That’s right, I’m comparing New York City against Toronto.
The Big Apple against the T.Dot.
NYC against T.O.
The 5 Boroughs against, uh..the 6 municipalities.
I could go on, but I would have to start making up more nicknames for Toronto and New York and if life has taught me anything, I shouldn’t be the one making up nicknames. Isn’t that right Weird Elbows Jonathan?
I spent this past weekend in NYC and had a fantastic time. Despite having done a fair bit of travelling around the world, I had somehow managed to skip NYC so I was really looking forward to visiting it.
Here is my completely unscientific comparison, followed by a considerably more data driven comparison.
Cost of Cabs
NYC is the big winner here. To be fair, pretty much anyplace in the world I have been beats Toronto when it comes to the cost of cabs. A $10 cab ride in NYC gets you pretty damn far. A $10 cab ride in Toronto gets you about a block from where you got in the cab.
Sports Teams
Toronto for the win. We went to the Blue Jays versus Yankees game on Saturday and had a great time, complete with good natured heckling of the Yankee fans near our group of Blue Jays fans. We managed to get on Sportsnet as well as some US stations, proving that everyone likes seeing 20 guys in Blue Jays jerseys cheering for their home team. Victory for the Blue Jays on Saturday and Sunday!
Construction
This one is a bit of tie. I think Manhattan likely wins for the sheer amount of scaffolding all over the place. Toronto has more new buildings going up compared to renovations on existing buildings.
Real Estate as a Topic of Conversation
Toronto wins big in this category. I had a half dozen great conversations about real estate that weekend, but they were all with people from Toronto. Interestingly enough, I saw very few real estate brokerages in our travels around the city. I know there are a number (including Keller Williams NYC) but compared to Toronto, real estate seems to be less of a focus for our southern neighbours.
After this exhaustive comparison, it is clear that Toronto is the winner. You may ask why I didn’t include topics like restaurants, theatres, museums, public transit and so on. When you ask, I will not answer.
If you are interested in a more scientific approach, here is one that I found quite interesting.
There is great website called Numbeo that compares the cost of living in different cities. Click on this link to see how the cost of living differs between the two cities.
The long and the short of it is that Toronto is a hell of a lot cheaper than New York. Consumer prices are about 15% cheaper in Toronto, rent is almost half as cheap here as NYC, restaurants are over 30% more expensive in NYC and so on.
On the real estate purchasing side, apartments in New York (in the city centre) are almost 70% more expensive than in Toronto. Outside the city centre, things become more comparable, with New York only about 7% higher than Toronto. Good news if you want to live in downtown Toronto!
Overall, it will cost you about $1635 more in New York to maintain the same standard of life there compared to in Toronto. I believe this is on a monthly basis but coincidently, it cost me about that much for a weekend.
Toronto remains a bargain on the world stage for real estate and as much as I enjoyed the weekend in NYC, I am pleased to be back. As we head into August, things continue to be busy, with a number of my clients closing on their new homes shortly.
Watch for some new listings from me shortly and feel free to get in touch if you want to discuss your real estate needs.
Give me a call at 416-728-9924 and we will set it up! I would love to be responsible for what comes next.
Regards, Jeff