Greater Toronto Area (GTA) home sales showed no signs of slowing down with another record-breaking month this October. The latest data from the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) highlights that home sales increased 25% on a year-over-year (y-o-y) basis, with 10,563 transactions taking place during the month. Annual new listings growth kept pace with home sales increases across the GTA, rising 36% with 17,802 new listings hitting the market. The average home price also hit a new record across the GTA, growing 14% y-o-y and 1% month-over-month (m-o-m) to $968,318.
Jason Mercer, TRREB’s Chief Market Analyst expects strong housing demand to persist through the rest of 2020, noting that the “economic recovery in some sectors coupled with low borrowing costs has kept home purchases top-of-mind for many GTA residents. With this being said, we have not accounted for all of the pent-up demand that resulted from the spring downturn.”
While there was upward pressure on sales, new listings, and prices across the GTA as a whole, a closer look at specific markets and market segments revealed diverging trends.
Single Family Homes Remain Strong
In contrast to the condominium segment, particularly condo apartments, “competition between buyers of single-family homes, and particularly detached houses, remained strong last month and continued to support double-digit annual rates of price growth in many GTA neighborhoods,” said Patel.
The average price for detached properties crossed the $1.2M mark in October to $1,204,844 – a 15% increase y-o-y. Durham Region and Halton Region noted the strongest pace of annual price growth, with a 23% ($821,879) and 22% ($1,336,796) increase in the average home price respectively. In the City of Toronto, the average home price for detached properties grew 11% y-o-y to $1,470,857.
The Condo Market is Seeing Downward Trends
Across the Toronto Region as a whole, condo apartment sales grew a modest 2% y-o-y but there was a flood in new listings to the tune of a 103% increase y-o-y. In fact, condo-dense markets like the City of Toronto and Peel Region noted a steep divergence in sales and new listings: sales declined 9% y-o-y in the City of Toronto, but new listings increased by more than double (103%) to 6,193. In Peel Region, condo apartment sales declined 1% y-o-y, but new listings grew a whopping 118%.
