Resale Market on Course for a New Record for Home Sales this Year
By Lucas on Aug 06, 2015
The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) released its monthly resale housing market figures for July 2015, announcing a big jump in sales and a very low inventory of homes.
There were 9,880 sales reported through the MLS system last July, marking an 8% year-over-year increase. "As we move towards a new record for home sales this year, it is important to point out that home ownership demand has been driven not only by low borrowing costs, but also by the fact that the GTA economy has been performing quite well, with the unemployment rate lower compared to last year,” says TREB President Mark McLean. “Home buyers remain confident in the long-term benefits of owning a home."
The MLS Home Price Index (HPI) Composite Benchmark went up 9.4% compared to July 2014, and the average selling price saw an even larger jump of 10.6%, hitting $609,236. As expected, the average selling price of detached homes went up the most out of all the home types.
Though detached homes in the City of Toronto saw a 13.3% year-over-year rise in average selling price in July, this is the first time in many months that the average has been lower than $1 million. Granted, it’s not that much lower, coming in at $996,770.
The condo market is actually healthy!
The largest jump in sales goes to condo units, with 2,429 transactions in July, which is 14.4% higher than the same period last year. While condo sales saw the largest increase, the average selling price saw the lowest gain of 4.1%, averaging $372,363.
"With the level of inventory in the GTA trending below two months, many listings continued to generate a lot of interest from buyers,” says Jason Mercer, TREB's Director of Market Analysis. “Not surprisingly, this supported further price increases well-above the rate of inflation. Assuming similar interest rate and economic environments over the next five months, strong price growth will remain the norm for the rest of 2015.”
It looks like both the new home market and resale market are experiencing low inventory of low-rise homes, but condo units seem to be selling fine and increasing in price at a healthy rate! How will the rest of the year shape up?
