Toronto's real estate market continues to rebound (and then some) from the impacts of COVID-19, which saw sales numbers plummet this spring as emergency lockdown orders spooked buyers and sellers alike.
Now that pandemic-mandated restrictions have lifted to the point where people can not only visit open houses, but are settling into a "new normal" that involves working from home, demand is skyrocketing — particularly for actual houses, with multiple rooms and space to grow, as opposed to condo units.
New data released this morning by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) shows that residential sales were up a whopping 40.3 per cent last month compared to August of 2019.
With 10,775 transactions recorded through MLS in the Greater Toronto Area, this marks a new record number of sales for the month of August.
"Sales were up on a year-over-year basis for all major home types, both in the City of Toronto and surrounding GTA regions," wrote TRREB in a release announcing its most-recent resale housing report on Thursday.
"It should be noted that the low-rise market segments, including detached and semi-detached houses and townhouses, were the drivers of sales growth. Condominium apartment sales were up on an annual basis for the second straight month but to a lesser degree."
🚨August TRREB stats are out. First-look thread here.
— Scott Ingram CPA, CA (@areacode416) September 3, 2020
You've got sales ⬆️40% and active listings only ⬆️5% so that's a lot tighter market and you're seeing prices ⬆️20% hitting another record GTA avg price: $951K. Gravity-schmavity. /1 pic.twitter.com/rMkZzqF460
New listings were also up quite a bit over the same period of time — 56.8 per cent, year-over-year — but pent-up demand still continued to overwhelm supply.
Prices thus continued to rise even higher than what we saw during the pandemic when listings and sales figures both dried up. As of August 2020, the overall average selling price for a home in the GTA was $951,404 — an increase of 20.1 per cent since August of 2019.
The average price for a detached home within the City of Toronto, specifically, was $1,505,100 in August with 1,099 of such properties sold.
"Generally speaking, market conditions remained very tight in the GTA resale market in August," says TRREB's Chief Market Analyst Jason Mercer.
"Competition between buyers was especially strong for low-rise home types, leading to robust annual rates of price growth."
Robust indeed — but it's not like Toronto isn't used to seeing home prices rise at a clip.
Fortunately for those of us who didn't buy a place 15 years ago, and will likely never afford homes of our own in the city now, rent prices continue to plummet in Toronto as supply increases and people flee the city in search of greener pastures (read: larger, cheaper, quieter places where working from home is a dream.)
by Lauren O'Neil via blogTO
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