For all of the talk about Toronto's ever-increasing housing prices, data is showing that the city's real estate market growth is being far overshadowed by much smaller cities and towns.

In fact, one metric even shows Toronto as the slowest-growing housing market in all of Ontario, a surprising statistic considering the big city's runaway price appreciation making constant headlines.

According to the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), Toronto ranked the lowest in five-year per cent growth in the benchmark price for major real estate markets province-wide, with some cities' markets growing as much as three times faster.

But that doesn't mean Toronto prices aren't climbing at an unsustainable rate, with this lowest-in-Ontario ranking attributed to an almost 68 per cent increase in local home values in just the last five years.

In contrast, Bancroft saw an increase of over 165 per cent in that same time period.

Toronto prices have risen over 28 per cent since November 2020, the city's benchmark price rising to a staggering $1,188,700 in the second-last month of 2021.

That's no small jump, and it's hard to believe, but an almost one-third jump in the 416 market ranked second-lowest of any in Ontario.

Of course, that doesn't mean that these smaller cities are facing the same affordability crisis as Toronto. The municipality with the fastest rate of growth was Bancroft, where a house will run you an average of $471K, considerably less than the almost $1.2 million a typical Toronto home costs.

Still, there are concerns that the rates of increase (London saw over 159 per cent growth and Tillsonburg climbed over 156 per cent) are outpacing income growth in these cities, with home prices more than doubling as the Ontario real estate market heats up beyond the biggest cities.