Crash In Toronto Home Sales

In May, the home sales decreased by 20.3 per cent from the year before dropping down to 10,196 with detached homes sales seeing more decline of 26.3 per cent. However, active listings experienced from the record low of last year a 42.9 per cent jump, despite access to condos being lower over the year and restricted inventory by notable criteria.

Larry Cerqua, the president of Toronto Real Estate Board said; “Home buyers definitely benefitted from a better supplied market in May, both in comparison to the same time last year and to the first four months of 2017. However, even with the robust increase in active listings, inventory levels remain low. At the end of May, we had less than two months of inventory. This is why we continued to see very strong annual rates of price growth, albeit lower than the peak growth rates earlier this year.”

Based on the benchmark index by TREB’s HPI which increased to 29 per cent, prices went up over the year. The whole area standard sale price rose by 14 per cent to $863,910. Concerning the effect of the Ontario Fair Housing Plan on sale in Toronto, the director of market analysis (Jason Mercer) for TREB stays vigilant about it.

Jason said; “The actual, or normalized, effect of the Ontario Fair Housing Plan remains to be seen. In the past, some housing policy changes have initially led to an overreaction on the part of homeowners and buyers, which later balanced out.” He added that the soar in active listings seems to be for homeowners making use of the increased prices, slowing down sales, possibly because of the anticipation that prices will continuously increase.

Benjamin Tal, the chief economist for CIBC said that the state of the market were being altered prior to the introduction of the Fair Housing Plan. Benjamin told a news reporting site that the change is good and that the rise in interest rate or recession that could see a crash is not to be expected. Mr. Tal mentioned; “I think that is exactly what the doctor prescribed – what we need is a slowdown that is not triggered by anything.”