According to Toronto Life, the top 5 neighborhoods in Toronto are as follows:

1.Rosedale-Moore Park

This neighborhood is right before the downtown core, proving its excellent location. Buyers beware as the average home prices starts at $951,300.00. The crime rate is low and this neighborhood definitely values their privacy. This is an ideal place to live for families who want to stay within the city.
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Great article discussing the Canadian housing market. A must read!

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/08/15/canadas-housing-market-the-one-that-no-one-can-predict/

Young professionals who begin to join the workforce and move out of their parents home are actively on the search for places to live. This ultimately leaves two choices for them, rent or purchase their property. The mortgage rules have become more strict since last July, where the maximum allowable amortization and gross debt service ratio was tightened even further on insured mortgages. Roughly 80% of first time home buyers require mortgage insurance, as they have less than the 20% to put down on their property purchase. Because of this, many first time home buyers are forced to put their dream of home ownership on the back burner and continue to rent. Because of more individuals delaying buying homes, we see an increase in rent. This is very prominent in Canada, especially in Canada’s biggest rental market, Toronto (GTA).
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New mortgage rules for fully secured lines of credit mean they are no longer available up to 80%.  (an exception to this are some credit unions)  The new rules employ that if a borrower wants a full Line of credit on their property the amount is limited to 65% of property value.  If a borrower however has a fixed or variable component to the mortgage (All In One product) minimum 15% of total mortgage then a line of credit can also be added up to 80% of property value.
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You could call it “Battling Bubbles”.   Two recently released reports painted vastly different pictures of the Toronto real estate market. Keep in mind that they were looking at two different scenes.
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CMHC announced that it will pull back on its growth of insured mortgage funding over the next 5 years.  With total mortgages insured by CMHC close to 557 billion by the end of the year the government has put pressure on CMHC to start to slow down on amount of mortgages they insure.
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According to Bloomberg`s first ever international bank rating, National Bank made the number 1 spot in North America.  Canada has 5 banks in the top 20.
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The Bank of Canada meet today to discuss the economy and future of interest rates.  As expected the prime/variable interest rate remained unchanged (bank overnight lending rate 1.00% and retail rate still at 3.00%).  A strong loonie and has kept inflation in check which is the driving force behind higher interest rates.  The Bank of Canada gave no indication of increasing rate over the short term.  Next meeting is May 31^st.  This is great news for the mortgage financing markets.  With variable rates as low as 2.25% this is a great time to be purchasing a new property or refinancing an existing mortgage to get a better interest rate.

TD bank announced today that it will be raising fixed term mortgages on Tuesday April 5^th.  Rates are expected to increase by .35% with the 5 year posted rate (used for qualifying 1 to 4 year fixed and variable mortgages) increasing to 5.69%.  So far no other lender has announced a rate increase however a lender never increases rates alone so expect all lenders to follow suit.
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After a busy January and February mortgage financing markets have cooled off.  With Spring now on our door step this should help to get the markets going again.