The sales numbers of single family residential housing seem to hold steady in January 2011, with 4,337 transactions reported through the Toronto MLS system.
Getting over the hurdle
Despite being 13 per cent lower than the record breaking result 4,986 items from January 2010, industry experts are expecting a good year ahead. According to Bill Johnston, president of the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB), the GTA resale market started the year on a solid footing, although falling off the record pace experienced a year ago. He also said that home buyers in Toronto and surrounding areas are still benefiting from a great diversity in both housing types and different price levels of houses on the market.
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The average resale price of a residential property in GTA in January 2011 was $427,037; that is 4 per cent higher than the average price in January 2010, which was $409,058. The January 2011 median price of $360,000 jumped by 2.8 per cent from the January 2010 number of $350,000.
As TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis Jason Mercer said: “The average selling price is
expected to grow at a moderate pace in 2011. Growth rates in the three to five per cent range will be sustainable from an affordability perspective.”
The stable character of the Toronto real estate market resulted in predictions that were consistent with the industry experts’ opinions in early January, which suggested moderate price growth below five percent and bearable mortgage carrying conditions for an average earning GTA household.
