Multiple offers are mounting for houses under the $1 million mark in Toronto while prices stay steady and competition moves faster and fiercer, according to real estate agents in the city.
That became apparent for Toronto realtor Anya Ettinger when 27 offers were put forward on a Bloor West house listed for just under $1 million that sold for $400,000 more than its asking price earlier this month.
“It’s happening more and more frequently,” Ettinger, who represented buyers who put forward an unfruitful bid, said.
Since the third week of January, Ettinger said she’s been noticing multiple offers climbing – on average, between four and twelve – particularly for houses listed under $1 million.
That price point will increase the likelihood of multiple offers, Toronto real estate broker Erica Reddy-Choquette explained.
“It’s not Toronto market wide,” she said.
“As much as multiple offers are back, the actual sale price is not actually staggering.”
Shock waves rippled through the real estate community when a staggering 85 offers were placed on a house in Mississauga that sold for just under $1 million last month.
Justin Bregman, the real estate agent representing the sellers in that transaction, said the market is much more competitive than just a few months ago, and houses are selling much faster as a result.
“Under that $2 million mark, and certainly under the $1 million mark, we are seeing a barrage of showings and offers and competition across the board,” Bregman said.
In October, November and December the market was slow and sellers were struggling to get offers through the door, paving the way for negotiations rather than bidding wars, he said.
“Anybody that purchased in October, November and December is looking like a genius right now,” Bregman said.
But now, Bregman said it is possible that prices could start to rise in lockstep with expected interest rate cuts that many economists expect to begin in June. The Toronto Region Real Estate Board (TRREB) is predicting that the average home price in the city will rise to $1,170,000 in 2024, as more buyers return to the market.
Prior to months of consecutive interest rate hikes, the average selling price of a Toronto home peaked at $1,334,062 in February 2022 before dropping to a low of $1,037,542 later that year, according to TRREB.
“So, you have people trying to get in now before they think that the prices are going to rise more,” Bregman said.
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.
