Whitby, Pickering with Durham’s highest land transfer taxes
Published May 10, 2023 at 2:53 pm
One of the big costs, and one that is often overlooked, is land transfer taxes and they can add thousands to the price of a new home.
Land transfer tax (LTT) is charged by the province (and at a further municipal level in the City of Toronto) and is determined based on the total purchase price of the home. It’s a cost home buyers need to budget for and it’s also a cost that varies from town to town, though there are rebates for first-time home buyers in Ontario of up to $4,000.
To find out how much buyers would have to pay in LTT, Toronto-based real estate brokerage Zoocasa analyzed 35 different markets across Ontario to see where prospective buyers will pay the most and least, and how much more expensive it would be for repeat buyers to purchase a new home without the help of a rebate.
First-time buyers looking to purchase a home will face higher land transfer tax in markets with more expensive home prices. Buyers in Toronto could pay $29,289 in LTT for a home at the current average price of $1,120,362. On the other end of the spectrum, first-time buyers in Sault Ste. Marie of Thunder Bay would not have to pay any LTT due to the first-time home buyer rebate of $4,000, as the LTT for a home at the respective average prices is less than the rebate. The lowest LTT is in Sudbury, where a home at the average price of $423,400 would pay $963 in land transfer taxes.
Repeat buyers are not entitled to a rebate, adding $4,000 to their LTT bill whenever they buy a home. This affects Toronto buyers the hardest, as the municipal tax added means the tax balloons to a cost of $37,764 on a home at the average price. Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay’s bills for repeat buyers will be around $2,587 and $3,146 respectively.
Barrie is the least expensive city by home price for repeat buyers to have an LTT of over $10,000, with an average home costing $725,965 and the extras adding up to just under $11,000. Oshawa, ranked 18th on the list, comes in just under Barrie’s numbers at $9,149 in LTT for first-time buyers and $13,149 for repeat buyers. The average home price in Oshawa is $833,714.
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Whitby (average home price: $1067,813) was 13th on the list with land transfer taxes of $13,831 (first-time buyers) and $18,831 (repeat buyers). Pickering was 14th ($1,056,284) with LTTs of $13,601 and $17,601 and Ajax ($1,002,020) came in at 18 at $12,515/$16,515.
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