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Home sales in GTA down in April but new listings surge, real estate board says – The Globe and Mail

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The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board says Greater Toronto home sales in April were down 5 per cent from last year, but new listings surged, which created more choice for buyers and kept prices stable.

The board says 7,114 homes changed hands in the month compared with 7,487 last year, noting April, 2023, saw a temporary resurgence in market activity that led to a sales boost.

The average selling price was up 0.3 per cent year-over-year to $1,156,167.

“Many homeowners are anticipating an increase in demand for ownership housing as we move through the spring,” said TRREB president Jennifer Pearce in a press release.

“While sales are expected to pick up, many would-be homebuyers are likely waiting for the Bank of Canada to actually begin cutting its policy rate before purchasing a home.”

Many market watchers expect the Bank of Canada to start cutting its key interest rate in June.

On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, sales were down by 3.4 per cent – the third consecutive month-over-month decline.

New listings jumped 47.2 per cent over the same period, with 16,941 properties put on the market last month compared with 11,509 in April, 2023.

The inventory surge in April was unsurprising, given spring is typically a hot season for new property listings, said Jessica Hammell, a broker who focuses on downtown and midtown Toronto properties for Real Broker Ontario.

The difference this year, said Ms. Hammell, is that demand isn’t keeping up just yet.

“Once it starts to get nice and the sun is shining, people definitely come out of the woodwork and start making their plans,” she said.

“I think it’s just tempered a bit by the hope of maybe getting a better rate down the line, but maybe not necessarily a lower price.”

TRREB chief market analyst Jason Mercer said he expects lower borrowing costs in the coming months will prompt tighter market conditions, resulting in renewed price growth, “especially as we move into 2025.”

In the City of Toronto, there were 2,581 sales last month, a 5-per-cent decrease from April, 2023. Throughout the rest of the GTA, home sales fell 4.9 per cent to 4,533.

All property types except townhouses saw fewer sales in April compared with a year ago throughout the GTA. Detached homes saw the biggest drop at 7.2 per cent, followed by condo apartments at 6.5 per cent.

There were 1 per cent fewer semi-detached home sales, while the number of townhouse properties that changed hands grew 0.7 per cent.

Some buyers are entering the market, but many in the region remain “cautiously optimistic” as they await rate cuts from the central bank later this year, said Ms. Hammell.

“People are making moves, but they’re all necessity-based,” she said.

“They’re upsizing for their growing family, they’re downsizing to simplify things in later life. But it’s less people being like, ‘I want to jump in as a first-time investor.”’

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Politics

B.C. Conservatives, NDP both announce plans to help ease B.C. housing crisis

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Both of the main candidates in British Columbia‘s election campaign pushed their own plans to solve parts of the housing crisis.

B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad told a news conference in Surrey that his government would end the multi-year permit delays and would get homes built at the speed and scale needed to address the housing crisis.

NDP Leader David Eby went to Cumberland on Vancouver Island to promote his party’s plan to fast-track factory-built homes.

Eby said pre-built homes would cut waste, reduce emissions, and advances in the industry mean the homes are “beautiful and high-quality.”

He said the process was “more like Lego” than normal construction.

“The idea is pretty straightforward. In a controlled factory environment, you can build faster, you can build with less waste and the homes that are built are more consistent and more efficient and it’s cheaper.”

Rustad said the Conservative Party of B.C. would redesign the approval process for home building, setting a six-month limit for rezoning and development permit and three months for a building permit.

“This means that we will significantly be able to improve the time frame it takes to actually get construction happening in this province, and we’ll be working with city halls across the province to be able to meet these timelines,” Rustad said.

If a clear yes or no isn’t issued by a city within that limit, the province would issue the permit, said a B.C. Conservative news release announcing the platform.

Rustad said the party would remove NDP taxes on housing, support transit-oriented communities, reform development cost charges and make taxes fair for homeowners.

“We have so much regulation that has been put in place associated with housing that it makes it really difficult for anybody to be able to actually get through and build things, not to mention the cost,” he said. “So we’ll amend the Local Government Act to prevent any home killing red tape that has been introduced by this government.”

The party’s statement also outlined their zoning plan, adding that it would work with BC Assessment “to make sure that current homeowners don’t get hit with higher tax bills based on future potential.”

The party statement said, if elected, a Conservative government would build new towns, saying B.C. is blessed with an abundance of land, but the NDP refuses to use it to end the housing shortage.

“We will identify land outside the Agricultural Land Reserve that has the potential to support beautiful new communities.”

A statement issued by the NDP on Friday said it would work with industry, municipalities and First Nations to create a provincewide framework for prefabricated homes so builders know what’s required in every community.

It said there would be a pre-approved set of designs to reduce the permitting process, and it would work to develop skills training needed to support prefabricated home construction.

The statement said Scandinavian countries had embraced factory-built homes, which “offer an alternative to the much slower, more costly process of building on-site.”

“By growing B.C.’s own factory-built home construction industry, everyone from multi-generational families to municipalities will be able to quickly build single homes, duplexes and triplexes on land they already own,” Eby said.

The party said legislation passed by the NDP government last year was a “game changer” for the factory-built home construction industry in the province, where there are currently 10 certified manufacturing plants.

Muchalat Construction Ltd. is one of them, and owner Tania Formosa said pre-approved structures speed up the building process considerably.

She said her company’s projects currently take 12 to 13 months to complete, from startup design to getting the house on site.

“If everything was in place and fast-tracked at the beginning and we were able to just fly along, it would probably take three months off the full schedule,” she said.

She said a main issue for modular manufacturers is that work gets stalled if they run into roadblocks with jurisdictions or BC Housing in the approval process.

“There’s no option for the manufacturer to start another project,” she said. “Having our products approved prior to the process would be amazing.”

She acknowledged the potential drawback of pre-approved designs creating a cookie-cutter look for some neighbourhoods.

“Unfortunately (what) happens in your jurisdiction, in your city, is it ends up looking a lot the same, but what are your priorities?”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 27, 2024.

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Real eState

Housing starts up in six largest cities but construction still not closing supply gap

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The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says construction of new homes in Canada’s six largest cities rose four per cent year-over-year during the first half of 2024, but housing starts were still not enough to meet growing demand.

The agency says growth in housing starts was driven by significant gains in Calgary, Edmonton and Montreal.

A total of 68,639 units began construction, the second strongest figure since 1990, however the rate of housing starts per capita meant activity was around the historical average and not enough “to reduce the existing supply gap and improve affordability for Canadians.”

The report says new home construction trends varied significantly across the markets studied, as Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa saw declines ranging from 10 to 20 per cent from the same period last year.

Apartment starts in the six regions increased slightly, driven by construction of new units for rent, as nearly half of the apartments started in the first half of 2024 were purpose-built rentals.

But condominium apartment starts fell in the first six months of the year in most cities, a trend which the agency predicts will continue amid soft demand as developers struggle to reach minimum pre-construction sales required.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 26, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Real eState

Mortgage rule changes will help spark demand, but supply is ‘core’ issue: economist

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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.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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