The Toronto Real Estate Board President’s Col­umn as it appears each Fri­day in the Toronto Sun’s Resale Homes and Con­dos section

If you’re plan­ning to make a move this fall, you’re not alone. Thou­sands of buy­ers under­took home trans­ac­tions last month, mak­ing Sep­tem­ber the fifth con­sec­u­tive month that Toronto real estate sales exceeded the same period a year ago.

Last month’s sales totaled 8,196, rep­re­sent­ing an increase of 28% com­pared to the 6,424 homes that changed hands in Sep­tem­ber 2008.

The aver­age price of a Toronto home soared even higher last month, to $406,877 – a 10% increase over the Sep­tem­ber 2008 aver­age of $368,549.

The year-to-date fig­ures are equally encour­ag­ing. Sales have increased 4.5% com­pared to a year ago and prices are up 1.5%.

Strong third quar­ter results have in fact, put the Toronto real estate mar­ket on track for a solid annual per­for­mance, which is antic­i­pated to exceed 80,000 trans­ac­tions this year.

Inter­est rates at his­tor­i­cally low lev­els have pos­i­tively impacted what was an already an afford­able Toronto real estate mar­ket at the begin­ning of 2009. Improved sales increases in nearly all home price cat­e­gories and hous­ing types have been the result.

Sales of low-rise dwellings – which includes single-detached, semi-detached and town houses – grew by 25% com­pared to last year, while high-rise con­do­minium sales were up even more sub­stan­tially, by 34% over Sep­tem­ber 2008.

Inter­est rates though, are just one fac­tor con­tribut­ing to the robust Toronto real estate mar­ket. Toronto wel­comes nearly 100,000 new­com­ers to Canada each year, the major­ity of whom even­tu­ally pur­chase a home. Given that the United Nations’ Human Devel­op­ment Index, which mea­sures health, knowl­edge and stan­dard of liv­ing, ranks Canada fourth in the world behind Nor­way, Aus­tralia and Ice­land, it’s safe to say that immi­gra­tion will con­tinue to pos­i­tively impact our hous­ing mar­ket in the fore­see­able future. Don’t for­get, the GTA is the sin­gle great­est ben­e­fi­ciary of immi­gra­tion into Canada.

New­com­ers to Canada how­ever, rep­re­sent only part of the sub­stan­tial first-time home­buyer con­tin­gent. The chil­dren of baby boomers, known as the echo gen­er­a­tion are mak­ing their own con­tri­bu­tion to hous­ing demand. Mean­while, as the lat­ter part of the baby boom gen­er­a­tion tran­si­tions into an empty nest lifestyle, they will con­tinue to make hous­ing choices that reflect this change.

While the long-term pic­ture is very bright indeed and the resur­gence in the Toronto real estate mar­ket is encour­ag­ing, it’s impor­tant to note that cur­rent mar­ket sta­tis­tics are being com­pared to those of a year ago, when the global eco­nomic cri­sis damp­ened activ­ity considerably.

For the next few months, increases will appear sub­stan­tial when com­pared to fig­ures from the lat­ter part of 2008. Fur­ther, the cur­rent eco­nomic pic­ture is still far from per­fect. Sta­tis­tics Canada reported that the August unem­ploy­ment rate for the Toronto Cen­sus Met­ro­pol­i­tan Area was 10.1%.

The best news though, is that it’s esti­mated every one of the 8,196 trans­ac­tions that took place in Sep­tem­ber will pump more than $47,000 into the econ­omy in spin-off spend­ing on goods and ser­vices like finan­cial and legal ser­vices, mov­ing, ren­o­va­tions and home furnishings.

There’s no doubt that our city’s pas­sion for homes will help the Greater Toronto Area’s broader econ­omy move fur­ther toward recov­ery in the months ahead.

Tom Lebour is Pres­i­dent of the Toronto Real Estate Board, a pro­fes­sional asso­ci­a­tion that rep­re­sents 28,000 REALTORS® in the Greater Toronto Area.

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion  -  416−388−1960

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