Three northern Ont. cities among top 10 best places to buy a home in Canada

Northern Ontario made headlines during the height of the pandemic for attracting people from expensive and crowded southern cities with the region's lower housing prices and cost of living.

Northern Ontario made headlines during the height of the pandemic for attracting people from expensive and crowded southern cities with the region's lower housing prices and cost of living.

Now, a new national ranking from online finance magazine MoneySense placed Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay among the top three places to buy a home in Canada.

The website weighed the prices and overall growth of 45 regional markets across the country

"In a lot of real estate markets, the prices were going down or they didn't grow, necessarily, as much as the year before,” said senior editor Justin Dallaire.

“But places like Sault Ste Marie and North Bay, in particular, sort of resisted those trends to a certain degree."

Dallaire said those two cities ended the year with higher prices, which had close to doubled in the last five years to the $300,000 to $400,000 range.

Sudbury placed ninth on the list.