Tag Archives: home purchases
Sales Volume Down While Prices Still Rise
Toronto Realtors release monthly resale market figures
Greater Toronto Realtors reported 9,422 home sales through the Toronto MLS system in June 2012. The number of transactions was down by 5.4% in comparison to June 2011. The year-over-year decline was largest in the City of Toronto, where sales were down by 13% compared to June 2011. Sales in the rest of the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) market area were comparable to a year ago.
Comment: As much as I am surprised by sales volume going down, it really is just a return to normality. Years back, the usual cycle had the summer being pretty dead for real estate. Then things exploded and the market stayed constant through the year. Maybe we just getting back to a more normal state of affairs.
“Buyers continue to face the substantial upfront cost associated with the unfair Toronto Land Transfer Tax,” said TREB President Ann Hannah. “Recent polling by TREB suggests that many households are considering home purchases outside of the City of Toronto to avoid paying the Land Transfer Tax. This goes a long way in explaining the disproportionate decline in sales in the City versus surrounding regions.”
The average selling price in June was $508,622 – up by 7.3% compared to June 2011. The mortgage payment associated with the average priced home in June, assuming 5% down and a five-year fixed rate mortgage amortized over 25 years, would account for approximately 35% of the average household’s income in the GTA after adding property tax and utility payments.
“According to new mortgage lending guidelines set out by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, the GTA housing market remains affordable. The share of the average household’s income going toward major home ownership payments for the average priced home remains below the 39% ceiling recently announced by Mr. Flaherty,” said Jason Mercer, TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis.
“The average household in the GTA continues to benefit from a considerable amount of flexibility to account for higher interest rates moving forward,” continued Mercer.
City of Toronto (“416″)
2012 Sales: 3,520 | Avg Price: $554,077 | New Listings: 6,742
2011 Sales: 4,053 | Avg Price: $511,591 | New Listings: 6,102
Rest of GTA (“905″)
2012 Sales: 5,902 | Avg Price: $481,512 | New Listings: 9,937
2011 Sales: 5,906 | Avg Price: $448,579 | New Listings: 8,653
GTA
2012 Sales: 9,422 | Avg Price: $508,622 | New Listings: 16,679
2011 Sales: 9,959 | Avg Price: $474,223 | New Listings: 14,755
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information – 416-388-1960
Laurin & Natalie Jeffrey are Toronto Realtors with Century 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these articles, they just reproduce them here for people
who are interested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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Canadian home sales rise, prices stable
CBC News
The average price of a home sold in Canada hit $324,928 in August, roughly in line with the same month a year ago, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Wednesday.
The average price was higher or stable on a yearly basis in two-thirds of the cities where CREA tracks data. On a monthly basis, the average price was slightly lower than the average selling price of $330,351 in July 2010.
It is also the third consecutive month that average sale prices have dropped after increasing at a torrid pace for the previous year.
The number of new listings on the agency’s Multiple Listings Service was more than double than the number of sales. A 2–1 ratio of listings to sales is generally viewed as a “balanced” housing market, BMO economist Doug Porter noted.
“Rising interest rates and a projected slowdown in job growth mean that the Canadian housing market is expected to continue to cool,” CREA president Georges Pahud said.
“A further tightening of regulations could negatively impact Canada’s softening housing market and consumer confidence.”
In terms of sales, activity was 4.1% higher, on a monthly basis, in August. It’s the first monthly increase since March and only the second monthly gain of the 2010 calendar year.
Activity was up most in Ontario and British Columbia, with monthly gains in these two provinces accounting for most of the improvement in national sales activity.
Canada’s real estate market was abnormally active in late 2009 as buyers rushed to take advantage of low interest rates, so yearly comparisons are likely to be negative for the rest of 2010, the agency warned.
“High sales activity late last year and earlier this year borrowed from sales this summer and will continue do so over the coming months,” CREA economist Gregory Klump said.
“This makes the return to more normal levels of sales activity look like a steep downward trend.… The hangover from accelerated home purchases is likely to persist over the rest of the year.”
MLS listings were 1.9% higher during the month compared to July, which pushed inventory to 6.9 months at the end of August 2010 on a national basis, down slightly from the seven months of inventory at the end of July 2010.
Inventory is the term used to describe how long it would take to sell the entire available housing stock at the current sales.
“While home sales are still nursing a bit of a hangover from the real estate party in the first half of the year, it looks like conditions are stabilizing,” Porter said.
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416−388−1960
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Home sales rise for first time since March
Garry Marr, Financial Post
Existing home sales climbed in August for the first time in four months, the Canadian Real Estate Association said.
However statistics from the Ottawa-based group, which represents about 100 boards across the country, show prices continue to fall.
The average price of a home sold last month was $324,928, up only slightly from $324,843 a year ago. However, compared with last month, when the average price of a home sold was $330,351, prices are down 1.6%.
The market did get a boost from sales activity last month which rose 4.1% on a seasonally adjusted basis from July. It marked the first time since March sales had risen.
“This makes the return to more normal levels of sales activity look like a steep downward trend,” said Gregory Klump, chief economist with CREA. “The hangover from accelerated home purchases is likely to persist over the rest of the year. Although economic and job growth are expected to be tepid, they will continue to support housing markets.”
CREA said activity climbed the most Ontario and British Columbia, with the monthly gains in the two provinces accounting for most of the improved national sales figure in August.
For the first eight months of the year, sales remain 2.2% ahead of last year’s pace. However, the real estate group warned that the last four months of 2009 were very strong and the market is unlikely to come close to matching the figures again.
Supply is rising in the market with new listings up 1.9% from a year ago but are still 16% below the peak reached in April.
Overall inventory has shrunk slightly. The number of months of inventory, which represents the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity, was 6.9 months in August. That was down from 7.3 months in July and the first month-over-month decline since last November.
CREA warned while prices are stable consumers can expect increases to shrink in Canada’s most active and expensive markets.
“Rising interest rates and a projected slowdown in job growth mean that the Canadian housing market is expected to continue to cool,” said Georges Pahud, president of CREA. “This is overlooked in recent commentary that suggests further changes to mortgage regulations may be needed. A further tightening of regulations could negatively impact Canada’s softening housing market and consumer confidence.”
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416−388−1960
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Related posts:
- Canadian home sales rise, prices stable The average price of a home sold in Canada hit…
- National home sales hold steady in March With national sales in each of the first three months…
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- Home sales rise for third straight month Existing home sales jumped 4.6% across the country last month…
- Home prices rise 8.8% as sales slow The rise is consistent with CREA’s expectation that many sellers,…
