According to the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board’s latest report, the average selling price of properties in the Greater Toronto Area reached $1,153,269 in April, a month-over-month increase of 4%. Sales were also up compared to March, increasing by 9% to 7,531 homes sold, though these increases combined with low levels of inventory mean market conditions are tightening.
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“Many buyers have come to terms with higher borrowing costs and are taking advantage of lower selling prices compared to this time last year. The issue moving forward will not be the demand for ownership housing, but rather the ability to meet this demand with adequate supply. This is a policy issue that requires sustained effort from all levels of government,” said TRREB President Paul Baron.
Buyer Interest Shifting? Detached Properties Show the Largest Sales Growth
So far this year buyers have been keeping their eyes on affordable property types, especially condo apartments, but it looks like that trend may be coming to an end as detached properties made significant gains last month. The market experienced the largest month-over-month sales increase at 14.9% with 3,448 homes trading hands. The City of Toronto and Peel Region led the way in detached sales, with 767 and 642 sales respectively. Though the overall average price of detached properties didn’t increase by much, up 1.4% month-over-month, the City of Toronto’s detached properties experienced a month-over-month price increase of nearly 5%, now at $1,787,752.
Semi-detached sales experienced the second largest increase, growing by 13.3%, with most sales being in the City of Toronto and Peel Region. The average price for semi-detached properties was also up, growing by 4.4%, the second-largest increase among property types. Townhouses experienced the largest month-over-month price increase, reaching $986,121, a 5.4% jump. As for condo apartments, both sales and average prices showed modest month-over-month increases, up 1.8% and 2,9% respectively.
Persistent Lack of Listings Across GTA
Despite the number of new listings increasing from last month by 1.6%, months of supply remained relatively unchanged from March and is still at 2.3 months for the GTA. Whitby, Oshawa, Ajax and Newmarket are all suffering from low levels of supply with under 2 months of inventory.
“As demand for ownership housing has picked up relative to supply, we are seeing renewed upward pressure on home prices. For a short period of time, higher borrowing costs trumped the impact of the constrained housing supply in the GTA. Renewed competition between buyers is once again shining the spotlight on the persistent lack of listings and resulting impact on affordability,” said TRREB Chief Market Analyst Jason Mercer.
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