Toronto’s June numbers point at steady price growth, housing scarcity

Detached home sales activity helped offset some weakness in the condo sector

Toronto’s June numbers point at steady price growth, housing scarcity

Toronto’s residential market continues to exhibit severely constrained supply along with elevated price points, as shown by June 2019 figures.

Fresh numbers from the Toronto Real Estate Board showed that sales went up by 10% annually in June, reaching a total of 8,860 residential transactions.

In terms of asset classes, only condos experienced a sales decline, edging down by 3.2% year-over-year. A significant contributor to this was weaker activity in the core, where sales dropped by 5.6%; this offset a 2.7% increase in the Greater Toronto Area.

Detached homes had a strong June, with a 19% upward surge in sales.

These movements had virtually no effect upon existing inventory, however, with new listings ticking down by a mere 0.4% to end up at 15,816 Toronto properties for sale. TREB noted that this has spurred both intensified competition and a healthy pace of price growth.

“Buyers started moving off the sidelines in the spring,” TREB chief market analyst Jason Mercer stated, as quoted by the Financial Post.

“However, because we saw virtually no change in the number of new listings, market conditions tightened and price growth picked up, especially for more higher density home types, which, on average, are less-expensive than traditional detached houses and therefore provide more affordable housing options.”

The benchmark price of Toronto homes went up by 3.6% year-over-year, settling at $798,500. Meanwhile, the average sales price increased by 3% to $832,703.

The condo segment continued its streak of price growth, with a 7.5% annual increase in the benchmark, ending up at $539,500.

 

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