For a window into Windsor’s suddenly surging population, check out the yet-to-be-built Rosewater Estates subdivision off Lauzon Road.

In matter of weeks, every one of the single family homes available — 101 building lots owned by three local homebuilders — were purchased in a remarkable flurry earlier this year. And the vast majority of buyers were from the Greater Toronto Area.

“All three of us (builders) are sold out and the roads haven’t even been put in. The demand, we’ve just never seen this before,” Maple Leaf Homes owner Bruno Cacilhas said. He said he couldn’t keep up with the offers on the 31 lots he had available.

So their geographic location doesn’t matter anymore

“Ninety-five per cent of them are mostly coming from the Toronto and Markham area. The homes in Toronto are very expensive as everyone knows.  So what they’re doing is moving to Windsor, downsizing, putting money in the bank and moving to Windsor.”

Signature Homes sold its 20 yet-to-be-built houses in three weeks.

“You would think during a pandemic we wouldn’t be so busy and we weren’t for awhile,” said owner Jovan Vujovic. He said the demand is coming from the GTA. “I think at our price point (these are houses in the $700,000 range), they’re getting a lot more for their dollar coming down our way versus the GTA.”

Vujovic’s wife, realtor Julie Bondy, marveled at the pace of sales. “It’s just moving so quickly, so quickly,” she said, reporting that 80 per cent of Signature’s sales are going to people in the GTA.

“Quite a lot of them are not working in their offices right now, so if they can sell their houses up there for a good dollar and then buy houses here, they’re almost mortgage-free,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before, that’s for sure.”

It’s believed that people moving from the GTA are big reasons for Windsor’s current population growth. According to StatsCan estimates it hit 235,428 at the end of 2020, despite the fact the pandemic had slowed immigration and the influx of international students. While the absolute confirmation of Windsor’s population won’t come until the 2021 census is reported in 2022, it’s clear that numbers for the city and the region are on a steady, sustained rise, said Justin Falconer, CEO of Workforce WindsorEssex.

The StatsCan estimates show Windsor’s population, which had been stagnant, rising and falling since the early 1970s when the city boasted about 209,000 people, is now moving steadily up by about 2,000 a year. Last time there was an actual drop was in the 2008-2011 period in the wake of the recession as people moved out to better job prospects in Alberta.

The labour force statistics which Falconer’s office tracks shows an even more marked rise. The labour market (people 15 years and up) for the Windsor census metropolitan area — which includes Lakeshore, Tecumseh, LaSalle and Amherstburg — has risen by 16,700 or six per cent in just three years.

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said many of these newcomers are people born and raised here who’ve gone away to pursue careers, who’ve now decided to cash in their chips in the GTA and settle back where they can live the kind of life they grew up with. “That Windsor lifestyle, where you can get anywhere in 15 minutes and you have all the amenities of a big city across the border (when it reopens),” the mayor said, adding he has a couple of such examples in his own office.

This speaks to one of the key goals laid out in the recent Windsor Works consultant’s plan to diversify the local economy — the attraction and retention of talent — Dilkens said. The report suggests ways for the city to change from a “big, small city,” to a “small, big city,” where there are enough amenities for young professionals.

“As we move to implement that plan, I’m kind of excited frankly that there’s this type of growth,” he said.

Newcomers to Windsor can tend to be the region’s biggest cheerleaders. They see assets that people here have forgotten about, and preach about Windsor’s positives to their family and friends in the GTA. That was the case with Bruce Singh, who was working in Toronto and getting tired of the hustle and bustle when he visited about three years ago. “I was looking at the housing prices and couldn’t believe my eyes,” said Singh, who sold his Toronto house and moved here. So did his mother and then his aunt, and his father recently put an offer in on a house.

“They love the fact you can get in your car and in 10 minutes you’re at the river,” he said. “Plus the weather here, summer and winter is 1,000 times different than it is in the city.”

Zeshan Choudhry, 30, left his corporate job in Toronto for Windsor in 2019. At the time he was living in his parents’ house because he couldn’t afford to buy in Toronto. So he moved here and started investing in properties, first single-family homes he’d rent out, and now entire apartment buildings.

Choudhry said he knows many people who’ve moved here but have kept their old jobs, doing them remotely in a more affordable and comfortable situation in Windsor.

Windsor real estate broker Rhys Trenhaile said the people moving here in recent years include: skilled people who came for a temporary assignment but fell in love with the lifestyle and never came back; retirees lured by the 100 Mile Penninsula campaign; and people who decide to move here because they can afford a house and figure they’ll worry about a job or career once they get here.

Workforce WindsorEssex’s Falconer said Windsor is also benefiting from the current pandemic, as people in highly concentrated cities look for places where they can work remotely and more safely.

“I think communities like Windsor, that have a degree of amenities and choices as well as good high-speed internet, they will be a place remote workers will consider,” he said. He said the high demand and high price of housing is pushing people who can work remotely to look elsewhere.

“They’re thinking, if we can do this anywhere, where can we go?”

One of the big impacts is rising house prices here, as GTA buyers compete for housing. The average house price locally was $463,817 in February, more than double the average five years ago.

“People are actually seeing the value of their home rise, frankly, to a level they’ve never seen before,” said the mayor, who added that while current homeowners can enjoy their rising values, the rising prices will be tough for first-time buyers to swallow.

“I suspect once interest rates go up, you’ll have a bit of a pullback on some of this,” Dilkens said of the rising demand and prices. “But until they do it’s going to be, as fast as you can build them they will buy them. Something we’ve never seen in the City of Windsor for a long, long time, certainly my whole life.”