July 2016 Holds Steady Pace for GTA Real Estate
You might be interested in what’s going on in the real estate market. Actually, prices are going down. Don’t tell anybody. No one wants to hear that.
So, let’s have a look at TREB’s recently released report:
“Strong July Price Growth
TORONTO, ONTARIO, August 4, 2016 –
Toronto Real Estate Board President Larry Cerqua announced that TREB REALTOR® Members reported 9,989 home sales through TREB’s MLS® System in July 2016. At just shy of 10,000 transactions, this was the best result on record for the month of July.
While sales were up on a year-over-year basis, the number of new listings was down over the same period, representing the continuation of a troubling trend in the GTA. “GTA REALTORS® have been working very hard on behalf of their buyer clients to help them find a home meeting their needs.
Unfortunately, listings for single-detached and semi-detached houses and townhouses continue to be in short supply. The result has been an increase in pent-up demand and annual rates of price increases well above the rate of inflation. Housing policy is now top of mind for all levels of government.
Policy makers need to be focusing on solutions to the sustained lack of low-rise inventory throughout the GTA,” said Mr. Cerqua. The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) Composite Benchmark was up by 16.7 per cent in July 2016 compared to the same month a year earlier. Similarly, the average selling price for all home types combined was up by 16.6 per cent year-over-year to $709,825.
“Relatively strong labour market conditions, above-inflation average income growth, and record low borrowing costs have kept many households confident about purchasing a home. As long as very strong buying intentions are up against an extreme shortage of listings, expect home price growth to greatly outpace the rate of inflation,” said Jason Mercer, TREB’s Director of Market Analysis.”
COMMENT
So, there it was, things look pretty good.
Here are the actual numbers as reported by TREB, as drawn from the published statistics:
So here are the numbers:
15 March $693,825
31 March $688,180
15 April $730,330
30 April $739,515
15 May $758,626
31 May $752,335
15 June $758,507
30 June $746,546
15 July $707,303
31 July $709,825
The interesting thing to note would be that the height of the market was 15 May and the market trended downward until 15 July, where it bottomed out and headed up slightly.
That analysis, of course, assume that we are using bi-monthly numbers. If we used just end of the month numbers, we have a rather strong downward trend. And, $2,500 isn’t much of a recovery.
What do we expect for August?
Actually, if we look at previous years, it should be down too, a little lower than where we are now, with increases in September and October.
Brian Madigan LL.B., Broker
