GTA Home Prizes Downturn
Toronto Real Estate Board, in an internal mid-month statistics for June, shows that the average prices the GTA has downturn is approximately 6.4 per cent in nearly two weeks with sales almost 50 per cent from a year ago.
TREB, in a report to its members last Monday, estimated about $808,847 from June 1 to 14- a sharp drop from the average of $863,910 for May. The downturn came on top of a 6.2 per cent drop in prices from April to May.
The highest market the Greater Vancouver Area seems to be in April when it estimated an increase of $920,791, similarly when Ontario introduced its 16-point Fair Housing plan with a 15 per cent tax imposition of foreign home buyers in the Greater Golden Horseshoe which later progressed to rent controls “that limited annual rent increases to inflation, capped at 2.5 per cent, for all rentals across the province.” The Post.
Average prices have now declined to over 12 per cent from the top. Craig Alexander, chief economist of the Conference Board of Canada, said it might not be the measures themselves that have cooled the market as much as the perception of the impact.
“I don’t think that many buyers have been pushed out of the market, one of the biggest effects of tighter government regulations is that it creates a psychological response by potential sellers and potential buyers. It ends up like a wait and see approach. If everybody waits and sees what happens, you get a significant pullback.” Says the economist.
The new proposed tax on Vancouver was effective August 2016, and new reports has it that new indication show the market recovering. The British Columbia Real Estate Association stated an expectation of prices to reduce by an estimated 3.6 per cent this year in the Greater Vancouver Area, but rise by 4.2 per cent in 2018.
Alexander added that Toronto might be falling into the same part as that of Vancouver. “You can’t say the (decline in sales) is only permitted by applying a non-residents” he said. ‘The government hit the pause button on real estate. Changes to regulations, generally speaking, have an impact for about six months and after the market seems to figure out like a new normal and gets back to prior behavior.”
