Greater Toronto new home sales ripped to a new high last month. BILD and Altus Group data shows new homes had the biggest January ever, with tight inventory. Despite the perfect conditions for higher home prices, they did the opposite. The cost of a typical single-family home fell by tens of thousands of dollars, while sales ripped higher and inventory dropped.
Toronto Single Family Home Prices Fell $58,500 Last Month
The price of a typical single-family home in Greater Toronto slipped lower, but is still much higher than last year. The single-family benchmark price fell to $1,771,200 in January, down 3.19% ($58,500) from a month before. Despite wiping out nearly $60,000 of gains, prices are still up 30% ($409,000) from a year before. Annual growth remains high, but that’s a quick rollback of gains as well. Still, home prices have climbed nearly a third higher from their low.
Condo apartments showed a much smaller pullback but had more modest gains to pull back. The benchmark price slipped to $1,150,685 in January, down 1.13% ($13,200) from a month before. Compared to last year, prices are still 12.7% ($129,700) higher. There’s significantly more condo apartment inventory than single-family homes, which explains some of the disparity.
Greater Toronto New Home Sales Rise 18%
Greater Toronto new home sales ripped higher as prices slipped lower. There were 2,853 new homes sold in January, up 18.0% from last year. New home sales were 47.4% higher than the 10-year average for the month. It also happens to be the record high, with January not being a month known for its scorching hot demand.
Greater Toronto January New Home Sales
Total January new home sales in Greater Toronto.
Source: Altus Group, BILD, Better Dwelling.
New Home Inventory Falls 30%, Just Off Record Lows
Greater Toronto’s new home inventory is also becoming more scarce. There were 8,883 units for sale in January, primarily condo apartments in the city. The month was 30.5% lower than last year and is just above the record low in the prior month. Inventory is typically in the low 5-digit range, so this is low even for January.
Greater Toronto is seeing lower inventory and higher sales — a combination primed to push prices higher. Builders are also facing much higher building costs than seen over the past few years, helping to push prices higher. That’s what makes it all the more perplexing to see such a sudden pullback with benchmark prices.
Financial and economic distortions created by Central bankers opening the Pandora’s Box that they should never have opened makes strange things happen…
They alone, have literally broken the financial system, be it for themselves, their friends or their political masters.
They have literally ran the engine at the red-line for soo-long, it’s out of oil now.
Yay canada!