New Real Estate Listings Spike In Toronto

By Mary Edem June 23, 2017 News No Comments

Records have shown that there were 21,630 new listings in April in Greater Toronto on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, which was 33 per cent compared with April last year. This was represented an all-time record number of listings for any month since CREA began recording data, the association said. The listings spiked the same month the Ontario government imposed different measures to reduce and cool the overheated housing market in Greater Golden Horseshoe Area, a large part of Toronto.

It has been widely argues that most home buyers listed their houses before the new measures could reduce the house prices, which rose by more than 30 per cent in the GTA in March compared to last year.

Within the GTA, listings increased by 42 per cent in April compared to March in Durham region, east of Toronto including the cities of Oshawa and Pickering. Listings were up to 36 per cent in Mississauga region, west of Toronto, and as high as 45 per cent in the town of Orangeville, northwest of Toronto.

CREA said the Oakville-Milton area also set an all-time record for new listings, climbing 22 per cent in April compared with a year earlier, while listings climbed 23 per cent in Barrie, which was a monthly record on a non-seasonal basis.

Diana Petramala, an economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank said April sales figures were also affected by the federal government’s reforms to mortgage rules which was announced last October, and included a tougher criteria for the qualification of mortgages. Due to the setbacks in implementing the rules and in the preapproval process for getting a new mortgage, however, she said April was the month when the full impact of the rules really took effect.

Ms. Petramala said the results of both federal and provincial rule changes will likely be temporary as markets eventually adjust, but Toronto-Dominion Bank predicts higher interest rates by the end of 2018, and most of it will be in the form of higher mortgage rates. This should help ensure a more balanced pace of growth in house prices.