Top Real Estate Agents in Toronto.
WOWA.ca rates agents based on their transactions, experience, and customer reviews to find you the top real estate agents in Toronto.
- The average Toronto real estate agent sells 1.96 homes each year.
- The top 1% of agents sell more than 30 homes each year.
Homes Sold per Year
By Percentage of Real Estate Agents
Toronto's Top Agents
Quote by Mark A.,Innovation, Creativity, Originality are just some of the tools it takes to help you buy or...
Quote by Luci R.,We work tirelessly and expertly, to help you find YOUR best fit whether Buying or Selling....
Quote by Kristan E.,A Real Estate Broker with more than 30 years of experience, with a dedicated team ensuring...
Quote by Cintia D.,With over 15 years of experience in the Real Estate industry, I have dealt with over $500 ...
Quote by Ray A.,With two decades of experience in real estate, helping hundreds of satisfied buyers and se...
Toronto Real Estate Tools
Top Selling Real Estate Agents in Toronto
| Agent Ranking | Annual Deals | Estimated Net Income |
|---|---|---|
| Top 10% | Above 10 | $162,487 |
| Top 5% | Above 15 | $243,730 |
| Top 1% | Above 30 | $389,968 |
| Top 0.1% | Above 60 | $779,936 |
To be in the top producing 10% of Toronto agents, you must manage more than ten transactions in one year. If a Toronto agent manages ten transactions in one year, they will likely take home $162,487 after brokerage and marketing expenses.
The top 5% of agents in Toronto oversee more than 15 home sales each year. At this level, the agent may still be handling the transactions themself but will have a team working with them. An agent managing 15 transactions in Toronto can expect to take home $243,730.
The top 1% of agents oversee more than 30 home sales each year. This is a lot for one agent to handle so they’ll likely be building out a brokerage with other agents and an administrative team. Although another agent of the brokerage may be the client representative, the sale is still listed under the main agent. As a result, it’s likely the top 1% of agents take home $389,968 each year.
The top 0.1% of agents in Toronto sell more than 60 homes each year. It’s likely this agent manages a successful brokerage and has a fully developed team working for them. These agents can expect to earn $779,936 after expenses each year. The names of these agents can’t be mentioned for legal reasons.
Due to difficulties sourcing reliable data, the preceding information is taken from 2017 TREB statistics. Take home income is estimated by multiplying transactions with the April 2022 average Toronto home price and a net commission estimate of 1.25%. Agents with more than 30 sales per year will need a team behind them. As a result, their net commission estimate is 1%.
Toronto Commission Structure
Real estate commissions are the fees that home sellers pay to the seller and buyer real estate agents for their services. In Toronto, the total commission rate is set anywhere from 3.5% to 5%. Seller agents usually get 1% to 2.5% of the total commission with the buyer agents getting 2.5%.
You can use our calculator provided below to calculate your real estate commission estimate for Toronto. For other cities in Ontario, please visit our Ontario real estate commission calculator page for more information.
How Much Will a Toronto Real Estate Agent Cost Me?
If you are buying a home in Ontario you usually don't need to pay a commission out of pocket to their agent. Although in some cases a seller will refuse to pay for the buyer's agent's commission. Consequently, Toronto home sellers usually need to pay commission to both the buyer’s and seller’s agent. The cost depends on the commission rate and price your home was sold for.
For example, if you sold your home for $800,000 with a 5% commission rate, the total cost would be $40,000. However, sales tax (HST) is charged on real estate commissions in Toronto. This brings the total cost up to $45,200. Instead of receiving $800,000, the seller would receive $754,800.
While the buyer will not need to pay anything out of pocket, it can be seen that the commission is baked into the home purchase price. Additionally, the buyer will need to pay for closing costs.
WOWA Tip: Is it worth using a Toronto real estate agent?
Real estate agents are compensated for their value to transactions. For sellers, they help with pricing your home, marketing, and negotiation. For buyers, they help with negotiation and administrative work. An experienced real estate agent will provide you with peace of mind, especially if you're not knowledgeable about the process.
Avoiding a real estate agent may not even save you money. A buyer without an agent may not be able to negotiate a 2.5% discount. Additionally, selling your home without an agent comes with additional costs such as spending more on a real estate lawyer.
Profile of Toronto Home Buyers
- 19% of home buyers are likely to purchase a home in the next 12 months.
- 21% of respondents are looking to buy a larger home.
- 20% are motivated to buy because they want to own a home and build equity.
- 12% are looking to buy because of the low-interest rates.
Criteria of Top Real Estate Agents in Toronto
When trying to find a real estate agent in Toronto, the main things to consider are an agent’s experience, reviews, and compatibility. There are over 62,000 real estate agents in Toronto, so finding the right agent for you can involve some research and some effort. Luckily, WOWA makes it easy to find the best Toronto real estate agents for you by sorting and filtering real estate agents based on these important criteria.
How much do Toronto agents make?
The median income of a real estate agent in Ontario is $45,586. However, Toronto real estate agents have a median income of $44,360. That's lower than what agents make in Hamilton and Ottawa.
Agents must split their commissions with their real estate brokerages. Additionally, the commission usually covers costs of services, such as professional photography or perhaps staging. An agent only gets paid when a home sells too, so they may lose money on some homes.
Experience
Having an experienced real estate agent can help you navigate Toronto’s highly-competitive real estate market. Experience boils down to an agent’s years of experience, knowledge of your local market, and experience with working with your property type.
An agent’s experience can be measured through the number of years that they have been actively working as a real estate agent. For example, if you are looking for a seasoned professional, you might decide to stay clear of agents with less than five years of experience.
Local knowledge of the area is also related to experience. Even if they live in the area and know the area well from a living point-of-view, they might not necessarily know the area well from a real estate perspective. How well do they know the area when looking at buying or selling houses?
An easy way to measure this is to see how many transactions that they have completed in a certain neighbourhood or area. This can be further narrowed down by seeing how many recent transactions in the past 12 months that they have completed. Housing markets can change, so having fresh experience from recent transactions can be more useful than transactions conducted years ago. You can also research a selling agent’s average days on market to see how quickly they sell.
Working with an agent that is familiar with your property type might also be a better idea than working with someone who isn’t. For example, if you are looking to buy a condo downtown, it might be better to work with an agent that has experience with condos rather than an agent that exclusively deals with detached homes.
Having an agent that is aligned with your property type can make them more familiar with the quirks that come with buying and selling that type of property. For example, a condo buyer might need to be informed about the condo board’s financials, which is something that a detached home owner wouldn’t need to worry about.
When judging a Toronto real estate agent based on experience, you will be looking at how much experience they have, where their experience is, and how relevant their experience will be.
Reviews
You can rank local Toronto real estate agents on WOWA by their number of reviews and by the average rating of reviews. Reviews are how you will be judging agents based on their past performance and client’s experiences. If an agent has plenty of experience but clients are giving an agent mainly negative reviews, it might suggest that the agent isn’t so great after all.
One way to get unbiased reviews is to directly ask past clients of an agent, such as by asking the agent’s most recent clients. This makes it so that the agent can’t just pick and choose clients that are more likely to give glowing reviews.
You should also look at reviews from a variety of sources and not just look at one source. Real estate agent reviews in the Toronto area can include Google Reviews, Yelp, and on platforms like WOWA. This way, you will be more likely to see the fuller picture.
Something to look out for is the type of clients that are giving reviews. If you’re looking to sell your home, then reviews from previous sellers can be more relevant than looking at reviews from home buyers.
Compatibility
A big part of the real estate experience is your relationship with your real estate agent. Compatibility and chemistry are things to look for, along with trust and honesty. This can lead into how you will communicate with your agent. Do you prefer to meet in person? Or maybe you would like to email or to text? The time of day that the agent communicates with you can also be important.
If you’re a night owl, you might appreciate having an agent that also has late working hours. Having a compatible line of communication is important, as any mismatch can mean timings can be off and delays can leave money on the table. A part of this can involve interviewing multiple real estate agents before choosing the best one that matches your needs.
Do you need a real estate license in Toronto?
Yes, real estate agents in Toronto are licensed provincially by the Real Estate Council of Ontario. Toronto real estate agents will be licensed as a registered salesperson. In order to become a real estate agent in Toronto, the Real Estate Salesperson Program at Humber College will need to be completed. The program costs $4,160.
Working with a licensed Toronto real estate agent is important since their license signifies that they have at least the basic education and knowledge to complete your real estate transaction. Being licensed also protects you with consumer deposit insurance provided by the Real Estate Council of Ontario.
Toronto Real Estate News
- The average home sold price in the Toronto area decreased 4% year-over-year to $1,086,762 for September 2022.
- A significant slump in sales and the first negative year-over-year price change since the start of the pandemic highlights the continued slowdown in Toronto’s housing market.
About Toronto Real Estate
Ontario is home to the largest number of real estate agents in Canada: the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) alone represents over 62,000 agents, or more than 45% of the total agents in Canada represented by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).
Toronto has been experiencing explosive growth in recent years in both its population and housing market. This population growth is not evenly distributed throughout the city of Toronto, however, with a significant portion concentrated south of Bloor in the downtown area, especially in the Waterfront communities, as well as the neighbourhoods west of the Downtown.
Total transactions for the 2021 calendar year amounted to 121,712 as reported through TRREB's 2021 year in review. At the same time, the number of total new listings still reached 166,593 implying an annual sales to new listings ratio of 73%. Within the city of Toronto, condo sales amounted for the largest amount of transactions. In the surrounding GTA regions, low-rises were the best selling.
In 2021, the average selling price of a home in Toronto was $1,095,475. Based on the latest Toronto housing report, the average selling price for residential properties hovers well into $1 million; more specifically: $1,697,396 for detached properties, $1,317,048 for semi-detached properties, $1,212,542 for townhouses, and $808,566 for condominiums or apartments for April 2022. For commercial properties, around 2,225 transactions happened within the first three quarters of 2021. This is a 52% increase from the first three quarters of 2020.
Regarding real estate commissions in Toronto, the average combined real estate agent commission is between 3.5% to 5% of the total selling price. Real estate commissions are split between the buyer’s and seller’s agents. Higher commissions are possible, but the standard rate is 5%.
Within the GTA, a recent survey conducted by TRREB revealed that 30% of Toronto residents indicated that they were likely to purchase a home over the next year and 49% of recent home buyers were first-time home buyers.
The second most popular home type was the condominium or apartment, which made up 27% of all residential property sales in 2019. Toronto has 2,326 high-rise buildings - a large number that reflects factors including population density and public transportation. In 2019, the condominium apartment market segment experienced the most dramatic year-over-year price growth with a 6.4% price increase from 2018, but prices are still more affordable compared to other property types especially for first-time home buyers.
With the plethora of choices on the market and the number of agents available, we understand that buying or selling a property can be overwhelming. Choosing the right agent is one of the most important decisions you will make, and that is why we are here to help. We have accumulated some of the best agents in Toronto and developed honest and transparent profiles to make your decision-making easy and convenient—contact any of them straight through the website and secure your own real estate journey today.
Toronto Real Estate Terms
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Buyers Agent | A real estate agent that works for a home buyer. |
| Listing Agent | A real estate agent that works for a home seller. |
| Agreement of Purchase and Sale | An offer document that is used when buying a home in Toronto. |
| Land Transfer Tax | This is a tax paid by the home buyer that is based on the property’s purchase price. |
| Condo Fees | Also called maintenance fees, these are monthly fees that Toronto condo owners will need to pay based on their unit’s size and if they have parking or lockers. |
| Pre-Construction | The most common is pre-construction condos in Toronto, in which buyers purchase a condo before it is ready to move in. |
| Property Tax | Toronto property tax is based on your home’s assessed value. |
| Seller’s Market | This is when there isn’t enough supply of houses compared to demand from buyers, which means it favours sellers. |
| Commission | Commission is paid by the seller of the home, and is usually around 5% in Toronto. |
| Appraisal | A home appraisal is done by a professional home appraiser to determine your home’s value. |
What’s the difference between a Toronto listing agent and a Toronto buyer’s agent?
If you’re working with a Toronto real estate agent to sell your home, your agent is working as a listing agent. They will help you list your home and get it sold. If you’re looking to buy a home, a buyer’s agent will help find you a home and make offers.
Did you know that a real estate agent can be both a listing agent and a buyer’s agent for the same home transaction in Toronto? Multiple representation, also known as dual agency, is allowed in Toronto. This means that with the consent of all parties in the transaction, a single real estate agent can represent both the home seller and the home buyer.
How can I contact real estate agents in Toronto?
Real estate agents will give clients and customers many different ways to get in touch with them. You can contact your real estate agent over the phone, by sending emails, through text messages, or even through social media platforms. You can also meet with your real estate agent in-person for regular meetings. Some online platforms, such as WOWA, let you directly message top real estate agents for free!
What’s a buyer representation agreement?
Buyer representation agreements, or BRAs, are used by real estate agents and brokerages to have it in writing that you are a client of them. Otherwise, if you do not sign on as a client with them, then you are considered to be a customer. BRAs have the ability to bind you to working with that real estate agent or brokerage for a certain period of time.
However, being a client means that the agent or brokerage now has more responsibilities regarding your best interests. BRAs can also help prevent buyers from using multiple real estate agents, considering the fact that agents are only compensated if you complete a transaction with them.
What are cash back rebates offered by Toronto agents?
Some real estate agents in Toronto offer cash back and rebates to their clients. For example, a discount buyer’s agent might give a portion of their commission to the home buyer once the sale is completed. On the other hand, a listing agent might charge a discounted commission to the home seller, such as a discounted rate of just 1%. Low real estate commission agents can save you money through lower commissions while still providing services that a regular agent would.
Toronto Real Estate Tools for Buyers and Sellers
The trademarks MLS®, Multiple Listing Service® and the associated logos are owned by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) and identify the quality of services provided by real estate professionals who are members of CREA.
The trademarks MLS®, Multiple Listing Service® and the associated logos are owned by The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) and identify the quality of services provided by real estate professionals who are members of CREA.