Toronto Sees Spike In House Sales As Vancouver Market Cools

Toronto is experiencing a spike in the sale of single-family homes fetching at least $1-million while the Vancouver market slows down, a trend that is predicted to carry over into the fall.

The firm said Vancouver’s sale of single-family homes in the $1 million-plus range declined by 30 percent in July and by 65 percent in August, compared with the same months last year. Sales of Vancouver luxury homes worth over $4 million were off by 33 percent year-over-year in July and by 46 percent in August.

The Vancouver market appears to be finally going through a thicker shock after a three-year rally. The average price of detached properties sold within Vancouver’s city limits fell to $2.6-million in August, down 11.6 percent from July, while the average price within Toronto proper rose 0.3 percent to $1.21-million, according to data from real estate boards.Sotheby’s International Realty Canada said the introduction of the 15 per cent foreign buyer tax by the provincial government on Aug. 2 “injected uncertainty” into the market and is expected to moderate sales activity in the fall. B.C. brought in the foreign buyer tax to curb property speculation. It also gave the city the power to tax empty homes, a move that Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson on Wednesday said could result in some homeowners soon paying as much as an extra two per cent tax on their properties.

Sotheby’s International Realty Canada said the introduction of the 15 percent foreign buyers’ tax by the provincial government on Aug. 2 “injected uncertainty” into the market and is expected to moderate sales activity in the fall.B.C. brought in the foreign buyer tax to curb property speculation. It also gave the city the power to tax empty homes, a move that Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson on Wednesday said could result in some homeowners soon paying as much as an extra two per cent tax on their properties.

B.C. brought in the foreign buyers’ tax to curb property speculation. It also gave the city the power to tax empty homes, a move that Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said could result in some homeowners soon paying as much as an extra two percent tax on their properties.

Data released by the B.C. government show foreign buyers accounted for 10 percent of sales of all housing types in Metro Vancouver during a five-week period from June 10 to July 14. Toronto and Vancouver remain by far the country’s two most expensive places to buy houses.

Year-over-year sales of single-family homes worth more than $1 million in July and August were up by 83 percent in the Greater Toronto Area and by 55 percent in the city of Toronto. Sales of condos in that same price range also showed a bigger summer jump, rising 89 percent in the Greater Toronto Area and 86 percent within the city of Toronto.

Sotheby’s didn’t examine Greater Vancouver, but its data shows boom times in the Greater Toronto Area. There were 3,026 sales of single-family houses in the GTA in July and August, up 82.6 percent from the same two months in 2015.