Yahoo Finance Toronto home sales fall 49% as benchmark price slides
Home sales in the Greater Toronto Area fell 49.1 per cent in October over year-ago levels and benchmark prices declined slightly on a month-over-month basis as the region’s housing market continues to transition to higher borrowing rates.
According to monthly figures released by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board on Thursday, the GTA’s composite benchmark price fell 1.3 per cent to $1,098,200 in October from $1,110,700 a month earlier while the average price of homes sold edged up to $1,098,502 from $1,086,762.
New listings, meanwhile, were down 11.6 per cent to 10,390 from 11,749 in October 2021. The board noted mid-density and high-density home types saw the biggest declines in new listings, which it said helps to explain why prices have held up better in these categories compared to detached houses.
“With new listings at or near historic lows, a moderate uptick in demand from current levels would result in a noticeable tightening in the resale housing market in short order,” TRREB president Kevin Crigger said in the report. “Obviously, there is still a lot of short-term economic uncertainty. In the medium-to-long-term, however, the demand for housing will rebound.”
Crigger said he believes public policy initiatives such strong mayor provisions recently introduced in Ontario will help ensure the region sees more affordable homes being built to meet the needs of new households.
In the absence of new homes hitting the market, TRREB said the “persistent lack of inventory” would contribute to a flattening of home prices going forward, rather than the declines experienced so far this year.
Home prices have fallen since the Bank of Canada began aggressively raising interest rates in March.
TRREB’s data shows that higher-priced detached homes have been hit the hardest with an average decline of 3.7 per cent year-over-year, with Halton Region seeing the greatest dip of nearly 10 per cent.
Condominiums have outperformed, with average prices rising by 1.8 per cent since last year.
Some markets saw significant gains in condo prices in that period, including Orangeville with an increase of 17.9 per cent followed by Peel Region at 11.6 per cent.
• Email: shcampbell@postmedia.com
