Toronto taste for new condos grows 94% in June

Toronto’s condo market is showing no signs of slowing down, with new condo sales at 2,588 units in June, up 94 per cent from a year earlier.

Condo sales were 19 per cent higher than the 10-year average, according to RealNet Canada, but prices were up just 1.5 per cent on the year, a reflection of the abundant supply of new buildings.

RealNet reports there are 21,561 condo units still for sale in the Toronto area, including 12,553 in buildings not yet started and 7,381 under construction.

The benchmark condo price — which is the average price, after the highest and lowest extremes are stripped out — is now $436,876. Price per square foot was about $541 in June, down from $549 in May.

June was an exceptional month for real estate sales across Canada, with the strongest sales in four years, a report from the Canadian Real Estate Association showed last week. After a cold winter that discouraged buyers and sellers, there was a flood of new supply on the market, luring home buyers back to the market.

RealNet, which measures markets for new houses and condos, says new home sales were also strong with 6.6 per cent more sold this year than a year earlier.

For the first six months of the year, there were 9,564 sales of new detached houses in Toronto, a 59 per cent increase on the previous year.

In the same period there were 10,989 new condos sold, up 45 per cent from 2013. The hottest year for condo sales was 2011, when abundant supply and low rates created a booming market with more than 14,000 sold.

This year’s sales are roughly equivalent to 2012 and appear to be recovering from a sharp drop in 2013, when mortgage rules were changed in an attempt to cool hot housing markets.