Have You Limited Your Home Search Too Narrowly?

Many people start their home search by looking in neighbourhoods they know or have heard are great. But unfortunately, everyone else has also heard of these, and you might be priced out. Looking in the areas around your top choice can be a good strategy, but there's no guarantee a neighbourhood is actually similar just because it's nearby.

There are so many neighbourhoods out there, and Toronto especially is known for having distinct pockets. By limiting your search to the areas surrounding a neighbourhood you like, you might be missing out on a great fit located in an area you just haven't considered yet.

The HoodQMatch™ Quiz
In the HoodQMatch™ quiz, you can enter your preferences for schools, parks, and homes without needing to narrow your search by area first, or even city. Your matches will likely include neighbourhoods you never knew could be a good fit - or never knew about at all.

HoodQMatch™ is particularly helpful when you want to be a reasonable commute distance from multiple places - like your work, your spouse's work, or any other address you want. Just provide the address, transportation method (car, transit, bike, or walk), and preferred maximum travel time for every place that's important to you, and HoodQMatch™ will recommend neighbourhoods that are located within those travel times to all the places. No more guessing which neighbourhoods give you both a decent commute! If need be, your results will also tell you if the travel time is significantly shorter than your max, or if few neighbourhoods match then it may recommend some a bit farther than your max for one or more places.

If you work from home or otherwise don't have a commute, HoodQMatch™ can be a really flexible tool to recommend neighbourhoods from across multiple cities. Just enter any address and choose a long commute time (e.g. 1 hour by car from the Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto) if you want to keep your search open within a certain radius.

CityLife Map
You can use the filters in HoodQ CityLife Resource Centre maps to narrow down your search as well. There are actually several other different filters there compared to HoodQMatch™. Choose your city and try them out. Here, you can specify things like if you want a neighbourhood that's composed of mostly detached homes, popular with young families, with many parks and playground options.

You can also click on any neighbourhood in the city and go to its Neighbourhood Guide, if you're curious about the different neighbourhoods in a particular area of the city.

Neighbourhood Guides
Every neighbourhood has a detailed Neighbourhood Guide, which talks about the people in the neighbourhood, the schools (with links to school profiles), the parks and recreation facilities in the neighbourhood, transit options and commutes for residents, work and education of residents, and homes in the neighbourhood. All the guides have the same sections, so it's easy to compare them if you're considering different neighbourhoods.

Listings within Neighbourhoods
You can get to listings within neighbourhoods from several places within the Hub. In your HoodQMatch™ recommendations, current listings matching your specific criteria are included. From each Neighbourhood Guide, you can also go to all listings in that neighbourhood.