But the 5% sales increase in September would have been higher if there were enough houses to meet the demand
Author of the article:
Brynn Lackie
Real estate sales in Toronto aren’t going down, despite the pandemic.Photo by Files /Submitted
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At this point, when thinking about a fresh take on the Toronto housing market, the well has run dry.
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It’s like we’re hamsters on a wheel. With each passing month, the market that the pandemic abruptly seized-up only to astonish us all and light on fire has somehow settled into a ho-hum new-normal.
We’ve gotten so used to being shocked by it all that it’s like we’ve stopped registering the astonishment.
It’s almost as if we’ve entered the grim acceptance phase.
Nonetheless, now that we’re safely into October, the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board’s September market stats are in and they’re ripe for analysis.
The third strongest September on record, 9,046 homes traded in the first month of our traditional seasonal fall real estate market, up almost a full 5% from August. This is welcome news as it marks the first month since March that we have not seen a month-over-month decline in sales.
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Simply put, our inventory crisis is the story. If we had enough houses to meet the demand of buyers keen to take advantage of the rock-bottom interest rates, the stats would be telling a different tale.
With fewer houses available to change hands — and September saw 34% fewer listings come to market than the same month last year — there is a built-in cap on the sales that can take place. So when looking at the number of transactions, the big tell that our numbers aren’t capturing the number of active buyers out there is the increase in average sale price.
Anecdotally, if you speak to agents, they will tell you that houses with 7, 10, 14 offers are now the norm.
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TRREB President Kevin Crigger summed it up perfectly: “Demand has remained incredibly robust throughout September with many qualified buyers who would buy a home tomorrow provided they could find a suitable property. With new listings in September down by one-third compared to last year, purchasing a home for many is easier said than done. The lack of housing supply and choice has reached a critical juncture.”
In the months ahead as immigration opens back up, office towers continue to fill with people returning to work, and life starts to look like old normal once more, the structural aspects of our real estate market will only tighten. We have long been saying that this upward trajectory will slow when prices eventually hurtle out of reach, but so far the prices have continued to rise and yet the buyers remain.
As long as we have people willing to participate, these market conditions will continue to drive prices.
October will be more of the same — you can bet on that.
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.
