Listowel, Ontario
Listowel has not been a town since 1998: it is the main centre of the Municipality of North Perth, which governs and assesses it from an office on Wallace Avenue North in Listowel itself, under Perth County. In 2025 the community lost the business it had been built around - Spinrite shut the yarn factory it had run in Listowel for 73 years, cutting about 140 jobs - and nothing in the open record says who owns the empty plant. What the record does establish is a hospital in the middle of a $41.5 million building programme, a post office the Crown owns outright, and an office building on Wallace Avenue North that two federal agencies rent from an owner no register names.
6 buildings · 4 with an owner established · 12 sources · 5 tier A · 1 tier B · prepared 2026-10-03
Ontario's land registry holds the official record of ownership for more than 7.4 million parcels, and ServiceOntario states that its land registry services are only available online. Anyone may look up who owns a parcel through OnLand, but only by paying: ServiceOntario's fee bulletin sets a copy of a parcel register at $37.10 including HST from 2 November 2026, with $2.56 per additional page and $13.15 per adjacent PIN on Teraview. There is no bulk ownership extract, no open assessment roll - MPAC's per-property values sit behind AboutMyProperty, propertyline and Municipal Connect, each requiring a login - and no price-paid dataset, so a sale price exists only on the registered transfer, one parcel at a time. What is free is everything around title: the municipality's Financial Information Return, the federal real property directory, and the audited statements of the hospitals, colleges and councils that own the largest buildings in a town this size.
The marquee buildings
The towers that set the tone of the core, and who holds them. A price is the price a document states, on the date it states — not an estimate of what the building is worth now.
| Building | Use | Owner | Owner type | Last price paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Listowel Memorial Hospital 255 Elizabeth Street East, Listowel |
Institutional | Listowel Memorial Hospital The hospital's audited statements for the year ended 31 March 2026 carry land at $1,557,256 with no amortization, land improvements at $871,927, buildings at $41,543,227 of cost against $13,289,761 of accumulated amortization - net book value $28,253,466, up from $23,280,357 a year earlier - and $30,400,325 of equipment, $74,372,735 in all. The jump in building value is a construction programme: long-term debt shows $3,864,264 of Royal Bank construction advances at prime plus 0.25 per cent, none a year ago. The statements are published as scanned images and were read page by page. |
Institution | —A |
| Listowel Memorial Hospital medical clinic (North Perth Family Health Team) Listowel (address not stated in the statements) |
Office | Listowel Memorial Hospital The hospital is also a commercial landlord in Listowel, and its own statements say so. Deferred contributions at 31 March 2026 are made up almost entirely of 'North Perth Family Health Team prepaid rent for medical clinic lease expiring in February 2032' - $338,358, down from $394,919 a year earlier as it is recognised at about $56,500 a year. A six-year prepaid rent balance is an unusual thing to find on a small hospital's balance sheet, and it establishes that the hospital owns the clinic premises the Family Health Team occupies. The statements do not give the address. |
Institution | —A |
| Spinrite yarn factory and outlet store Listowel (civic address not established) |
Industrial | Not established a paid title search would answer it For 73 years the largest industrial employer in Listowel, and since July 2025 empty. The Municipality of North Perth's release of 3 June 2025 called Spinrite 'a valued corporation, a major employer, and a destination for many through its annual yarn sale' and put the loss at about 140 jobs; some administrative, marketing and sales roles stay in North Perth. The closing date is CBC's, not the municipality's: it reported on 30 July 2025 that manufacturing had ended that Friday and the outlet store would close in September. Neither source names a property owner, and no open Ontario register does. |
Not established | —B |
| Listowel Postal Station 210 Main Street East, Listowel 1,139 sq m floor area on 0.2751 ha, 1 building |
Retail | Canada Post Corporation Crown Owned, per the Directory of Federal Real Property - 1,139 square metres on 0.2751 hectares, and the only building in Listowel whose owner is on a free register with a land area attached. Across North Perth, Canada Post owns the Listowel station outright and leases the Atwood post office, which is 149 square metres in somebody else's building. The directory is published under the Open Government Licence - Canada. |
Government | —A |
| 1195 Wallace Avenue North (federal office building) 1195 Wallace Avenue North, Listowel 1,075 sq m of federal tenancy across 2 suites |
Office | Not established a paid title search would answer it Two separate federal entries in the Directory of Federal Real Property point at the same address, and both are 'Lease or Licence' rather than Crown Owned: Farm Credit Canada in Suite 100 with 815 square metres, and Public Services and Procurement Canada in Suite 200 with 260 square metres. That makes this the largest identifiable multi-tenant office building in Listowel, anchored by the federal government on both floors, and privately owned by a party the register does not name. Establishing the owner means paying $37.10 for the parcel register. |
Not established | —A |
| Municipality of North Perth municipal office 330 Wallace Avenue North, Listowel |
Civic | The Corporation of the Municipality of North Perth North Perth gives 330 Wallace Avenue North, Listowel as its own address. It is a lower-tier municipality under Perth County and the county's largest: the 2025 Financial Information Return shows North Perth levying $23,201,533 of a $37,413,599 total, with $8,726,784 going to Perth County and $5,485,282 to education, plus a $137,401 business improvement area charge for downtown Listowel. The municipality runs its own water and wastewater systems in Listowel, Atwood, Gowanstown and Molesworth, with a treatment plant just outside Listowel. |
Government | —A |
The core land
The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.
THE LIMITATION FIRST: there is no assessment figure for Listowel. Listowel has had no separate assessment roll since North Perth was amalgamated in 1998, and Schedule 26A of the Financial Information Return reports by municipality. Every figure below is for the whole Municipality of North Perth - Listowel, Atwood, Monkton, Gowanstown, Molesworth and the surrounding townships of Elma and Wallace. The distortion to keep in mind is agricultural: farmland is worth more than everything residential in North Perth put together, and essentially none of it is in Listowel. Figures are 2025, unweighted taxable CVA.
Who owns the town
At this scale the significant owner is rarely a trust or a fund: it is one or two local holding companies, a family in its second or third generation, and often the land around the town rather than the buildings in it.
Two named institutional owners and the federal Crown; beyond that, nothing. The $1.73 billion farmland base around Listowel - the largest single class of assessment in the municipality - has no open owner register of any kind. North Perth's own list of major employers is reproduced in part below as the best available guide to who is likely to hold the industrial and office ground, with the warning that an employer is not necessarily an owner.
| Name | Type | Holdings |
|---|---|---|
| Listowel Memorial Hospital Audited statements to 31 March 2026: $74,372,735 of capital assets at cost, $34,926,939 net, with buildings up nearly $5 million year on year on $3,864,264 of Royal Bank construction advances. It is in an alliance with Wingham and District Hospital, shares a management team with it and was owed $1,040,186 by it at year end. |
Institution | $1.56M of land, $41.54M of buildings at cost, plus a let medical clinicA |
| The Corporation of the Municipality of North Perth Governs Listowel from 330 Wallace Avenue North in Listowel. Its own-purpose levy across the municipality in 2025 was $23,201,533 of a $37,413,599 total, with Perth County taking $8,726,784 as upper tier. |
Government | municipal office, water and wastewater systems in four settlements, arenas and community facilitiesA |
| Canada Post Corporation Crown Owned at 210 Main St. E., Listowel; the Atwood post office is leased. Directory of Federal Real Property, Open Government Licence - Canada. |
Government | 0.2751 ha and 1,139 sq mA |
| Major employers named by the municipality (not established as owners) North Perth's own economic profile names Listowel Memorial Hospital, Spinrite LP, Trillium Mutual Insurance Company, Ward and Uptigrove, Ideal Supply, Erie Meat Products, Listowel Technology Inc., the Avon Maitland District School Board, Dynamic Millrights and Gabel Electric, Plumbing and HVAC as the municipality's major employers. This is an employment list, not an ownership list, and none of these firms is asserted here to own its premises. |
Private company | 10 named firms and institutionsA |
Who builds the houses
New-home building in this market: the volume, and the firms behind it. Ownership of a builder matters as much as its volume — a private-equity platform and a family firm behave differently.
CMHC publishes no starts series for Listowel. Ontario's Home Construction Regulatory Authority directory is the only per-builder record, and it is thin here: just two licensees carry a Listowel address with a live licence, out of 39 that have ever held one, with a third at Atwood ten kilometres away. North Perth calls itself the fastest-growing municipality in Perth County, with the population up more than 18 per cent between the 2016 and 2021 censuses and now over 16,000 - which means most of the homes going up in Listowel are being built by licensees registered elsewhere. The directory gives the licensee's registered address, not where the homes were built.
| Name | Type | Possessions, 2016-2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Joseph Wagler Homes Inc. 6495 Line 84, Listowel; HCRA-licensed since 18 July 2013. 86 freehold possessions, no condominium units, no chargeable conciliations and no claims paid - the largest live licence in the municipality. Read from the HCRA builder directory API. |
Private company | 86A |
| Donkers Harris Ltd. (Donkers Harris Homes) 3 David Street, Listowel; licensed continuously since 16 October 1998 and carrying the 'Donkers Harris Homes' umbrella. 41 freehold possessions, no condominium units, no conciliations and no claims. Website donkersharris.com. Read from the HCRA builder directory API. |
Private company | 41A |
| Zyta Group Inc. 5310 Perth Line 75, Atwood - inside North Perth but not in Listowel, and listed for that reason. Licensed since 28 July 2014, 57 freehold possessions, and $107,262.33 paid in claims, the only claims record among North Perth licensees. Read from the HCRA builder directory API. |
Private company | 57A |
Commercial landlords
The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.
No REIT, pension fund or named commercial landlord could be established in Listowel. North Perth reports $190 million of commercial and shopping-centre assessment and $2.28 million of office class in the whole municipality, and not one parcel names an owner on a free register. The named commercial landlord that can be established is the hospital, through its medical clinic lease. Everything else below is the inverse case - buildings the federal government rents in Listowel from owners the register will not name.
| Name | Type | Floor area |
|---|---|---|
| Listowel Memorial Hospital The hospital's 31 March 2026 statements carry $338,358 of prepaid rent from the North Perth Family Health Team as deferred contributions, recognised at about $56,500 a year against a lease expiring February 2032. |
Institution | medical clinic let to the North Perth Family Health Team to February 2032A |
| Not established - owner of 1195 Wallace Avenue North Farm Credit Canada holds Suite 100 (815 sq m) and Public Services and Procurement Canada Suite 200 (260 sq m), both under 'Lease or Licence' per the Directory of Federal Real Property. The register names the custodian, never the landlord. |
Private company | 1,075 sq m let to the CrownA |
| Not established - owner of the Spinrite plant The yarn factory and outlet store that employed about 140 people until July 2025. Neither the municipality's release nor CBC's reporting names a property owner, and no open Ontario register answers the question. |
Private company | unknownA |
Looked for and not found
Claims this page would have made if a source could be opened. They are left out rather than guessed.
- No parcel-level owner for any privately held building: establishing one means paying $37.10 per parcel register on OnLand, and no open Ontario register answers the question.
- No sale price for any privately held property: Ontario publishes no price-paid dataset, so a price exists only on the registered transfer.
- Who owns the former Spinrite yarn factory and outlet store in Listowel, and its civic address, floor area and future: neither the municipality nor CBC names an owner, and the site is empty as of July 2025.
- The address of the medical clinic the hospital lets to the North Perth Family Health Team: the lease appears in the statements without a location.
- Whether Trillium Mutual Insurance Company, Ideal Supply, Erie Meat Products or Listowel Technology own their Listowel premises: they are named by the municipality as employers only.
- There is no assessment, levy or land-area figure for Listowel itself anywhere in the open record - only for the whole Municipality of North Perth, nearly half of whose assessment is farmland outside the town.
Sources
- Overview: land registry — Government of Ontario (ServiceOntario) · openA
- Bulletin 2026-04: Land Services Fee Changes effective November 2, 2026 — Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement, ServiceOntario, Land Registry Services Branch · openA
- MPAC home page (AboutMyProperty, propertyline, Municipal Connect) — Municipal Property Assessment Corporation · registrationA
- Financial Information Return - multi-year data by year (bulk CSV) — Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Ontario (EFIS) · openA
- Directory of Federal Real Property - open data extract (dfrp-rbif.zip) — Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat · openA
- Ontario Builder Directory API (/api/builders, /api/buildersummary, /api/builderProperties) — Home Construction Regulatory Authority (HCRA) · openA
- 2025-2026 Year-End Audited Financial Statements - Listowel Memorial Hospital — Listowel Memorial Hospital (published by Listowel Wingham Hospitals Alliance) · openA
- Listowel Wingham Hospitals Alliance home page (255 Elizabeth Street East, Listowel) — Listowel Wingham Hospitals Alliance · openA
- Municipality of North Perth Responds to Closure of Spinrite Manufacturing Facility and Retail Store — Municipality of North Perth · openA
- 140 jobs cut as legacy yarn company stops manufacturing in Listowel, Ont. — CBC News (London) · openA
- Community Economic Profile - key sectors and major employers — Municipality of North Perth · openA
- Tax Sales / Contact (330 Wallace Avenue North, Listowel) — Municipality of North Perth · openA