Greater Toronto new home sales are back above typical volumes for the month. BILD and Altus Group data shows a big climb in sales this past January. The increase in sales helped to push condo apartment prices to a new all-time high. Meanwhile, single-family homes continue to spiral lower.
House Prices Fall, While Condos Make Big Gains
The price of a single family home is still falling, and condos are still ripping higher. The benchmark, a.k.a. the typical price of a single-family home reached $1,097,613 in January, down 2.9% from a year before. The condo apartment benchmark reached $925,209, up 15.1% from a year ago. Single-family prices are still over 10% lower than the peak reached in 2017. Condo apartment prices pushed a new record high, after going parabolic in October.
Greater Toronto New Home Sales Rise Over 65%
Greater Toronto’s new home sales have largely recovered in sales volume. There were 2,106 new home sales in January, up a whopping 65% from a year before. Condo apartments represented 1,100 of those sales, up 32.69% from last year. Single-family sales reached 1,006, up 125.56% from a year before. Last year was the second slowest January since the Great Recession, so the rise is unusually high. However, don’t dismiss it, since the month’s volume was still 14% above the 10-year average. This was the highest January sales volume since 2017.
Greater Toronto New Home Sales
Total October new home sales in Greater Toronto.
Source: Altus Group, Better Dwelling.
Breaking it down by region, we can see the volume spike is largely due to the suburbs. Toronto represented 676 of the sales in January, up 13.04% from a year before. York region printed the biggest gains with 707 sales, up a monster 509.48% from last year. Durham region also outpaced Toronto for growth with 201 sales, up 171.62% from a year before. In case you missed that, York region is now a larger region for sales than the City of Toronto.
Greater Toronto New Home Sales
Total new home sales in Greater Toronto for October, by region.
Source: Altus Group, Better Dwelling.
Greater Toronto New Home Inventory Rises Over 4%
Greater Toronto is seeing a lot more new home inventory these days. There were 16,176 new homes for sale in January, up 4.15% from a year before. Single-family homes represented 4,544 of those listings, down 12.04% from last year. Condo apartments represented the other 11,632 listings, up 12.23% from last year. This is the most January inventory in at least 3 years.
Sales grew much faster than inventory last month, pushing the market into “balanced.” The sales to active listings ratio (SALR) reached 13.02% in January, up from 8.77% during the same month last year. When the SALR falls below 12%, the market is considered a buyer’s market – and prices are expected to fall. Above 20%, and the market is a seller’s market, where prices are expected to rise. Between 12% and 20%, the market is “balanced,” and priced right for demand.
Greater Toronto New Home Sales To Active
The ratio of sales to active listings for new homes in Greater Toronto, for the month of October.
Source: Altus Group, Better Dwelling.
Greater Toronto new home sales are back above typical volumes, driven by the 905. More affordable segments like condo apartments are seeing huge gains. Condo prices started to rapidly climb once again, after the first-time home buyer incentive launched. The program has poor uptake, but likely played a psychological role in driving prices. This becomes a little more apparent, when you realize more expensive segments like single-family homes, which are far out of reach for the program, are still seeing prices fall.
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Can confirm, FTHB plan caused a big bulk sell at some projects. Scalping pre-sales is very much a big thing again.
You have to be bonkers to buy a condo in 2020 in Toronto (GTA). Two words: Overpriced and small.
More than half of buyers are so called “investors” who will never be cash flow positive, and are counting on further price appreciation. Good luck. Locals can no longer afford the rents or mortgage costs (+fees/taxes etc).
If your goal is to actually buy and live in the condo, make a quick 180 and get out of there. You will get destroyed as prices fall. Better to get a single detached/semi/townhouse in GTA if you are dying to buy.
The question is when does the cost of rent outpace the reason to live in Toronto? In NYC, they’ve been seeing rents top out for the past 10 years, and now a decline in home prices as people move, and investors are sitting on falling values by day.
In Canada, there’s not a lot of jobs outside of these corridors of Toronto/Vancouver/Montreal, so it’s just going to be brain drain.
Not to mention that downtown Toronto prices are already scratching at Manhattan prices, even accounting for the exchange rate. Suburban Toronto reached parity with suburban NYC years ago. Toronto is 1/5 the GDP of NYC.
I am, frankly, not good enough at anything to qualify for a work visa for another developed nation. If I was I would get one. As it is, I want these brains to start draining to make room for my OK-enough ass.
Best comment I’ve ever read on this site.
Just came back and saw this. Thank you. This. This is the thing I’m very good at. If only somewhere had a posting visa.
Are you 35 or under? Canada has Working Holiday Visa agreements with many countries. They are easy to obtain. You can use that as a stepping stone to permanent residency. If over 35, it’s certainly much more difficult.
Toronto’s rents have stagnated and now heading down. They seemed to have peaked last summer. Look on Bungol – tons of rental inventory and many price drops. If the number of Chinese students arriving this year plummets due to coronavirus, look out. Throw in new stock due to the AirBnB regulations and we may see average rents back to 2015/16 levels. What would that do amateur landlords who bought at nosebleed prices thinking they’d be able to gouge renters in perpetuity?
Yeah single detached is place to be as the prices have done nothing in last 3 years and additional supply over the same period is very low.
Neither is the place to be. Since when is paying over a $1,000,000 for a cookie cutter house in the suburbs the place to be?