Davisville Village vs Riverdale in 2026: What You Own

Published 10 September 2026 · By Jatin Dua, Broker of Record, RE/MAX Quantum Realty

Last updated 10 September 2026. Written by Jatin Dua, Broker of Record at RE/MAX Quantum Realty, 799 The Queensway, Etobicoke · Toronto neighbourhood comparison · 9 min read

Quick answer

The honest way to answer this is to ask what you want to own. In Davisville Village, City neighbourhood #174 is 85.7% apartments in buildings of five storeys or more — you own a share in a corporation, a fee, a reserve fund and a unit. In Riverdale, City neighbourhood #68 North Riverdale is 76.9% built in 1960 or earlier with only 0.8% built since 2011 — you own land, a Victorian brick shell and a party wall with a neighbour. The price gap follows: 89 Davisville-area condos averaged $632,000 in Q1 2026, while eight North Riverdale semis averaged $1,761,000. Different obligations, different risks, different exits.

One is a share in a corporation. The other is a hundred-year-old brick wall you share with a neighbour

Most comparisons of these two run on lifestyle — leafy east-end streets against midtown convenience. I would rather start with the deed, because that is what actually determines your costs, your risks and how easily you get out. A Davisville condo makes you a shareholder in a corporation with a budget, a reserve fund study and a board. A Riverdale semi makes you the sole owner of a piece of land, a structure typically built in the 1880s to the 1920s, and half of a wall you share with someone whose renovation decisions become your problem.

The census puts numbers on it. City neighbourhood #174 South Eglinton-Davisville holds 13,185 households, of which 11,295 — 85.7% — are apartments in buildings of five storeys or more, with 475 single-detached houses, 30.4% ownership and a 2020 median household income of $80,000. Its neighbour #173 North Toronto is 89.9% five-plus-storey apartments across 9,430 households, 81.4% renter, and contains fifteen single-detached houses in total.

City neighbourhood #68 North Riverdale holds 4,900 occupied dwellings: 1,375 semi-detached (28.1%), 805 single-detached, 360 row and 1,390 in buildings under five storeys. 76.9% was built in 1960 or earlier and just 0.8% since 2011 — the lowest recent-build share of any neighbourhood I write about. Owner-occupancy is 58.3%, the 2020 median household income was $108,000 and the 2021 median self-reported dwelling value was $1,510,000. #70 South Riverdale is larger and more mixed: 12,710 dwellings, 19.6% semi, 32.0% in buildings under five storeys, 22.5% in five-plus-storey buildings, 52.2% pre-1960, median dwelling value $1,070,000.

The nuance most articles miss

That 28% to 32% share of “apartments in buildings under five storeys” in Riverdale is not purpose-built walk-ups. It is mostly Victorian and Edwardian houses split into flats. When you read the census profile, you are looking at the same brick houses counted twice — once as owner-occupied semis and once as rented conversions.

Where each of these places begins and ends

Riverdale is TRREB district E01, containing the communities Blake-Jones, Greenwood-Coxwell, North Riverdale and South Riverdale. North Riverdale runs from the Don River valley east to Jones Avenue, Danforth Avenue south to Gerrard Street East, and locals split it at Riverdale Avenue into “Upper” and “Lower”. South Riverdale runs from the DVP east to Jones, Gerrard south to Lake Shore Boulevard.

SOUTH RIVERDALE IS NOT WHAT YOU PICTUREThe City’s South Riverdale, neighbourhood #70, is enormous. It swallows Riverside, most of Leslieville, the Port Lands and the Ashbridges Bay treatment plant, and TRREB’s South Riverdale is a different shape again. A South Riverdale average blends Victorian semis near Queen and Broadview with condo stock in the south end. Never take it as a price for a house on Simpson Avenue.

Davisville has the reverse problem — one place counted as two. Its MLS home never moved: district C10, communities Mount Pleasant West and Mount Pleasant East. Its City identity split in April 2022, when legacy neighbourhood #104 Mount Pleasant West became #173 North Toronto and #174 South Eglinton-Davisville, with many portals still reporting the old number. On the ground the divide is hard and bipolar: west of Mount Pleasant Road along the Yonge spine it is overwhelmingly high-rise; east of it, in #99 Mount Pleasant East, it is interwar detached and semi-detached, 51.5% pre-1960, with a 2020 median household income of $110,000.

The numbers, and why one of them rests on eleven sales

Community-level figures are Q1 2026 (January to March), the most recent quarter TRREB publishes at that geography and therefore around six months old as I write. Sample sizes are in the table because in Riverdale they matter enormously.

Q1 2026, TRREB community	North Riverdale (E01)	South Riverdale (E01)	Davisville area (C10)
All types	11 sales, avg $1,832,318, median $1,725,000, 16 days, 117% of list	59 sales, avg $1,047,076, median $960,000, 19 days, 108%	—
Semi-detached	8 sales, avg $1,761K, median $1,725K, 6 days, 113%	15 sales, avg $1,260K, median $1,300K, 5 days, 122%	Mount Pleasant East: 12 sales, avg $1,523K, median $1,418K, 20 days, 106%
Detached	2 sales, suppressed by TRREB	8 sales, avg $1,566K, median $1,473K, 19 days, 102%	Mount Pleasant East: 13 sales, avg $2,125K, median $2,100K, 9 days, 100%
Attached/row	1 sale, suppressed	9 sales, avg $1,224K, median $1,212K, 9 days, 116%	—
Condo apartment	0 sales	23 sales, avg $725K, median $670K, 33 days, 96%	Mount Pleasant West: 89 sales, avg $632K, median $615K, 40 days, 97%
Active listings at quarter end	6	55	226 new condo listings in the quarter

ELEVEN SALES IS NOT A MARKETNorth Riverdale’s $1,832,318 quarterly average rests on eleven transactions, two of which TRREB suppressed. At that sample size the figure moves on which two houses happened to close, not on price movement. Do not let anyone present $1.83 million as “the price of a house in Riverdale” — the defensible number is the eight semis at a $1,725,000 median.

The most useful thing in E01 is not any single price. It is that freehold and condo have completely decoupled. South Riverdale semis went at 122% of list in five days. South Riverdale condos, in the same postal code and the same quarter, went at 96% of list in 33 days against 75 new listings and a 31% sales-to-new-listings ratio. Two opposite markets, one name.

Davisville’s district picture is the counterweight. In August 2026 the C10 composite benchmark was $929,600, up 2.56% year over year — the only rising district benchmark in midtown or north Toronto against a city-wide fall of 3.73% — with the apartment benchmark at $597,900, down 1.53% against a city apartment figure of −6.88%. That is the argument for owning a share of a corporation in midtown rather than a house further out: the segment held better than almost anything else in the city.

What each kind of ownership actually costs you

The Riverdale semi

Riverdale’s fabric was built from the 1880s as working-class housing after the 1884 annexation, and bay-and-gable and Second Empire semis dominate. Simpson Avenue holds the “Six Sisters,” the oldest Victorian row in the area. Lower Riverdale retains more unaltered late-19th-century detail; Upper Riverdale has been renovated harder. Understand what that means practically: you are buying a structure older than the electrical code, the plumbing code and most of the trees around it, with a party wall you do not solely control.

You also take on the property-crime profile of an old-Toronto laneway neighbourhood, and this is worth reading before you fall in love with a house. Against city-wide 2025 rates per 100,000 of assault 768, break and enter 190, auto theft 225, theft from a motor vehicle 212, robbery 79 and bike theft 66, North Riverdale recorded break and enter at 295 — 55% above the city figure — theft from a motor vehicle at 270 and bike theft at 106, with assault at 663 and auto theft at 106. South Riverdale recorded break and enter at 265 and theft from a motor vehicle at 350, with assault at 829, auto theft at 217 and bike theft at 95. Both run materially above the city average on break-ins, car break-ins and bike theft.

What you get in exchange is space, land and a park system midtown cannot match. Riverdale Park was established in 1880 and covers 104 acres straddling the Lower Don; it was 162 acres before the DVP took a bite in the 1960s, and the pedestrian footbridge over the DVP, Bayview, the CN tracks and the river is the only link between its two halves. Withrow Park has an off-leash area, an ice rink and ball diamonds; Queen East and Riverside give you the Broadview Hotel, an 1891 to 1893 Romanesque sandstone building, The Opera House and Chinatown East at Broadview and Gerrard.

One correction, because nearly every article gets it wrong: Riverdale Farm is not in Riverdale. It is in Cabbagetown, on the west bank of the Don, adjacent to Riverdale Park. It covers 3 hectares, was the Riverdale Zoo from 1888 until 1974 — the animals moved to Scarborough to become the Toronto Zoo — and reopened as a farm in 1978, with the 1858 barn moved from Markham and rebuilt on site in 1977.

The Davisville apartment

You take on a monthly obligation you do not control, a reserve fund you should read before you buy, and a resale market where your unit competes directly with dozens of near-identical units in the same postal code. Mount Pleasant West recorded 226 new condo listings against 89 sales in Q1 2026 — a 39% sales-to-new-listings ratio — at 40 days on market and 97% of asking. As a buyer that is leverage. As a seller it is the reason your unit sits.

You also take on construction. February 2027 is the target for the aquatic centre going up on the old Davisville Junior PS site; the Davisville Avenue street redesign is still in consultation and Yonge and Eglinton has been a working construction node for over a decade. Davisville Yard, the TTC’s main Line 1 maintenance yard, sits right at the station — it is the reason the Kay Gardner Beltline Park has to bridge over Yonge Street here rather than run through.

What you get is a walk to Line 1, no roof, no lawn, no lateral, and a benchmark that has outperformed the city. If you already own a unit and want to know where it sits, the condo value estimator is a fair starting point; if you own a Riverdale house, the home valuation page is the right one.

Getting around, and the disruption on each side

Riverdale sits under Line 2 along its northern edge — Broadview, Chester, Pape, Donlands and Greenwood — with the streetcar network doing the rest: 501 Queen, 504 King, 505 Dundas and 506 Carlton, plus buses 8 Broadview, 22 Coxwell, 31 Greenwood, 72 Pape, 83 Jones and 135 Gerrard. One correction if you are reading older copy: the 502 Downtowner does not exist. It was folded into the 503 Kingston Road in September 2019 and delisted by January 2020. Danforth GO at 213 Main Street serves the north-east edge; the DVP runs along the western edge.

There has been real 2026 disruption to disclose. The 501 Queen was suspended from February 2026 for track renewal on Queen Street East between Broadview and Davies and replaced by buses; streetcars resumed on 27 April 2026 between Broadview and Parliament, with the 504 King cut back to Distillery Loop and a 504D bus replacement running through 3 May 2026.

Davisville is a Line 1 neighbourhood, and the ride is a single seat: 10 stops from Davisville station to Union, 11 from Eglinton. The station at 1900 Yonge Street has been open since 30 March 1954 and accessible since 2002, with the 11 Bayview, 14 Glencairn, 28 Bayview South and 97 Yonge on the surface. Line 5 arrived on 8 February 2026, bringing Mount Pleasant station at Mount Pleasant Road and Eglinton, built behind the reassembled facade of the 1928 Imperial Bank of Canada building. Neither neighbourhood has expressway frontage, and Davisville has no GO station.

The Ontario Line is the big variable on the Riverdale side, and I will only tell you what is verified. Fifteen stations; in this area Gerrard at Gerrard Street East and Carlaw Avenue and Leslieville at the north-east corner of Queen Street East and De Grassi Street, plus East Harbour. Names were finalised on 16 April 2026, though City reports still use the working names. No opening date is stated by Metrolinx or the City — the only sourced statement is early 2030s, as of August 2026, after slips from 2027 to 2030 to 2031. Tunnelling began on 20 April 2026 with TBMs Libby and Corkie launched from a shaft east of Exhibition heading to west of the Don, so the tunnelled section does not run under Riverdale; Gerrard and Leslieville stations sit on the surface rail embankment of the GO Lakeshore East corridor.

Schools and families

Fraser Institute figures are data year 2023/24. The TDSB publishes its own position disputing the rankings and the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association has called them a flawed picture, so cite them alongside the number. Catchment is assigned by street address — check the TDSB “Find Your School” tool rather than any agent’s map.

Riverdale secondary. Riverdale Collegiate ranks 33 of 747 with a rating of 8.7; Monarch Park ranks 86 with an 8.0; Danforth CTI ranks 422 with a 5.8.
Riverdale elementary. Pape Avenue Junior PS ranks 42 of 3,047 with a 9.7; Jackman Avenue ranks 351 at 8.0; Withrow Avenue ranks 447 at 7.8; Bruce ranks 873 at 7.0. Other schools serving the area include Frankland Community School, Leslieville JPS, Morse Street JPS, Duke of Connaught PS, Queen Alexandra MS and Earl Grey Senior PS, with Quest Alternative and East Alternative School of Toronto as alternatives.
Davisville secondary. The nearest strong options are North Toronto Collegiate at rank 46 of 742 with an 8.4, Northern Secondary at 65 with an 8.2, and Lawrence Park Collegiate just to the north at 15 with a 9.1. North Toronto’s five-year figures are stronger still, at rank 17 and a rating of 8.8.
Davisville elementary, read carefully. Davisville Junior PS reads 1,426 and 6.2 in the current report against a five-year rank of 461 and a 7.5, having spent that period displaced by the rebuild of its own site. Maurice Cody, Hodgson Senior and Eglinton Junior are not in the table at all — unranked, not poor.

The downsides I would want a buyer to hear first

Riverdale

Ontario Line construction is measured, not theoretical. The City’s Q4 2025 construction update has truck traffic at the Gerrard Portal, at Gerrard and Carlaw, rising from 56 trucks a day to 155 in summer 2026 and 181 by late 2026 into 2027, with paid-duty officers on Carlaw and crossing guards at the intersection. 477 trees were removed in the Don Valley and Minton Place with $494,052 in compensation and a requirement to restore 1.9 hectares. The Gerrard-Carlaw Parkette off-leash dog area closed in November 2025 with only a temporary facility until 2030 or 2031.
Property crime runs above the city average. Break and enter at 295 per 100,000 in North Riverdale against a city figure of 190, and theft from a motor vehicle at 350 in South Riverdale against 212. That is the laneway-neighbourhood pattern and it will not change because you installed a camera.
The stock is genuinely old. 76.9% of North Riverdale predates 1960 and 0.8% has been built since 2011. Knob-and-tube, galvanised supply, undersized panels and clay drain laterals are routine in houses of that age, and a party wall means your neighbour’s decisions become yours.
Odour is a live issue in the south end. The Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant sits inside City neighbourhood #70 South Riverdale and odour is an ongoing, acknowledged problem — worth checking on a warm day before you commit.

Davisville Village

226 new condo listings against 89 sales in a quarter. The rising composite does not make this a seller’s market. What it actually records is an apartment segment that lost less ground than the rest of the city’s.
Construction to February 2027 at minimum. The aquatic centre has a date; Davisville Avenue’s redesign and the Yonge and Eglinton node do not.
Davisville Yard sits at the station. A subway maintenance yard is a permanent neighbour, not a phase.
Eighty-one percent of #173 rents. A district that is four-fifths tenant-occupied with a 2020 median household income of $70,000 behaves differently from an owner-occupied house neighbourhood in both directions.

What is being built on each side

Riverdale’s south end is where the change is concentrated. East Harbour Transit Hub, immediately east of the DVP south of Eastern Avenue, will connect Lakeshore East GO, Stouffville GO, the future Ontario Line and the TTC, with a projected 100,000 daily riders and peak GO service as frequent as every five minutes; it is in construction and Metrolinx states no opening date. Port Lands Flood Protection is complete — $1.25 billion, funding awarded June 2017, construction from December 2017, completed 2025 — creating a kilometre-long naturalised Don River mouth, 25 hectares of new public greenspace and the new island Ookwemin Minising. The McLeary District east of Don Roadway is next in the sequence. At 1631 to 1641 Queen Street East with 1080 and 1090 Eastern Avenue, 18 storeys on Eastern and seven on Queen were approved by the Planning and Housing Committee in January 2026.

Davisville’s biggest single project is not housing. The Davisville Community and Aquatic Centre is rising on the former Davisville Junior PS site east of Yonge and Davisville, paired with a rebuilt TDSB school — three storeys, a six-lane 25-metre pool plus leisure and tot pools, a dance studio, a teaching kitchen and rooftop fitness. Ground was broken on 12 November 2024 and completion is expected in February 2027, with the school gaining pool access and the City gaining the school’s double gym and parking garage outside school hours. The broader planning framework is Midtown in Focus, delivered through the Ready, Set, Midtown programme.

Which one, and for whom

A family with $1.7M-plus who wants a house and a yard. Riverdale. Eight North Riverdale semis traded at a $1,725,000 median in six days at 113% of list — go in with financing arranged and your inspection strategy decided, because you will not get a second look.
A family with $1.3M. South Riverdale rather than North. Fifteen semis traded at a $1,300,000 median, though at 122% of list in five days it is the most competitive segment in this comparison.
A first-time buyer under $700,000. Davisville. Eighty-nine condo apartments traded at a $615,000 median with 226 competing listings, and you can negotiate. North Riverdale recorded zero condo apartment sales in the quarter.
Someone who does not want to be a landlord of their own building. Davisville. No roof, no lateral, no party wall, and a benchmark that outperformed the city. Read the reserve fund study before you sign anything.
An investor. Look at the decoupling in E01 before you assume. South Riverdale semis at 122% of list in five days and South Riverdale condos at 96% in 33 days are the same postal code. The freehold and apartment markets in the east end are not moving together, and neither are they in midtown.

The honest summary

Riverdale gives you the thing that is hardest to manufacture — land, in an old-Toronto street grid, near a subway. Davisville gives you the thing that is hardest to find right now — choice, and a benchmark that is holding. If you can afford both and hate the idea of a maintenance fee, buy the house. If the difference between $632,000 and $1,761,000 is borrowed money, buy the unit and sleep.

Common questions

What does a semi-detached house in Riverdale actually cost?

In Q1 2026, eight semis sold in TRREB’s North Riverdale community at an average of $1,761,000 and a median of $1,725,000, in six days at 113% of list. Fifteen sold in South Riverdale at an average of $1,260,000 and a median of $1,300,000, in five days at 122% of list. North Riverdale’s all-types average of $1,832,318 rests on only eleven sales and should not be quoted as a price level.

Are there condos in Riverdale?

In South Riverdale, yes; in North Riverdale, effectively no. South Riverdale recorded 23 condo apartment sales in Q1 2026 averaging $725,000 with a $670,000 median, at 33 days and 96% of list. North Riverdale recorded zero condo apartment and zero condo townhouse sales in the same quarter. Much of what the census counts as apartments under five storeys in Riverdale is converted Victorian houses split into flats, not condominium.

Is Riverdale Farm in Riverdale?

No. Riverdale Farm is in Cabbagetown, on the west bank of the Don River, adjacent to Riverdale Park. It covers 3 hectares and was the Riverdale Zoo from 1888 until 1974, when the animals moved to Scarborough to become the Toronto Zoo. It reopened as a farm in 1978, and the 1858 barn was moved from Markham and rebuilt on the site in 1977. Almost every neighbourhood article gets this wrong.

What are the property crime rates in Riverdale?

Above the city average on the offences that affect houses. Against 2025 city-wide rates per 100,000 of break and enter 190 and theft from a motor vehicle 212, North Riverdale recorded break and enter at 295 and theft from a vehicle at 270, with bike theft at 106 against a city 66. South Riverdale recorded break and enter at 265 and theft from a vehicle at 350. Assault was 663 in North and 829 in South, against 768 city-wide.

Which is the better long-term hold, a Davisville condo or a Riverdale semi?

They carry different risks rather than one being better. In August 2026 the C10 composite benchmark covering Davisville was $929,600, up 2.56%, the only rising district benchmark in midtown or north Toronto. Riverdale freehold is scarce and closes at 113% to 122% of list in under a week. But Davisville absorbed 226 new condo listings against 89 sales in a quarter, and a Riverdale semi carries a century-old structure and a shared wall.

How much does Ontario Line construction affect Riverdale?

Materially, on the Gerrard and Carlaw side. The City’s Q4 2025 update records truck traffic at the Gerrard Portal rising from 56 a day to 155 in summer 2026 and 181 by late 2026 into 2027, with paid-duty officers and crossing guards. 477 trees were removed in the Don Valley and Minton Place. The Gerrard-Carlaw Parkette off-leash area closed in November 2025 with a temporary facility until 2030 or 2031. No opening date is stated beyond early 2030s.

Riverdale Semi or Davisville Apartment?

Send me the two you are comparing and how long you plan to hold. I will read the reserve fund study on the Davisville unit, tell you what that Riverdale block has traded at this year and what the structure is likely hiding, and give you a straight answer either way.

Book a 15-minute call or call or text 833-330-1925.

No pressure, no drip campaign. If the answer is “neither, wait six months”, I will tell you that.

Davisville Village vs Riverdale: What Do You Actually Own?