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ontents May • June 2014 Volume 03 Issue 09
Tepid Spring Marks Start Of Home-Buying Season
4
Toronto Condo Land Prices Take A Breather
What Google Searches Reveal About Canada’s Housing Market
6
CMHC Cutting Back On What It Covers With Mortgage Default Insurance
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Canada Has Quietly Become One Of The Worlds Economic Safe Havens
10-11
Move Fast Bid Hard: The New Buyers’ Rules In Toronto’s Sellers’ Market
11-12
TanTeam Property Listings March 2014
Double Issue Market Watch Reports
18-21
This Magazine Is Brought To You By:
Designer: Kai Min • Cover: Leaf Blade (Tan’s Backyard Photo Collection) - Photography: Lina T. • Advertising: Kai Min | admin@tanteam.com
Royal LePage Meadowtowne Realty™ is a licensed franchise to Royal LePage and is Independently Owned and Operated. :KLOVW HYHU\ FDUH KDV EHHQ WDNHQ LQ SUHSDULQJ WKLV PDJD]LQH 7DQ̽JD]LQH DQG DOO YHQGRUV FRUSRUDWLRQV EXVLQHVV̵ DQG DIͤOOLDWHV JLYH QR ZDUUDQW\ IRU WKH LQIRUPDWLRQ FRQWDLQHG KHUHLQ 3RWHQWLDO SXUFKDVHUV VKDOO VDWLVI\ WKHPVHOYHV DV WR DOO PDWWHUV DQG VHHN LQGHSHQGHQW DGYLFH LI QHFHVVDU\ 7KH YLHZV H[SUHVVHG LQ WKH DUWLFOH V WKURXJKRXW 7DQJD]LQH DUH WKRVH RI WKH DXWKRU DQG GR QRW QHFHVVDULO\ UHSUHVHQW WKH YLHZV RI 7KH 7$1 7HDP DQG LWV DIͤOLDWHV 7KH LQIRUPDWLRQ FRQWDLQHG KHUHLQ GRHV QRW IRUP DQ\ SDUW RI DQ\ FRQWUDFW RIIHU RU UHSUHVHQWDWLRQ $GGLWLRQDOO\ WKLV PDJD]LQH LV QRW LQWHQGHG WR VROLFLW SURSHUWLHV FXUUHQWO\ FRQWUDFWHG DQG RU DOUHDG\ OLVWHG IRU VDOH
Tan.gazine news
Tepid Spring Marks Start Of
Home-Buying Season
Tara Perkins @ The Globe & Mail
May 06, 2014
Spring is crucial to the real estate business because it’s the time of year when a disproportionately large number of homes change hands
So far, this one has been tepid at best. The number of existing homes that sold in Canada in March was more than eight per cent below the average of the past 10 years, and 30 per cent below the peak sales level that was reached in May 2012. But David Stafford, managing director of real-estate secured lending at the Bank of Nova Scotia, suggests that when it comes to real estate, spring is finally on the way. “We’re seeing now what we saw last year in March,” he tells me. “I’m a believer that weather has a lot to do with this business. I was caught in a blizzard April 1 in Newfoundland. Nobody’s buying houses in a foot of snow. There’s flooding in various places across the country as the melt starts. But Vancouver came to life first in terms of the resale business in February. Calgary’s now hopping.
4 | tanteam.com
Ontario’s starting. We’ve seen the volumes start to climb, but we’re probably a month behind last year in terms of timing.” Some economists similarly suspect that unusually cold weather was responsible for sluggish winter sales, and that there will be a burst of life in the housing market as temperatures heat up.
Local real estate boards will start releasing some April sales data in the next week. But this year, we might have to wait until the May numbers are available to really determine how the all-important spring selling season is shaping up.
Tan.gazine news
Toronto Condo Land Prices Take A Breather Developers appear to be a little less eager to scoop up land in the Toronto area to build condos on. If that keeps up, it would be good news for those economists and market watchers who believe that too many condos are going up in the country’s most populous city (in the last year the central bank has highlighted the potential risks that the rising supply of condos poses to Canada’s housing market and broader economy). The price that developers paid for land to build condos on softened by 4 per cent in the first three months of this year, to $55 per square foot, according to RealNet Canada Inc. (the price was closer to $30 per square foot in 2005 and 2006). That’s not the first time the price for condo land has taken a little break from its general upward trajectory in recent years, it has done so frequently. But it comes as developers bid up the price of land for detached houses in the Toronto area to a record high of $796,000 per acre. The amount that developers pay for land to build on comprises a big portion of their costs, and so it has a very large impact on the prices that they ultimately charge for homes. These trends fit with the theory that prices of detached homes in the Toronto area will continue to rise, while condo prices will not keep pace.
Tara Perkins @ The Globe & Mail
May 07, 2014
At the start of 2013, the total amount of residential land (for both condos and houses) that developers bought dropped significantly, but it then climbed over the remainder of the last year. Not any more. The total volume of land that was bought during the first quarter of this year fell to $539million, the first sign of a retreat after last year’s rally. When you ask why less land was bought to build detached homes, people in the industry say it’s a lack of supply because of constraints such as the greenbelt. But when it comes to land for condos, there is still plenty available, and it has more to do with the appetite among developers to keep putting more cranes in the sky.
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Tan.gazine news
What Google Searches Reveal About Canada’s Housing Market
Want to know when the housing market will take off ? Ask Google. It looks like the number of times that Canadians search for the term “mortgages” in Google is a decent indicator of what home sales will do. And if that’s true, the spring might yet show a spike in the number of homes changing hands, followed by a leveling off. We used Google trends to track how many Canadians had searched the term mortgages between March 2012 and March 2014. We then overlaid that with the number of existing homes that were changing hands in each month over that time frame. And voila.
6 | tanteam.com
Tara Perkins @ The Globe & Mail
April 29, 2014
Google’s chief economist, Hal Varian, has said that, in hindsight, Google search terms shed light on the evolution of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis. Searches in the United States for terms such as “property management,” “home insurance,” and “real estate agencies” were correlated to the number of new homes that were selling as foreclosures started to rise and median house prices dropped. So, if the “mortgage” search is a good barometer for Canada, what does it predict? Searches for the term peaked on Thursday March 27, when they temporarily spiked, and levelled off shortly thereafter. That peak day, probably not coincidentally, was when Bank of Montreal announced that it was bringing back its 2.99 per cent five-year fixed mortgage rate (which prior to that had been 3.49 per cent). Last year Bank of Montreal introduced the 2.99 five-year rate in the first week of March, triggering a small spike up in searches for “mortgages,” but one that remained well below the searches that took place last month. Indeed, the number of searches for mortgages in late March of this year hit a high that hadn’t been seen since March 2012. Meanwhile, the number of homes that changed hands over the Multiple Listing Service last month was 30 per cent below the peak sales level reached in May 2012. Full national data for April won’t be available from the Canadian Real Estate Association until the middle of May. But don’t be surprised if it shows that the market picked up a bit.
Tan.gazine news
CMHC Cutting Back On What It Covers
With Mortgage Default Insurance
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., the Crown corporation that controls the vast majority of mortgage default insurance in the country, says it plans to get out of the market for second homes and is adding restrictions for selfemployed Canadians. Effective May 30, CMHC said it will discontinue insuring second homes and will require self-employed Canadians to have third party income income validation. The Crown corporation said the changes are being made as part of its review of its mortgage loan business. The organization has already said it is raising rates across the board May 1, a move that comes after the federal government last year appointed a new chair for CMHC and brought in a new chief executive. “CMHC helps Canadians meet their housing needs and contributes to the stability of the housing market and finance system” said Steven Mennill, senior
Garry Marr @ The Financial Post
April 26, 2014
vice-president, insurance, in a release. “As part of the review of its mortgage loan insurance business, CMHC is evaluating its products and services to ensure they are aligned with these objectives.” The agency said it’s the first set of changes resulting from the review of its operation. The Financial Post reported this month that Evan Siddall, a former investment banker brought in as CEO, has been asked about the possibility of a risk-based method of assessing mortgage default insurance. Sources say the new CEO has told people he doesn’t disagree with the principal of risk-based insurance. The changes announced Friday affect a small portion of the market. CMHC said its second home and self-employed without third party income validation business account for less than 3% of CMHC’s insured business volumes in units. “Given the limited use of these products, their discontinuation is not expected to have a material impact on the housing market,” the agency said in a release. CMHC first introduced the program for self employed people in 2007 in response to “industry competition” which at its peak saw
some U.S. players enter the market and encourage changes that created amortization lengths as long as 40 years. The government has since restricted loans to 25-year amortizations. The second home product was introduced in 2005 and applied when purchasing an owneroccupied second home anywhere in Canada CMHC said it will limit the availability of homeowner mortgage loan insurance to only one property (one to four units) per borrower/co-borrower at any given time. Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist with CIBC, said the announcement was not “a big surprise given the mandate of providing more stability. That might not be the end of it. We might see more coming from CMHC.” Finn Poschmann, vicepresident of research at the C.D. Howe Institute, said the requirement for validation seems reasonable “What is interesting is the question of whether the change will tend to shift risk away from CMHC and toward the private insurers. Whether that is the outcome will be determined by the private insurers’ responses,” he said, in an email.
tanteam.com | 7
Tan.gazine news
9 Things FSBO Companies Don’t Want Consumers To Know
Wes Hoover @ REM Online.com
April 23, 2014
time to assist the buyer. The buyer decides not to buy. The agent has worked for free and lost money on expenses. This is a common situation. 4. They can’t put your home on the MLS system.
1. They charge upfront (in most cases thousands). Agents don’t. When it comes down to it, listing with an agent shouldn’t cost you a cent. I know you probably read that a few times. Agents don’t charge upfront, we only charge when results are provided. This gives you an advantage in more than one way. On the other hand I have heard of individuals paying upwards of $2,000 upfront just for a sign and a spot on a website, only to end up having their house listed and sold by an agent. 2. They aren’t held to any code of ethics. Real estate agents across Canada are held to a strict code of ethics by CREA. They take the liability if something goes wrong. They are
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also held to higher standards in advertising and they have duties to you as a client. 3. Just because you’re a real estate professional does not mean you’re rich or overpaid. This has been the fuel for many slanderous ad campaigns released by popular for sale by owner websites over the years. The truth of the matter is, if it was that easy and they got paid a “small fortune” to sell a house, everyone would get into the business. Selling homes is hard work. Agents often find themselves working for free and hoping to receive a commission. Consider this situation: A buyer has his agent show him 30 houses over the course a month. The agent spends hours of his
This system was built by Realtors for Realtors. No one is allowed to list a property on it unless they have a license to trade in real estate. These websites will just refer you to an agent (how ironic), often one from the other side of the country, to put your home on the MLS and nothing else. In most cases the listing won’t even be on your local MLS board, making it sometimes hard to find. 5. They actually petition agents to sell their houses. After years of bashing the profession, certain for sale by owner websites are now calling on agents to come to their rescue, so they can take credit for selling homes. Tell me another business model where you ask your competition to do the work for you. This is really an admission of one thing – serious buyers go to an agent. Why? Because it will cost you nothing to buy through an agent. 6. They don’t have a real estate license.
Tan.gazine news This is something a lot of people do not realize. These so called “private sale” websites are just that. They are not licensed to trade in real estate or to give you real estate advice. They can’t even advise you on how to price your property because doing this would fall under an agency relationship and would be considered trading in real estate. That requires a license. These parameters are set in place to protect you, the consumer. 7. You pay them so you can do all the work. Since these companies are not licensed to trade in real estate they are not permitted to represent you in a real estate transaction. This means they can’t answer buyer inquiries for you, show your home, host open houses, handle paper work, mediate negotiations, advise you on market conditions…and
the list goes on and on. 8. Privates sales carry a stigma and uncertainties that make buyers uncomfortable. Ever gone to view a private sale as a buyer? Then you know it can be extremely uncomfortable and limiting to view someone’s house with them in it. It can be even more uncomfortable to negotiate with them. On top of all this, private sales beg the question, why didn’t they use an agent? Is there something wrong with the house? If they are trying to cut costs now, did they cut costs/corners with repairs?
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In the end, in today’s buyers’ markets you need an agent who will work tirelessly for you to get your home noticed above the thousands of others on the market. Just remember that limited service will always equal limited results and if it seems too good to be true, it is more times than not.
9. Agents don’t hate for sale by owners. These companies would have you believe that agents think FSBOs are ignorant. This isn’t the case. We
Manni Chauhan Site Planner B.Arch, M.Plng, M.B.A.
get why you would want to go this route. It can be done, but just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Like many DIY projects you are putting yourself at risk. In this case you are taking a risk with the biggest investment of your life. It will not be an easy process.
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tanteam.com | 9
Tan.gazine news
Canada Has Quietly Become One of the World’s Economic Safe Havens
As the world goes through its continuing economic turmoil, Canada has quietly become one of the world’s economic safe havens. A haven where international money is being parked for safety and ROI, a haven that is poised to provide the world what it needs for at least the next decade and probably a lot longer. However, most Canadians are the last to truly believe what we are sitting on. We have been so programmed over our history to look elsewhere for opportunity – always playing small. Well, 2011 – 2020 will be the exact wrong time to be doing so, in fact, we are in the first year of what will prove to be Canada’s Economic Decade – one of the best times in history to invest in this country. Unfortunately, due to a misdirected attitude that cheap equals good when investing in real estate, many Canadian investors have turned their eyes south as real estate prices in the United States continue to plummet. Investors with their eyes solely on the cheap price of U.S. real estate have flooded Canadian media with their tales of deals and steals. One can only hope that these investors understand the real life metrics involved in analyzing a market’s potential (currency risk, taxation, record jobless numbers, massive debt,
10 | tanteam.com
Don Campbell @ Canadian Real Estate Magazine.ca
April 16, 2014
property supply and demand) and have decided to take the ‘buy cheap’ risk anyway despite the reality. This is the equivalent of buying a $1,000 suit for $500 and ignoring the fact that the pants are torn in nine places. Replacement cost means absolutely nothing if you don’t have demand – however it is a wonderful way to sell properties. Investors looking for long-term sustainable wealth for themselves and their families need long-term sustainable economic fundamentals. Using housing stats and prices to predict a real estate market is like driving at full speed and only looking in your rearview mirror – you will crash. In our 21 years of analyzing and investing real estate markets, our research team has uncovered a predictable long-term pattern for real estate markets across the globe. In fact, the tool we’ve developed is now used by investors, media and investment firms to dramatically reduce the risks in their real estate portfolios. Titled The Momentum Formula, it shows the progression of an economy and how it will eventually impact the real estate market. You will note that housing stats are very late in the formula: meaning many commentators and speculators are at least 18+ months behind professional investors. This analysis tool states: No job growth = high risk real estate market. GDP growth leads to job growth. These jobs attract population growth, which leads to increased rental demand (12 months later). This demand drives rents up, pushing more to buy properties (18 months later), which eventually leads to property price increases. Right now, Canada is creating jobs by becoming the world’s safe supplier of four key commodities entering supply/ demand super-cycles (food, fuel,
Tan.gazine news
fertilizer and forestry). From this fact, investors will witness select Canadian real estate markets experiencing amazing sustainable growth over the next 10 years. For instance, Alberta, a province of only 3.5 million created more jobs in a month than the total jobs created in the whole U.S. (population over 311 million). Following the formula, this job growth will be reflected in the Alberta real estate market 18 – 24 months from now. The world’s economic outlook will continue to be cloudy for many years to come, risks will seem to be everywhere but so will long-term opportunities.
Move Fast, Bid Hard: The New Buyers’ Rules In Toronto’s Sellers’ Market Real estate agent Christopher Bibby was on a plane making its final descent into San Francisco last weekend when his clients in Toronto found the house they had to have. “We’ve been looking at houses all over the city for a year. The minute I leave, the perfect house comes through,” he says. “I don’t think we had even touched down and my phone powered up.” As the plane taxied to the gate, Mr. Bibby was already gearing up to make a bully offer on the house in Toronto’s west end. The sellers were holding off offers for a week, but the clients weren’t willing to follow the schedule. That’s the way of Toronto’s real estate market in the spring of 2014: competition for detached houses in prime neighbourhoods has escalated into fierce combat. “I find the freehold market to be extremely aggressive and buyers are willing to be very aggressive to get a house,” Mr. Bibby said. Many agents are advising their clients to remain on standby, ready to leave work or drop their plans to see a property as soon at it hits the market. In this case, Mr. Bibby couldn’t accompany them so he
No matter what occurs, the fact that jobs and population growth drive long-term demand will not change. The other fact that won’t change is that Canada has what the world needs to survive and it will be willing to pay for it. Although it will occur in cycles, what you have is an opportunity to be a professional investor (not speculator) who reduces risk and positions yourself for long-term results based not on today’s price, but on tomorrow’s demand.
Carolyn Ireland @ The Globe and Mail
April 14, 2014
sent the clients with his business card. “They got very excited. They said ‘if we wait it will be gone. ” While his fiancée waited in line at the rental car counter, Mr. Bibby launched his opening salvo. To add to the intensity, the couple was in California to make the arrangements for their wedding. During the day, Mr. Bibby put together an unconditional offer for more than $100,000 above the asking price around the $1-million mark. By the end of the day, the paper work was all signed and his buyers had their house. “In a way it’s almost exciting,” Mr. Bibby said. “[Buyers] have to fight back – there are no rules. We put on the pressure that we had to to get this done.” Mr. Bibby is philosophical about the timing and thankful that his fiancée is beyond understanding. She pretty much single-handedly chose the menu and selected the wines for their wedding celebration while Mr. Bibby kept disappearing to negotiate the deal. Meanwhile, he says, listings have started to increase for single-family houses in Toronto since the Ontario schools’ March break, but not nearly enough to meet the demand.
tanteam.com | 11
Tan.gazine news
-Continued from previous page
The Toronto Real Estate Board reports that sales in the Greater Toronto Area rose 7.2 per cent in March compared with the same month last year. Many agents think that the shortage of listings in the single-family tranche is dampening sales. Potential move-up buyers are reluctant to list their houses for sale because they are afraid they won’t be able to find another place to buy. That dynamic creates a vicious circle, with the number of listings remaining low. TREB president Dianne Usher points out that a shortage of listings spurs more competition for the few houses available and that in turn pushes up prices. According to TREB, the average selling price in the GTA hit $557,684 in March to mark an eight per cent jump from the same month last year. Mr. Bibby says a somewhat more balanced market means the eye-popping amounts over the asking price are slowly settling down. But he adds that many of his colleagues are exasperated with the bidding wars that are so common downtown – especially when listing agents set an asking price far below the market value of the house. In many cases 80 per cent of the offers won’t make it past the first round. As a result, many agents and buyers are rebelling. “When they say ‘offers Tuesday,’ you know it’s not going to last until Tuesday. You treat it as offers any time.” Mr. Bibby sells mainly condos and lofts in the downtown area. He hasn’t set an offer date on one of his own listings in years. “If we price it well the bidding war will happen organically.” At Capital Economics, economist David Madani takes the longer view and warns that a slowdown in sales of newlyconstructed homes may be part of a longterm correction that will dampen economic c growth this year and next in Canad Mr. Madani believes high prices and tighter household credit conditions principally explain the slowdown in new home sales, but he expects that softening investor sentiment is 12 | tanteam.com
also partly to blame – especially in what he considers an overbuilt new condo market. In Toronto’s condo segment Mr. Bibby finds that some units are selling within six to eight hours for the full asking price. Others take a week or two and buyers are able to negotiate. The most generic units sit for months. Mr. Bibby recently sold a unit in the Abbey Lane lofts on King Street East near Sherbourne Street. The boutique building has a low turnover and most of the occupants are owners. When the loft arrived on the market, Mr. Bibby received three offers the first day and the unit sold for $579,150, or $14,150 above the asking price of $565,000. In Liberty Village, a unit at 43 Hanna was listed with an asking price of $489,900 and sold for $500,000 after eight days on the market. The 840-square-foot unit is in the Toy Factory Lofts, which remains amongst the most popular amongst buyers. “The really interesting buildings in the smaller pockets – those buyers aren’t willing to compromise,” he said. “These unique properties are what get the buyers excited.” As the spring unfolds, Mr. Bibby says that enthusiastic buyers will likely continue to watch for houses and condos with character and singular features and pounce quickly when they find them. For his part, he will step out of the fray for a time. “There may be a rule during the wedding that my cell phone stays in the room.”
Tan.gazine news
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Tan.gazine news Greater Toronto REALTORS® Report April 2014 Mid-Month Resale Market Figures TORONTO, April 17, 2014 -- Toronto Real Estate Board President Dianne Usher announced that the spring market started off on a strong note in the Greater Toronto Area, with a 10.8 per cent year-over-year sales increase reported by Greater Toronto REALTORS® during the first two weeks of April. Sales through the TorontoMLS system over this period amounted to 4,541 units. “The robust increase in sales speaks to the fact that home ownership remains affordable in the GTA. The majority of home buyers purchase a home using a mortgage. A household earning the average income in the GTA can comfortably afford a mortgage on an average priced home,” said Ms. Usher. “While the persistent listings shortage in the GTA, coupled with strong demand, has led to a brisk pace of price growth, very low advertised mortgage rates have gone a long way to mitigating the effect of upward trending home prices,” continued Ms. Usher. The average selling price for April mid-month sales was $583,697, representing an
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annual increase of 11 per cent. This increase was due to both tight market conditions and a change in the mix of homes sold. At month-end, the MLS® HPI benchmark price will provide more insight into price growth attributable solely to the change in market conditions. “The overall average price increase was driven by single-detached, semi-detached and townhouse sales in the City of Toronto. There was a substantial increase in higher-end home sales this year compared to last,” said Jason Mercer, TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis. “This time last year, many would-be home buyers and sellers were still on the sidelines due to changes in federal mortgage lending guidelines, including those guideline changes that removed the government guarantee on mortgage insurance on home sales over one million dollars. However, many of these households have subsequently adjusted to the lending guideline changes and have recently purchased a home,” continued Mercer.
Tan.gazine news TorontoMLS Sales Up In February In April, the median price was $577,898 from the $524,868 recorded during April of 2013 Toronto, May 06, 2014
Toronto Real Estate Board President Dianne Usher announced that during April – the first full month of spring – Greater Toronto REALTORS® reported a 1.8 per cent year-over-year increase in sales through the TorontoMLS system. Total April 2014 sales amounted to 9,706, compared to 9,535 transactions in April 2013. “April marked the beginning of the spring market, during which time we generally see the highest monthly sales totals in a given year. Despite the persistent shortage of listings, a substantial number of GTA residents were able to come to terms on a home that met their needs. However, sales levels would have been higher, but for the lack of supply,” said Ms. Usher. “A number of factors underlie the constrained supply of listings. Studies and polling suggest that the additional upfront land transfer tax in the City of Toronto has prompted some households to stay put and renovate rather than list their home and move. In the broader GTA context, above-trend home sales in the years leading up to the recession have meant that many households who
purchased during this period simply aren’t ready to move again,” continued Ms. Usher. The average selling price for April 2014 sales was $577,898 – up by 10.1 per cent compared to the April 2013 average of $524,868. The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) Composite Benchmark was up by seven per cent year-over-year. The MLS® HPI strips away price fluctuations resulting from a change in the mix of home types sold from one period to the next. “Price growth for the GTA as a whole was driven by the single-detached, semi-detached and townhouse market segments in the City of Toronto. So far this year, there has been no relief on the listings front for these home types in many neighbourhoods in Toronto and surrounding regions. Until we see a marked and sustained increase in listings, we should expect to see the annual rate of price growth above the long-term norm,” said Jason Mercer, the Toronto Real Estate Board’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis.
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Tan.gazine news Greater Toronto REALTORS速 Report May 2014 Mid-Month Resale Market Figures November 18, 2013 -- Greater Toronto Area REALTORS速 reported 3,131 residential transactions through the TorontoMLS system during the first two weeks of November 2013. This result represented a 21 per cent year-over-year increase compared to 2,582 sales reported during the same timeframe in 2012. Over the same period, new listings were down by more than four per cent. "The results for mid-November indicate that GTA households remain comfortable with the costs of home ownership," said Toronto Real Estate Board President Dianne Usher. "If not for the persistent shortage of listings for most home types, we would likely be experiencing an even higher level of sales as more buyers would be able to make a deal on a home meeting their needs." The average selling price for November 2013 mid-month transactions was $538,708, representing an 11 per cent increase compared to $485,988 in 2012. "More buyers competing for a smaller number of listings has translated into an accelerating pace of price growth. This theme has been most prevalent in the low-rise market segment, including single-detached and semi-detached houses and townhomes. However, it is important to note that the condominium apartment market has also become tighter," said Jason Mercer, Senior Manager of MarketResale Analysis. Market Figures MayTREB's 2014 Mid-Month
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Tan.gazine news Price Growth Continues in February In February, the median price was $510,580 from the $500,249 recorded during February of 2012 Toronto, March 05, 2012
Greater Toronto Area (GTA) REALTORS® Toronto’s additional upfront land transfer tax reported 5,759 sales through the TorontoMLS arguably played a role in the slower pace of luxury system in February 2013 – a decline of 15 per cent detached home sales,” added Ms. Hannah. in comparison to February 2012. It should be noted The MLS® HPI Composite Benchmark that 2012 was a leap year with one extra day in price covering all major home types eliminates February. A 28 day year-over-year sales comparison fluctuations in price growth due to changes in sales resulted in a lesser decline of 10.5 per cent. mix. The Composite Benchmark price was up by 2014 Market Figures The average selling priceMay for February 2013Monthly more thanResale three per cent on a year-over-year basis in was $510,580 – up two per cent in comparison February. to February 2012. “We will undoubtedly experience some “The share of sales and dollar volume volatility in price growth for some market segments accounted for by luxury detached homes in the City in 2013. However, months of inventory in the of Toronto was lower this February compared to low-rise market segment will remain low, resulting in Check On June last. This contributed to a more modest pace of Kindly average price Back growth above three per20, cent 2014 for the overall average price growth for the GTA as a TREB market area this year. whole,” said Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) Our current average price forecast is President Ann Hannah. $515,000 for all home types combined in 2013,” said “Stricter mortgage lending guidelines that Jason Mercer, TREB’s Senior Manager of Market precluded government backed mortgages on homes Analysis. sold for over one million dollars and the City of
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Telephone: (416) 705-3239 Fax: (905) 824-2174
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