Loss of LRT lamented, but ‘GO is where it’s at’
Public transit ‘huge part’ of why people choose Hamilton: realtor
A Hamilton realtor says light rail transit would have stimulated residential development, but added it’s an open question if cancelling LRT will dampen the still-hot local real estate market.
The $1-billion-plus LRT project was quashed by the provincial government last month.
“LRT would have been a big benefit, an economic driver for the city, and we would have seen increases in home values as a result of it,” said Joe Ferrante, a real estate broker and Hamilton spokesperson for Royal LePage.
Ferrante said public transit is a “huge part” of why people move to Hamilton from the Greater Toronto Area, and LRT would have enhanced that attraction.
But he said the housing market may still continue to flourish — even in the absence of LRT — if GO train service is enhanced downtown. “With LRT or without, we need to increase the frequency of those trains — GO is where it’s at. People locate downtown if they have the ability to get in and out of the city to where they work.”
He added that most new condominium developments downtown in 2020 will continue without the promised LRT, because units have already been sold, and said “it’s too soon to tell” the impact on future residential sales, generally.
“We’ll see where the city goes from here. I wish there was a Plan B. Will there be rapid bus transit? A return to LRT?”
A news release from Royal LePage said the fourth quarter of 2019 — October to December — saw continued increases in home prices in the Hamilton area, when compared to the same time frame in 2018.
The median price for two-storey homes increased 1.3 per cent, to $601,570, but the most dramatic increase was the median price of condominiums, that rose nearly eight per cent, to $382,910.
The comparable national figure for condominiums was 3.3 per cent. Similarly, prices for bungalows jumped six per cent in Hamilton, much higher than the national figure of 0.7 per cent.
The increase in bungalow and condo values likely reflects the growth in baby boomers in Hamilton looking to downsize, Ferrante said.