Prepared by Ivaylo Stoyanov · Robbio Nicolle Real Estate Team
Prices vs the Economy
What actually moves home prices?
Home prices don’t move in a vacuum — they respond to interest rates, inflation, jobs and population. Pick any factors below to overlay them against GTA home prices and see the relationship for yourself. All series are indexed to 100 at the start of the window so they’re directly comparable.
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GTA home price is always shown as the anchor. Toggle any economic factors above.
Indexed to 100 at the start of the selected range — each line shows % change over time. Hover for actual values.
How prices relate to each factor — and the lag
These forces don’t hit prices the same month — they work with a delay. A rate hike takes months to shrink budgets; inflation moves prices only after it triggers rate hikes, roughly a year later. So each card shows the relationship at the lag where it actually bites, not the (often misleading) same-month number — with the plain-English chain of why. Score runs −1 (move oppositely) → 0 (no link) → +1 (move together). Some factors (population, wages) are slow structural drivers whose short-window correlation is an artifact — we flag those honestly.
About the selected factors
Each score is measured at the lag where the factor moves prices — not the same month, because these forces work with a delay. The lags reflect the published research: economists find rate and inflation changes take 12–18 months to fully work through housing (Bank of Canada / BIS studies), so we measure at a 12-month lag rather than the (misleading) same-month number. Correlation shows co-movement, not proof of cause; the chain on each card is the mechanism, and factors flagged “structural” or “confounded” are ones where our short data window (2019–now, essentially one cycle) makes the raw number unreliable. For information only.
Price Outlook · HPI Benchmark
Where the numbers point next
The projection tracks the HPI benchmark — the value of a typical, constant-quality home — not the raw average sold price. The benchmark strips out the month-to-month noise from which homes happened to sell, so the forecast is far more accurate (typically within ±1–4%). It's the same measure professional analysts quote.
Solid = actual HPI benchmark value. Dashed = base-case projection (seasonally adjusted — it rises and dips with the calendar). Shaded = the range the model has typically landed within, widening the further out it looks. The chart starts in 2019.
Why the model projects this — from the data, not opinion
This is a statistical projection, not a guarantee or advice. A regularized regression, retrained continuously, forecasts the HPI benchmark (constant-quality home value) for each home type at each horizon, using the signals that scored best in an exhaustive back-test of thousands of variable combinations — chosen for consistency across early, recent and out-of-sample periods, not just the highest score. Every prediction shown is bias-corrected and back-tested against what actually happened. Real markets are still moved by rate decisions, policy shifts and shocks no model can foresee — treat this as one data-driven input, not a decision.
Benchmark Explorer · HPI
Explore benchmark home values
The HPI benchmark is the price of a typical, constant-quality home — the cleanest way to compare values across time, home types and neighbourhoods without the distortion of which homes happened to sell. Drill from the whole GTA down to any municipality and community.
Market Headlines
What’s in the news
Recent coverage of the GTA market, interest rates and housing policy — the human context the numbers can’t capture. Pulled live, and kept separate from the projection above.
