Homes are selling in record numbers in the Greater Toronto Area.
Some 8,804 homes across all housing types — detached, semi-detached, townhomes and condos — were sold through the Toronto Real Estate Board’s (TREB) MLS system in October, the board said today. The figure represents a 3.4 per cent year-over-year increase in resale activity.
“It is clear that many GTA households remain upbeat about home ownership because owning a home represents a high quality, long-term investment,” Mark McLean, the board’s president. McLean expects this will be a record year for sales through TREB’s MLS.
Last year’s 92,867 transactions almost broke the sales record set in 2007, when annual sales totalled 93,193 and the average price for a home in the GTA was $351,941. Since that record year, prices have nearly doubled.
The average selling price for all housing types was $630,876 in October, up 7.3 per cent from the same month last year. That figure was pushed upwards by low-rise prices, said TREB.
Across the GTA the average price of a detached home was $823,177, which is 9.2 per cent higher than it was last October. In Toronto proper, the average price jumped 12.5 per cent to $1,071,394, and the 905 it climbed 9.1 per cent to $734,745.
For the 2,219 condos that sold, price growth was more tame. The average sale price of a condo in the GTA was $381,593, up 3.9 per cent in October from where it was 12 months prior.
In Toronto proper, condos went for $406,792 on average, a 4.2 per cent year-over-year increase, and in the 905 they cost buyers $318,317 on average, up 3 per cent from October 2014.
In a statement, Jason Mercer, TREB’s market analysis director, attributed the price growth to the combination of a limited availability of property and record sales activity in the GTA. “Even if we do see a greater supply of low-rise listings in the marketplace over the next year, market conditions will remain tight enough to see continued price growth well-above the rate of inflation,” he added.
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