GTA REALTORS® Release August Stats

September 6, 2018 -- Toronto Real Estate Board President Garry Bhaura announced sales and price increases on a year-over-year basis in August. Greater Toronto Area REALTORS® reported 6,839 sales through TREB's MLS® System in August 2018 – an 8.5 percent increase compared to August 2017.

Both the average selling price, at $765,270, and the MLS® Home Price Index Composite Benchmark for August 2018 were up compared to the same month in 2017, by 4.7 percent and 1.5 percent respectively. The average selling price increased by more than the MLS® HPI Composite due, at least in part, to a change in the mix of sales compared to last year. Detached home sales were up by double digits on a year-over-year percentage basis – substantially more than many other less-expensive home types.

"It is encouraging to see a continued resurgence in the demand for ownership housing. Many home buyers who had initially moved to the sidelines due to the Ontario Fair Housing Plan and new mortgage lending guidelines have renewed their search for a home and are getting deals done much more so than last year. In a region where the economy remains strong and the population continues to grow, ownership housing remains a solid long-term investment," said Mr. Bhaura.

Month-over-month sales and price growth also continued in August. On a preliminary seasonally adjusted basis, August 2018 sales were up by two percent compared to July 2018. The seasonally adjusted August 2018 average selling price was down slightly by 0.2 percent compared to July 2018, following strong monthly increases in May, June, and July.

"Market conditions in the summer of 2018, including this past August, were tighter than what was experienced in the summer of 2017. In August, the annual rate of sales growth outpaced the annual rate of new listings growth. We only have slightly more than two-and-a-half months of inventory in the TREB market area as a whole and less than two months of inventory in the City of Toronto. This means that despite the fact the sales remain off the record highs from 2016 and 2017, many GTA neighbourhoods continue to suffer from a lack of inventory. This could present a problem if demand continues to accelerate over the next year, which is expected," said Jason Mercer, TREB's Director of Market Analysis.

Source Treb

GTA REALTORS® Release April Stats

May 3, 2018 -- Toronto Real Estate Board President Tim Syrianos announced that Greater Toronto Area REALTORS® reported 7,792 sales through TREB's MLS® System in April 2018. The average selling price was $804,584. On a year-over-year basis, sales were down by 32.1 percent and the average selling price was down by 12.4 percent.

The year-over-year change in the overall average selling price has been impacted by both changes in market conditions as well as changes in the type and price point of homes being purchased. This is especially clear at the higher end of the market. Detached home sales for $2 million or more accounted for 5.5 per cent of total detached sales in April 2018, versus 10 percent in April 2017. The MLS® Home Price Index strips out the impact of changes in the mix of home sales from one year to the next. This is why the MLS® HPI Composite Benchmark was down by only 5.2 percent year-over-year versus 12.4 percent for the average price.

"While average selling prices have not climbed back to last year's record peak, April's price level represents a substantial gain over the past decade. Recent polling conducted for TREB by Ipsos tells us that the great majority of buyers are purchasing a home within which to live. This means these buyers are treating home ownership as a long-term investment. A strong and diverse labour market and continued population growth based on immigration should continue to underpin long-term home price appreciation," said Mr. Syrianos.            

"The comparison of this year's sales and price figures to last year's record peak masks the fact that market conditions should support moderate increases in home prices as we move through the second half of the year, particularly for condominium apartments and higher density low-rise home types. Once we are past the current policy-based volatility, homeowners should expect to see the resumption of a moderate and sustained pace of price growth in line with a strong local economy and steady population growth," said Jason Mercer, TREB's Director of Market Analysis.

Source: Treb

GTA REALTORS® Release December/Annual Stats

January 4, 2018 -- Toronto Real Estate Board President Tim Syrianos announced that Greater Toronto Area REALTORS® reported 92,394 sales through TREB's MLS® System in 2017. This total was down 18.3 per cent compared to the record set in 2016.

Record sales in Q1 were followed by a decline in Q2 and Q3 after the Ontario Fair Housing Plan (FHP) was announced. The pace of sales picked up in Q4, as the impact of the FHP started to wane, and some buyers arguably brought forward their home purchase in response to the new OSFI stress test guidelines effective January 1, 2018.

"Much of the sales volatility in 2017 was brought about by government policy decisions. Research from TREB, the provincial government and Statistics Canada showed that foreign home buying was not a major driver of sales in the GTA. However, the Ontario Fair Housing Plan, which included a foreign buyer tax, had a marked psychological impact on the marketplace. Looking forward, government policy could continue to influence consumer behavior in 2018, as changes to federal mortgage lending guidelines come into effect," said Mr. Syrianos.

The average selling price for 2017 as a whole was $822,681 – up 12.7 per cent compared to 2016. This annual growth was driven more so by extremely tight market conditions during the first four months of the year. In the latter two-thirds of 2017, fewer sales combined with increased listings resulted in slower price growth. In December, the MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) Composite Benchmark was up by 7.2 per cent year over year, and the overall average selling price was up by 0.7 per cent year over year.

"It is interesting to note that home price growth in the second half of 2017 differed substantially depending on market segment. The detached market segment – the most expensive on average – experienced the slowest pace of growth as many buyers looked to less expensive options. Conversely, the condominium apartment segment experienced double-digit growth, as condos accounted for a growing share of transactions," said Jason Mercer, TREB's Director of Market Analysis.

Source : Treb

Detached Toronto home prices fall, while condo prices soar in October

The usual seasonal bounce in re-sale homes between September and October was more pronounced than usual this year in the Toronto region, growing 12 per cent.

But there were still 2,597 — about 27 per cent — fewer sales this October compared to the same month last year.

Home prices also rose 2.3 per cent year over year in October, but new numbers from the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) on Thursday showed some areas are doing better than others.

The average price of a home — including all housing types from apartments to detached houses with yards — rose 2.3 per cent to $780,104, compared to $762,691 last year.

But detached house prices were down 2.5 per cent across the region — a 4 per cent decline in the 905 area to an average price of $910,488 and, a 1.1 per cent drop in Toronto to about $1.3 million.

Condos, however, continued to perform well, up 21.8 per cent across the region to an average price of $523,041.

The divide between the City of Toronto and the surrounding region is a function of the housing stock that's on the market, said Jason Mercer, TREB's director of market analysis.

Source: Thestar.com

GTA REALTORS® Release October Stats

November 2, 2017 -- Toronto Real Estate Board President Tim Syrianos reported 7,118 residential sales through TREB's MLS® System in October 2017. This result represented an above-average increase between September and October of almost 12 percent, pointing to stronger fall market conditions.

On a year-over-year basis, October sales were down compared to 9,715 transactions in September 2016. Total sales reported through the first 10 months of 2017 amounted to 80,198 – down from 99,233 for the same time period in 2016.

"Every year we generally see a jump in sales between September and October. However, this year that increase was more pronounced than usual compared to the previous ten years. So, while the number of transactions was still down relative to last year's record pace, it certainly does appear that sales momentum is picking up," said Mr. Syrianos.

The MLS® Home Price Index Composite Benchmark price was up by 9.7 percent on a year-over-year basis in October. Annual rates of price growth were strongest for townhouses and condominium apartments. The average selling price for October transactions was $780,104 – up by 2.3 percent compared to the average of $762,691 in October 2016.

"The housing market in the GTA has been impacted by a number of policy changes at the provincial and federal levels. Similar to the track followed in the Greater Vancouver Area, it appears that the psychological impact of the Fair Housing Plan, including the tax on foreign buyers, is starting to unwind," said Jason Mercer, TREB's Director of Market Analysis.

Source Treb

Toronto Real Estate Heat Up And Cool Down Over The Past Year

OCTOBER 2, 2017

Toronto real estate went from booming to excess in just a few short months over the past year. I’m preparing some notes for next week’s CMHC panel on the future of home prices and thought I would give readers a peek at some of the indicators we use. This is a simple, but a powerful indicator that just happens to look pretty cool on a map – buyer confidence in prices.

When buyers are confident in a market, they’ll pay a premium to enter. The thrill of the buy often leads to a rapid build of overconfidence, and that’s what happened in Toronto this year. To illustrate this, we graphed the number of people who paid over asking price.

Buyers Were Frenzied In April 2017

The video above shows buyer distribution, and visually graphs the increasing normalization of overpaying, and then the cooling of the market. Each blue dot represents a sale where transfer records show they paid less than the buyer was asking, a.k.a. it sold under ask. Each red dot represents a sale where the buyer asked for less than transfer records indicate they paid, a.k.a. it was sold over asking. Homes that were deliberately priced under ask for marketing (i.e. the seller priced way below market), were removed. Note, the dots show the vicinity of the sale, not the exact location, to protect privacy.

Toronto’s market started to pick up last summer, but it wasn’t until 2017 buyers began throwing money around. From January to April 2017, you’ll see sales over ask completely saturate the map. It isn’t until May that the trend makes a sharp reversal, making a steady drop into August 2017.

Over 77% Of Buyers Paid Over Asking Price At Peak

Now that we have a visual of the madness, let’s go through the numbers. In August 2016, 37.16% of sales were sold over asking price. That’s solid demand, and shows a good amount of push and pull between buyers and sellers. At the peak in April 2017, 77.67% of sales in Toronto were over asking price. This is almost 4 out 5 buyers, giving sellers more than the steep price increases they were asking. By August 2017, that number has fallen back down to 23.7%.

Why Did It Stop?

The government likes to take credit for the cooling with the Fair Housing Plan that rolled out at the end of April. Although you would have to be pretty gullible to believe that a tax on the 5% of foreign buyers resulted in an immediate -19.76% decline in the number of people paying over asking price. The price of homes didn’t drop overnight because of a new tax, people paused just long enough to realize they became frenzied. Even the slightest regulatory breeze would have temporarily knocked sense into people.

Note, I said temporarily. Typically without a significant consequence to buyers, the public resumes piling into assets in a phase commodity analysts call the distribution phase. This is when people think a market has “returned to normal,” while larger investors “distribute” excess holdings to the public. Prices will climb for a short period again, followed by the public realizing large money is exiting, then trying to get out themselves.

Ideally, this is orderly, but if it isn’t – that’s when you get the opposite of what happened in April. People begin irrationally selling below value, at a similar rate. The strange thing is, this is a very well-studied and documented phenomenon. People happen to do this with almost every commodity, almost every time.

Source: Better Dwelling.

GTA August 2017 Report

September 6, 2017 -- Toronto Real Estate Board President Tim Syrianos announced that Greater Toronto Area REALTORS® reported 6,357 home sales through TREB's MLS® System in August 2017. This result was down by 34.8 per cent compared to August 2016.

The number of new listings entered into TREB's MLS® System, at 11,523, was down by 6.7 per cent year-over-year and was at the lowest level for August since 2010.

"Recent reports suggest that economic conditions remain strong in the GTA. Positive economic news coupled with the slower pace of price growth we are now experiencing could prompt an improvement in the demand for ownership housing, over and above the regular seasonal bump, as we move through the fall," continued Mr. Syrianos.

The average selling price for all home types combined was $732,292 – up by three per cent compared to August 2016. This growth was driven by the semi-detached, townhouse and condominium apartment market segments that continued to experience high single-digit or double digit year-over-year average price increases.

The MLS® Home Price Index composite benchmark, which accounts for typical home types throughout TREB's market area, was up by 14.3 per cent year-over-year in August. 

The fact that MLS® HPI growth outstripped average price growth, points to fewer high-end home sales this year compared to last.

"The relationship between sales and listings in the marketplace today suggests a balanced market. If current conditions are sustained over the coming months, we would expect to see year-over-year price growth normalize slightly above the rate of inflation. However, if some buyers move from the sidelines back into the marketplace, as TREB consumer research suggests may happen, an acceleration in price growth could result if listings remain at current levels," said Jason Mercer, TREB's Director of Market Analysis.