Willowdale vs Danforth & Greektown: Towers or Semis

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 · 8 min read

Quick answer

Neither is better — they sell different things. Willowdale is a purpose-built apartment district: in City neighbourhood #151 Yonge-Doris, 92.3% of households are in buildings of five storeys or more, and there are 20 single-detached houses in the whole area. Danforth and Greektown is a 1910s streetcar suburb of brick semis with a subway underneath it. The separating number: TRREB district E03 recorded three condo apartment sales in the whole of August 2026, against 52 in C14. If you want an apartment, one of these neighbourhoods barely has any. If you want a semi with a yard, the other barely has any either.

Two subway neighbourhoods selling two different products

I get this comparison from buyers who have already decided they want to live on a rapid-transit line and have not yet decided what they want to live in. That is the right order to think about it, because Willowdale and the Danforth both sit on the subway and have almost nothing else in common. One is a purpose-built high-rise district assembled since the 1990s. The other is a streetcar suburb of the 1910s to 1930s with a subway dug under its main street in the 1960s.

The 2021 Census makes the point more bluntly than I can. In #151 Yonge-Doris — the Willowdale core around Yonge and Sheppard — 9,090 of 9,845 households (92.3%) are in apartment buildings of five storeys or more. Single-detached houses in that entire neighbourhood: 20. Semis: zero. In City neighbourhood #66 Danforth, 395 households out of 3,910 are in a building of five storeys or more, while 1,255 (32.1%) are in a semi-detached house.

The short version of that

Willowdale sells you an apartment and has a separate house market attached to it. The Danforth sells you a house and has almost no apartments to offer. If you already know which of those two you want, most of this decision is already made.

One name each, several sets of lines

Willowdale is bigger and more divided than the name suggests. Yonge St is the dividing spine — east of Yonge is TRREB’s C14, west is C07. C14 covers Willowdale East and Newtonbrook East; C07 covers Willowdale West, Lansing-Westgate, Newtonbrook West and Westminster-Branson. The City redrew its own lines too: legacy neighbourhood #51 Willowdale East was split in April 2022 into #151 Yonge-Doris, #152 East Willowdale and #153 Avondale, while #37 Willowdale West was left whole. Bathurst on the west, Bayview on the east, Finch on the north, the 401 on the south-east.

The Danforth is worse. TRREB’s E03 bundles Broadview North, Crescent Town, Danforth, Danforth Village-East York, East York, O’Connor-Parkview, Playter Estates-Danforth and Woodbine-Lumsden into one district. Greektown’s western end straddles into E01 and the far east sits in E02. Danforth Avenue itself runs roughly 9.2 km, starting at the Prince Edward Viaduct as the physical continuation of Bloor St and ending at Kingston Rd.

“DANFORTH VILLAGE” IS NOT GREEKTOWNThere are five separate BIAs on one street, and locals use BIA names rather than City neighbourhood names. GreekTown on the Danforth runs Hampton Ave to Dewhurst Blvd just east of Jones. Danforth Village is the BIA from Westlake Ave east to Victoria Park — a different part of the street entirely, with Danforth Mosaic across the 3 km between them. A listing described as “Danforth Village” is not describing Greektown.

The money, side by side

Community-level figures below are Q1 2026 (January to March), the most recent quarter TRREB publishes at community level and therefore roughly six months old. District sales, benchmark and inventory figures are August 2026. Census figures are 2021.

	Willowdale (C14)	Danforth & East York (E03)
Apartments, 5+ storeys (2021 Census)	Yonge-Doris 9,090 of 9,845 households (92.3%)	#66 Danforth 395 of 3,910 households (10.1%)
Single-detached houses	Yonge-Doris: 20	#66 Danforth: 685 (17.5%)
Semi-detached houses	Yonge-Doris: 0	#66 Danforth: 1,255 (32.1%)
Built 1960 or earlier	Yonge-Doris: 105 households	#66 Danforth: 2,985 (76.3%)
District sales, August 2026	72	44
District average price	$898,084	$1,100,458
District median price	$615,000	$1,117,500
Condo apartment sales, August 2026	52, average $555,815	3, average $384,000
Months of inventory	5.7	2.7
Sale-to-list ratio	96%	100%
Composite HPI, year over year	$893,500, down 3.61%	$1,022,100, down 5.62%
Apartment HPI, year over year	$558,700, down 10.12%	$474,600, down 5.14%

Two things jump out. The first is that Willowdale’s district median ($615,000) sits far below its average ($898,084), because the sales are mostly apartments with a thin layer of expensive detached trades on top — 17 detached sales averaging $1,942,892 in August 2026. The second is that E03 does the opposite, and I will come back to that in a moment.

The third thing is buried in the last two rows. Inside C14, the apartment benchmark fell 10.12% over the year to August 2026 while the townhouse benchmark fell 0.53% and detached fell 2.02%. One MLS district, one asset class in free fall and another essentially flat. E03 fell more evenly: composite down 5.62%, detached down 6.62%, attached down 6.79%, apartment down 5.14%. The Danforth’s whole market softened together. Willowdale’s did not — its apartments carried almost all of the damage.

The strangest number on the Danforth

In August 2026, E03’s median price ($1,117,500) was higher than its average ($1,100,458). That is the reverse of every other Toronto district, and it happens for one reason: the district is made almost entirely of similar semis and detached houses, with essentially no condo sales dragging the bottom. Three condo apartment sales in a month across eight communities is not a market segment. It is a rounding error.

Year to date in 2026, E03 recorded 475 sales at an average of $1,173,232, a median of $1,100,000, 103% of list and 21 average days on market. That is the fastest market in this whole series. It is also, on the benchmark, the fastest-falling one.

Fast is not the same as rising

Selling in 21 days at 103% of list does not mean values are going up. It means listings are being priced low and taken to an offer date. E03’s composite benchmark is down 5.62% year over year at the same time. Buyers here should read the sale-to-list ratio as a bidding instruction, not as evidence of appreciation.

What roughly $1.1M buys in each

On the Danforth, that is the house market itself. Danforth Village-East York recorded 18 semi sales in Q1 2026 at an average of $1,124K and a median of $1,110K, in 12 days at 111% of list, and 24 detached sales at an average of $1,295K, median $1,250K, 25 days, 103%. In August 2026 the district’s 12 semi sales averaged $1,089,396 at 104% of list. You are buying a pre-1960 brick house on a narrow lot with a yard and a subway station within walking distance, and you are buying it on an offer night.

In Willowdale, $1.1M does not buy a house — Willowdale East detached averaged $1,998K on 24 sales in Q1 2026, median $1,684K. What it buys instead is a large condominium, or a condo townhouse (12 sales, average $848K), or an att/row unit (4 sales, average $1,294K — a small sample, so treat that average loosely). The typical Willowdale East condo apartment sale in Q1 2026 was $625,000 average, $595,000 median, on 78 sales. You would be spending well under budget and keeping the difference.

If you want a sense of where a specific unit sits in that range rather than a district average, the condo value estimator is a reasonable starting point before we talk.

Getting around: 14 stops against 11

Willowdale sits on Line 1 at Finch (the northern terminus), North York Centre, Sheppard-Yonge and York Mills, with Line 4 Sheppard running east from Sheppard-Yonge to Don Mills. Sheppard-Yonge to Union is 14 stops; Finch to Union is 16 — the longest transit commute of any neighbourhood I have written up in this series. There is no GO station on Yonge in Willowdale. What you get in exchange is highway access: the 401 forms the south-east boundary with Yonge and Avenue Rd/Bathurst interchanges, and the 404 and DVP are just east.

The Danforth has Line 2 running directly under its main street — Broadview, Chester, Pape, Donlands, Greenwood, Coxwell, Woodbine and Main Street heading east from Yonge. Pape to Bloor-Yonge is 5 stops on Line 2, then Bloor-Yonge to Union is 6 more on Line 1. Stop counts rather than minutes, because neither the TTC nor Metrolinx publishes citable station-to-station times.

Danforth GO at 213 Main St on the Lakeshore East line has a practical flaw: the 506 streetcar and the 64 Main and 135 Gerrard buses pass on Main St but have no stop immediately beside the station, and Main Street subway station is over 300 metres away north of Danforth Ave. Metrolinx has identified Main-Danforth as a mobility hub.

One more thing drivers should know. Destination Danforth put pilot cycle tracks in from Broadview to Dawes Rd in summer 2020, made them permanent on 15 December 2021 and extended them to Victoria Park in summer 2022. The design is protected bike lanes on both sides, one traffic lane in each direction, 24/7 parking and loading on both sides. Measured outcomes: weekday cycling volumes up 67% and 133% at two monitoring points, vehicular volumes down 15 to 18%. That is now a cycling-priority street, permanently.

Schools, and two very wide spreads

Both areas have enormous internal variation in the Fraser Institute rankings, data year 2023/24. I quote them because clients ask, but the TDSB publishes its own position disputing the methodology and the OPSBA calls the rankings “a flawed picture.” Read them as one input, not a verdict.

Willowdale secondary. Earl Haig Secondary School ranks 23 of 742 with a rating of 8.9; Newtonbrook Secondary School ranks 401 with a rating of 5.9, though it is improving sharply against a five-year rank of 539. A Y Jackson also ranks 23 at 8.9, William Lyon Mackenzie CI 33 at 8.7, and Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts (TCDSB) ranks 8 with a rating of 9.3.
Danforth secondary. Malvern CI ranks 15 of 742 at 9.1 and Riverdale CI ranks 33 at 8.7, while Danforth CTI ranks 422 at 5.8 and East York CI ranks 478 at 5.5. Marc Garneau CI ranks 666 at 3.8 — worth noting that Marc Garneau hosts a selective TOPS programme and its Fraser score reflects the whole-school cohort.
Elementary. Avondale Alternative in Willowdale ranks 1 of 3,047 with a rating of 10.0 while Avondale PS ranks 702, and Hollywood, McKee, Cummer Valley, Yorkview, Churchill and Finch are not ranked at all. On the Danforth side, Pape Avenue PS ranks 42 at 9.7 and Blake Street PS ranks 1,703 at 5.8.

I will not tell you which school any given address attends — school names are verifiable, catchment assignments are not, and boundaries move. Put the address into the TDSB “Find Your School” tool before you write an offer, every time.

The honest downsides of each

Willowdale

The apartment benchmark is falling faster than anywhere in the city’s midtown and north districts. Down 10.12% year over year to August 2026, against a city-wide apartment figure of 6.88%. If you buy a Willowdale condo in 2026 you should assume you are buying into a segment still finding its floor.
Supply is heavy and getting heavier. Willowdale East absorbed 78 condo apartment sales against 321 new listings in Q1 2026 — a 24% sales-to-new-listings ratio — and C14 closed August 2026 with 380 active listings and 5.7 months of inventory against 4.6 city-wide.
The commute is the longest in this series. Fourteen stops from Sheppard-Yonge, sixteen from Finch. Ride it once at 8am on a Tuesday before you commit.
The planning rules are being rewritten right now. The Secondary Plan governing the centre dates to 1997 and covers an area now holding over 50,000 residents and 35,000 employees. Anyone buying near Yonge on the expectation of a specific height permission is buying ahead of the rules.

Danforth and Greektown

There is almost no condo option. Three condo apartment sales across the district in August 2026. If your plan involves downsizing in place, or buying an apartment as a first rung, this is not the neighbourhood for it.
Competition is brutal. Greenwood-Coxwell semis sold at 114% of list, North Riverdale semis at 113% and Danforth Village-East York semis at 111%. Budget well over ask and expect bully offers.
Ontario Line construction runs into the 2030s. Underground stations are coming at Pape (a Line 2 interchange) and Cosburn, tunnelling began 20 April 2026, a $4.3 billion contract for the Pape tunnel section was signed in August 2026, and the opening is “early 2030s” with no firm date. The Pape station bus terminal was already closed from 12 May 2024 to late 2025. Buyers on Pape Ave and Cosburn Ave need this disclosed to them.
The housing is old. #66 Danforth is 76.3% pre-1960 — the highest share in this series. Knob-and-tube, undersized panels, galvanised supply lines and clay drain laterals are routine, not exceptional.

What is being built

In Willowdale, the Yonge North Subway Extension is under construction — 6.3 km north from Finch with five stations at Steeles, Clark Avenue, Royal Orchard Boulevard, Bridge and High Tech. A $1.4B tunnelling contract went to North End Connectors in August 2025 and a stations, rails and systems contract worth roughly $4B went out for qualifications in October 2025. No confirmed opening date. Separately, North York at the Centre — the review of that 1997 Secondary Plan — was adopted with amendments by City Council on 25 and 26 March 2026, with staff reporting back in Q1 2027.

On the Danforth, Official Plan Amendment 573 was enacted by Council on 7 April 2022 and limited height in Policy Area A to 24 metres, but it was appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal and its current in-force status is not confirmed — do not assume that limit applies to a site without checking with City Planning. Named applications include 1095 and 1111 Danforth Avenue, 2451 to 2495 Danforth Avenue, and 1117 Danforth Avenue, which proposes 108 affordable and rent-controlled units.

Who should actually choose which

Choose Willowdale if you want an apartment, you value choice and negotiating room over speed, you work north of Bloor or drive to the 401, and you are buying with a long enough horizon to sit through a segment that is down 10.12% on the year. It also suits families targeting the north end of the school range, provided they verify the catchment first — the spread between Earl Haig at 23rd and Newtonbrook at 401st is worth six figures in a purchase price.

Choose the Danforth if you want a freehold house with a yard, a subway under your high street and a walkable retail spine, and you can compete on an offer night without flinching. It does not suit condo buyers, drivers who need Danforth Ave to move quickly, or anyone unwilling to live beside Ontario Line construction for years.

Common questions

Is Willowdale or the Danforth cheaper to buy in?

It depends entirely on the property type. In August 2026 the C14 district average was $898,084 with a median of $615,000, against E03’s average of $1,100,458 and median of $1,117,500. But C14’s median is low because most of its sales are apartments. Compare like with like and the Danforth is cheaper for a house: detached averaged $1,179,152 in E03 against $1,942,892 in C14.

Can I buy a condo on the Danforth?

Rarely. TRREB’s E03 district recorded three condo apartment sales in the whole of August 2026, at an average of $384,000. City neighbourhood #66 Danforth has 395 households in buildings of five storeys or more, out of 3,910. There is no meaningful new-build condo supply and the resale market is too thin to price reliably. If you want an apartment on Line 2, look further west or at Crescent Town, where Q1 2026 condo sales averaged $434K over 56 days.

Which has the shorter commute to downtown Toronto?

The Danforth, comfortably. From Pape it is 5 stops on Line 2 to Bloor-Yonge and 6 more on Line 1 to Union. From Willowdale it is 14 stops from Sheppard-Yonge to Union and 16 from Finch — the longest of any neighbourhood in this series. I quote stop counts rather than minutes because neither the TTC nor Metrolinx publishes citable station-to-station times.

Why is Willowdale’s condo benchmark falling so much faster?

C14’s apartment benchmark fell 10.12% in the year to August 2026, the steepest single-segment decline in the city’s midtown and north districts, against a city-wide apartment figure of 6.88%. The same district’s townhouse benchmark fell only 0.53% and detached 2.02%. The driver is supply: Willowdale East alone saw 321 new condo listings against 78 sales in Q1 2026, and C14 ended August with 380 active listings.

Are the Danforth bike lanes permanent?

Yes. The pilot cycle tracks installed from Broadview to Dawes Rd in summer 2020 were made permanent on 15 December 2021, and the extension from Dawes Rd to Victoria Park Ave was completed in summer 2022. The design keeps one traffic lane in each direction with 24/7 parking and loading on both sides. Measured outcomes were cycling volumes up 67% and 133% at two monitoring points and vehicle volumes down 15 to 18%.

Which is better for a family with school-age children?

Both have very wide internal ranges, so the address matters more than the neighbourhood. On Fraser Institute data for 2023/24, Willowdale runs from Earl Haig at 23 of 742 down to Newtonbrook at 401, and the Danforth from Malvern CI at 15 down to East York CI at 478. The TDSB and OPSBA both dispute the methodology. Verify the actual catchment with the TDSB “Find Your School” tool before you offer.

A straight read on Willowdale or the Danforth

Send me the address you are looking at, on either side of the city, and I will tell you what I actually think — including if the answer is that you should keep looking. No pitch, no pressure, and I am happy to say a building or a street is not worth your money.

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.

Willowdale vs Danforth & Greektown: Towers or Brick Semis?