Where to Buy Real Estate in Canada 2024

The Canadian real estate market started to recover in 2023 after a tumultuous 2022, during which home prices hit record highs before gradually declining due to seven consecutive interest rate hikes by the Bank of Canada (BoC). By spring 2023, home prices began to bounce back from the previous year’s downturn, and by fall, the number of new listings matched the number of sales, resulting in a more balanced real estate market.

For our 2024 edition of Where to Buy Real Estate in Canada, MoneySense teamed up with Zoocasa, an award-winning consumer real estate search platform, to identify the best places to buy property in Canada, highlighting the top neighborhoods in the country’s most sought-after real estate markets.

In the list below, you’ll find the top places to buy real estate in Canada, based on Zoocasa’s analysis of data from 45 different regions.

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Greater Moncton, N.B.

As the hub of the Maritime provinces and the third-largest metropolitan area in Atlantic Canada, Greater Moncton continues to be a desirable place to buy a home in 2024. Low home prices and steady economic growth have helped it top our ranking for the third consecutive year. Greater Moncton boasts the highest value score on our list, at 4.68, and has proven itself to be the standout for affordable real estate in Canada.

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Saint John, N.B.

New Brunswick’s most famous seaport city climbed our ranking from fifth place last year to the second spot in 2024. As the only city on the Bay of Fundy, Saint John offers a vibrant blend of natural beauty and urban life. With a value score of 4.36, the city has one of the most affordable benchmark home prices on our list, and it offers home buyers a good chance to build equity quickly.

Saint John finished 2023 with a benchmark price of $286,592—more than $445,000 below the national average and $1 million below Ontario’s Oakville-Milton, the most expensive region of those we analyzed. Despite being one of just three markets with a benchmark price below $300,000, Saint John has experienced steady price appreciation. The 2023 benchmark price was 3% higher than in 2022, 48% higher than in 2020, and an impressive 60% higher than in 2018.

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Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

For the second year in a row, northern Ontario’s third-largest city ranked in our top three best places to buy real estate in Canada. Located on St. Mary’s River and facing the Michigan border, Sault Ste. Marie offers home buyers some of the most affordable home prices in Ontario and boasts a value score of 4.31.

At more than $450,000 below the national average, Sault Ste. Marie’s 2023 benchmark home price was the lowest among the top three best places to buy real estate in Canada. The benchmark price of $283,192 was unchanged from 2022—however, it was 58% higher than in 2020 and 78% higher than in 2018.

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