By: Zoocasa
Properties in the Greater Toronto Area are taking over twice as long to sell this April, compared to April 2017. The average days spent on market is 20 days from last year’s nine, according to the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB).
Buyers have far more to choose from this April, with 18, 206 active listings, 40.8 per cent more than was available last year. With so much more inventory on the market, buyers are presumably able to take their time.
This represents a complete turnaround from April 2017, where historic low inventory levels meant that sellers held all the power.
The market was so unusually tight, that it prompted the Ontario government and the federal bank regulator, OSFI, to step in with some new regulations designed to cool the market.
Ontario announced its Fair Housing Plan this time last year, while OSFI announced it was planning to tighten mortgage lending rules, starting January 1 of this year.
The two measures combined appear to have had a significant cooling effect on the market, with both sales and prices down. Sales are down 32.1 per cent from last year for all market segments, while prices are down 12.4 per cent. The only market segment showing price growth is condos, which are up 3.2 per cent.
That’s likely because condos remain the last affordable property type in the GTA, at an average selling price of $559, 343. Detached houses, in comparison, stand over over $1 million.
Those prices, still out of reach for most Ontarians, perhaps explain why so many are escaping to nearby cities. For the price of a condo in the GTA, one could afford Hamilton real estate -- detached houses for sale in Hamilton go for about $583,000, according to the Realtors Association of Hamilton and Burlington.
Nevertheless, when we look back two years ago in the GTA, to April 2016, we see, that although sales are still down over those two years, prices have trended upwards. Two years ago, one could still purchase a detached house for under $1 million in the GTA, and the average condo price was about $410, 000.
Overall, the average selling price for all property types is up almost 9 per cent from April 2016, to $804, 584 from $738,082,a good return by any measure. It seems that April 2017 just truly was the market peak.
Check out the infographic below for more details:
