A shift in housing preferences.
The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation says there has been a shift in preferences across Ontario over the last few decades.
These changes are driven be a number of factors, such as affordability, lifestyle trends, and urbanization.
According to MPAC, condos have surpassed single-detached homes, representing 41 per cent of new builds - indicating a growing demand for higher-density living.
The average size of a single-detached home has also expanded by over 1,000 square-feet in the last 50 years, from 1,317 square-feet in the 1970's to 2,383 square-feet today. Despite that, condo sizes have shrunk by 32 per cent from 965 square-feet in the 1970's to just 658 square-feet today.
Greg Martino, Vice President and Chief Valuation and Standards Officer at MPAC, says consumer preferences have changed due to a number of factors.
"The demand, and certainly demand and availability of land for development, certainly in more denser, urban areas where land availability is somewhat limited we are seeing the development of condominiums as a housing type."
He says moving to condo builds has helped with the housing crisis.
"As a province we will require approximately 1.5-million homes to be built over the next 10 years to address the housing affordability and supply issue. Certainly the development of some of the condominiums, single-family homes, single-family detached, semi-detached, are assisting towards us as a province achieving some of those goals."
Martino says LaSalle has seen the median size of their homes grow.
"Their single-family homes go from approximately 2,600 square-feet in the 2010 to 2019 timeframe, to a little under 3,200 square-feet now. You only have about 330 single-family homes that were built over the last four or five years, whereas in the previous decade that was probably around 1,200 to 1,300 homes being built."
He adds that the MPAC assessment will not be done in 2025.
Martino says assessments will continue to be based on the 2016 valuation as the province conducts a property assessment and taxation review.
-with files from AM800's The Shift