Are you trying to suggest to me that real estate in US centers like NYC, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston isn't getting more expensive ? Perhaps the real problem here is that some Americans perception of what Toronto really is depends on shoddy research and no real knowledge of the city.
There is a lot of corporate money in Toronto. Put it this way, our baseball team led the majors in attendance several years in the early 1990s ( 4 million per year ) and our hockey team was sold out to season ticket holders for decades with a massive waiting list. There are a lot of people making 100K or more per year and top management types making 2M-12M per year. We have US style wealth disparity in this city; however, it's not the "have nots" buying real estate. The growing lower middle class rents or pools their resources with extended family or friends for shared homes. The squeeze is definitely on a lot of people but nobody said you are guaranteed a right to live in Toronto.
Actual growth was between 0-10% steady every year from 1997-2015 from the source I saw. This whole 10-33% narrative is not a trend, it was a 16 month blip on the map.
