Home prices in the Greater Toronto Area are expected to slide once again next year, according to a new report from one of the country’s largest real estate brokerages.
In a report published on Tuesday, Re/Max said it is predicting prices to dip in the GTA by three per cent in 2024. This comes as the average sale price dropped by 5.9 per cent in 2023.
While a price decline is in the forecast, a surge in home sales is also expected. According to the brokers and agents surveyed for the report, home sales in the GTA are expected to rise by more than 10 per cent next year. This uptick follows a 13.5 per cent drop in sales in 2023.
“Not unlike other regions across the country, inflation and the interest rate environment has had the largest impact on homeowners across the GTA, and this is expected to remain prevalent into 2024, Cameron Forbes, CEO and General Manager/Broker at RE/MAX Realtron Realty Inc., said in a written statement.
“This has forced many buyers and sellers to take a ‘wait-and-see’ approach in the latter half of 2023. Given this, activity is poised to increase through the year with the anticipated plateauing and reduction in interest rates.”
A series of interest rate hikes by the Bank of Canada over the last two years has led borrowing costs to skyrocket for many current and prospective homeowners, leading to period of lower sales activity. Some experts are predicting that the Bank of Canada could begin cutting interest rates as early as the second quarter of 2024.
While Toronto has typically been a “seller’s market,” it is expected to transition to a “buyers/ balanced market” next year, the report notes.
“The GTA market is anticipated to gain balance in 2024 but is also expected to favour buyers at certain points of the year,” according to the report.
“Considering the interest rate environment and the cost of living this year, housing market conditions in 2023 have fluctuated. As interest rates have recently paused, many markets are stabilizing with several regions in Ontario (61 per cent), expected to remain unchanged in 2024 from their current market conditions.”
According to the report, Niagara, Mississauga, Durham Region, Brampton, Grand Bend, North Bay, Muskoka, Haliburton, and Kingston are among the Ontario regions that are currently considered to be “buyers’ markets.”
Hamilton and Burlington have experienced “varying conditions throughout the year,” the report notes, but both have “shifted toward buyer’s markets in Q4 of 2023.”
“Looking ahead to next year, Mississauga, Brampton, Simcoe County, Muskoka and Haliburton are likely to balance out,” the report states.
Re/Max is predicting prices to rise by an average of 0.5 per cent nationally in 2024.
“The slower market we’ve been experiencing across the country this fall could be an early indicator of an active 2024, as reflected in the modest price increase and sales outlook for next year, and the balancing of conditions in several regions across the country,” Christopher Alexander, president of Re/Max Canada, said in a written statement.
The average price of a home across all property types in the GTA peaked at $1,334,062 in February 2022, according to data from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board.
The latest data from October suggests that the average price in the GTA now stands at 1,125,928 after a 3.5 per cent increase over the previous 12 months.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
