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There’s only a handful of cities in the world that make living in New York seem cheap for middle-income people, places like London, Sydney and Hong Kong. And then there’s Toronto, as 26-year-old JunJun Wu will tell you with a sigh.

After almost three years in New York she opted to move to Toronto for what she figured would be less-expensive housing.

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“The apartments that I saw were so tiny, which was shocking,” she said. “Compared to my studio in New York, these were half the size.”

Prices have soared almost 60 per cent in the last five years in Canada’s biggest city, and are up another 3 per cent already this year. They’re not as high as Vancouver — one of the hottest real-estate markets anywhere — but among the world’s major cities, Toronto housing ranks as the fifth most unaffordable relative to income, according to consultant Demographia.