualifying income of roughly $147,000, and an average detached home requires around $254,000 — at a time when the typical Toronto household earns about $100,500. For a single person in their late twenties or early thirties, those thresholds sit near the very top of their age group's income distribution. Affordability isn't just "hard"; for many people it is mathematically out of reach on one income, and the data should say so plainly.
Most affordability tools online are built by lenders or brokerages whose goal is to move you toward a pre-approval. This one isn't. It has no product to sell you, no lead form, and no affiliate relationship with any bank or agent. The aim is simply to show the real distance between incomes and prices, so you can make decisions with clear eyes.
Who builds it
Toronto Affordability is built and maintained by Eric Liu, an independent developer based in the Greater Toronto Area with an interest in housing data and personal finance. The project is a solo, self-funded effort; the site is supported by advertising so that it can stay free to use. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Statistics Canada, CMHC, TRREB, any lender, or any real-estate brokerage.
I've spent my whole life in this city. I grew up in Toronto's East End before moving to the West End, living in neighbourhoods like the Danforth, Little Italy, and uptown along the way. That history has given me a firsthand view of how the cost of living here has climbed well past what ordinary people can reasonably afford, which is exactly the gap this site tries to measure. I love Toronto: I'm a diehard Raptors fan, a regular at the West End's video-game arcades, and I rarely pass up live music, whether it's at Rogers Stadium, the Budweiser Stage, or anywhere in between.
Our editorial approach
- Show the math. Every threshold on the site can be traced back to a stated formula and a cited data source.
- Stay neutral. We don't recommend lenders, products, or whether you should buy. We present the numbers and let you draw conclusions.
- Be honest about limits. A simplified model can't capture your full financial picture. We say so, and we point you to licensed professionals for real decisions.
Have a correction, a data source we should consider, or a feature request? We'd genuinely like to hear it — reach us on the contact page.