Toronto Real Estate Board says GTA resale housing market still down

Resale home transactions in the Greater Toronto Area continued at a moderate pace during the first half of March, Toronto Real Estate Board President Maureen O’Neill announced today.

With 3,183 transactions to mid-month, sales in the GTA and in Toronto declined 14 per cent and 18 per cent respectively compared to the same timeframe a year ago.

“It’s important to recognize that we have endured the snowiest winter since 1939 and this has undoubtedly affected the market,” said Ms. O’Neill. “The storm that pounded the GTA during the second weekend of March likely had more people focused on shoveling sidewalks than house hunting.”

Despite moderate activity, the value of homes in our city continues to appreciate. At an average of $385,405 in the GTA and $409,116 in Toronto, prices have increased five and four per cent respectively compared to a year ago.

As well, some neighbourhoods experienced an increase in activity during the first half of March.

At the North end of the Greater Toronto Area, Georgina (N17) experienced a 39 per cent increase in sales during the first half of March, driven mainly by detached home transactions.The Agincourt area of Scarborough (E07) experienced a 12 per cent overall increase in sales compared to a year ago based primarily on strong condominium apartment sales.

Strong condominium apartment sales also allowed the Weston area in York (W04) to hold strong, with a 28 per cent overall increase compared to a year ago.

Toronto’s Downtown core (C01) has also experienced healthy sales activity so far this month, due to strong condominium apartment sales as well. Overall sales in this area were up 11 per cent compared to a year ago.

“Condominium apartments have weathered the winter best so far this year, with 733 sales to date but we remain confident that once the snow has melted, we will see a very active spring market overall,” said Ms. O’Neill. “The land transfer tax in Toronto concerns us and we continue to keep a watchful eye on how this tax plays out in the market.”

Pet Peeve of the Month

The answer is … drum roll please … Listing agents who can’t correctly differentiate between a bachelor pad and a 1-bedroom. 

Seriously, who are you trying to fool or is it simply incompetence?  What a time waster.  Okay rant over!

The Real Meaning of “Hot New Listings”

As you navigate through the hundreds of real estate websites on the Internet, you’ll encounter a captivating feature that’s usually bolded, blinking or screaming out at you.  Yes, it’s the important service that enables buyers to receive the latest and greatest listings daily.  “Hot New Listings”, “Automatic Daily Listings Notifier”, “Your Dream Home Notifier”, etc. … you get the picture.  The titles are different but it’s the same service being offered.  From here on in, I’ll refer to this empowering service as the “notifier”.

So what are the benefits of this to buyers? Well, here are some.

• Beat out your competition or at least level the playing field.  Listings on mls.ca are around 2 days old and often the best properties are sold within this time.  To receive these new listings, you’ll need to have a real estate agent send them to you or have your information placed in the notifier.  Being equipped with this allows you to beat out buyers on new listings and to be on a level playing field with the serious ones. 
• First to arrive means first to bargain for the lowest price.  Often, I’ve been able to bring my buyers to listings that just came to market that day.  They immediately placed their offer, negotiated, and won them below asking.  A few days afterwards, I would receive word from the listing agent on the number of inquiries on the sold property.  Fortunately, these buyers were too late and were given no chance to compete with us on the property.
• We all save time.  If the listing doesn’t interest you, we don’t go to see it.

There can’t be all advantages?!  You’re absolutely right.  The major disadvantage is that the notifier doesn’t send out listings in realtime.  All the listings that meet your criteria on that day are pulled from the system overnight and emailed to you.  Do you see the problem?

The problem is that you’re looking at yesterday’s listings.  Considering how competitive the market is right now, that’s several hours too much!  If you had seen that one special listing the day it came on the market, you would’ve had the opportunity to place an offer immediately or have a night’s rest to rationally consider whether to place an offer or not. 

There’s currently no system in place to allow for realtime listings, but what if you could receive realtime-like listings?  Sometimes as quickly as 5 minutes!  If you are a motivated buyer ready to move very quickly then this competitive advantage is something you need in this market.  If you’re interested, contact me at info@condolicious.com.

Sales Break 6,000 In Spite Of Winter Weather

While snow fell in almost record amounts, Toronto Real Estate Board Members recorded a respectable 6,015 sales during the month of February, TREB President Maureen O’Neill announced today.

“While sales were down over 2007 (11 per cent), they are in line with historical levels for the month, and they should increase substantially as the GTA eases into Spring.”

Prices rose in February, with the average climbing to $382,048, up four per cent from the $367,687 recorded in February of last year. Days-on-Market stood at 30 days, and the list-to-sale price ratio was 99 per cent.

Activity within the City of Toronto generally matched that of the broader GTA. Sales moderated 14 per cent in the city to 2,310 from last year’s figure of 2,697. Prices rose two per cent to $424,235.

Breaking down the total, 2,358 sales were reported in TREB’s 28 West districts and averaged $357,884; 1,017 sales were reported in the 14 Central districts and averaged $522,480; 1,185 sales were reported in the 23 North districts and averaged $409,155; and 1,455 sales were reported in TREB’s 21 East districts and averaged $300,975.

Download full report here.

Looking solely at the condo apartments in Downtown, it’s interesting to note the statistics on the year-over-year basis.  In C01, sales were down 19.7%, but average sales price increased 9.7%.  In C08, sales were down 7%, but average sales price rose a staggering 24.6%!  The average and median sales price in C08 are almost on par with C01.  What a difference a year makes!