Royal Bank Toronto Golden Art
by Reto Fetz
The Greater Toronto Area real estate market continues with high sales this year, accompanied by rising prices, although the number of new and active listings has dropped considerably. According to the new Toronto Real Estate Board report that shows the statistics for May 2011, the housing market is tightening.
Getting over the hurdle
Sales rose by six per cent year-over-year, reaching 10,046 closed transactions in May 2011 compared to the 9,470 sales in May 2010. New listings suffered a blow, dropping by 15 per cent, from 18,940 in May 2010 to 16,078 a year later. This was not unexpected due to the 30 per cent year-over-year fall in new listings in April 2011. Active listings for single family dwellings plummeted, too, reaching 18,481 in May 2011 — a 27 per cent drop from the 25,414 active listings in the MLS a year earlier.
TREB’s president, Bill Johnston, thinks that good economic news and low borrowing rates led to strong sales so far this year, but that the dip in new listings naturally resulted in a much tighter housing market. His Senior Manager for Market Analysis, Jason Mercer, adds that the real estate market is currently a seller’s market and that the market should balance itself out later this year due to more pressure on new listings because of higher prices.
The average price of a single family residential property was $485,520 in May 2011, which was a nine per cent rise compared to the previous year. The median price was $400,000, up six per cent from the May 2010 number of $376,750. Single detached houses, which are generally more expensive than the rest of the market (with an average price of $505,000 in May 2011) and which make up the largest portions of residential real estate sales (49.7 per cent in May 2011) made up most of the overall price hike in May 2011.
