People in modern-day Toronto love to talk about how ridiculously quickly home prices are rising and the consequences that could await new investors once this hot-as-fire market cools down (pop!)... if it ever does cool down.

Observers were aghast when the average price of a home here reached more than one million dollars, shook when the suburbs followed suit, and continue to freak out with each passing year and every new record broken.

And yet, despite any amount of chatter about how "houses are overvalued," "prices can only go down from here," or the looming bubble burst, real estate appears to remain a solid investment on paper.

The meteoric rise of home prices isn't levelling off, let alone slowing down, leaving some of us to wonder what might have happened had we ignored the anti-hype and purchased even a humble condo ten years ago.

I regret to inform those in such a situation (hi!) that they'd be rolling in cash right now if they'd bought a property — any type of property — back in 2011, and would like to wholeheartedly congratulate those who did.

Real estate agent Graham Rowlands has been publishing a popular chart outlining 10-year price growth trends in Toronto for the past couple of years. This is his version for 2022. Image via homing.ca.

Local realtor Graham Rowlands of homing.ca published a chart this week breaking down how much home prices have increased over the past decade in the Greater Toronto Area and, well... it'll make you want to invest whatever cash you have now into a time machine startup.

"If you bought any property 10 years ago in the GTA you are doing pretty good if you still own it. Best of all you also had somewhere to live while your home increased in value," wrote Rowlands when sharing the 2021 version of his "Toronto Real Estate 10 Year Challenge."

"I still strongly believe that real estate is the best investment you can make into your future."

Using year-end average numbers from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board, Rowlands shows that detached houses have gone from an average of $547,351 heading into 2011 to a staggering $1,598,735 at the start of 2022.

That's a value increase of $1,0513,84 in just ten years — a solid return, to say the least. 

It's a lot more difficult now to purchase a home than it was in 2011, especially for younger first-time buyers, but recent history is encouraging from the standpoint of investors... albeit heartbreaking for everyone else.