The Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) released its figures for January recently, and overall they paint a very positive picture.
Sales are up 87% from a year before, with 4,986 homes exchanging hands in January 2010. This is comparison to January 2009, when only 2,670 sales were completed.
Image: David McDermott / Flickr
The president of the board, Tom Lebour, said, “The Greater Toronto Area home market has rebounded well from the lows in sales experienced at the beginning of 2009. Sales climbed back to healthy levels across the GTA because the cost of home ownership remained affordable in the Toronto area.”
And this is the caveat that we need to remember: January 2009 sales were historically low. January 2010 sales were only slightly greater than the average sales in the previous five Januarys.
Jason Mercer, TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis affirms this: “Expect strong annual growth rates for existing home sales and average price through the first quarter as we continue to make comparisons to the weak market conditions at the beginning of 2009.”
Detached homes remain the biggest segment of the market, with 46% of sales. Condominiums are next, with about 25%.
The average home price dropped slightly from December 2009, hitting $409,058. However, an indicator that home prices could start to rise again is in the average days on market. The length of time a house sits on the market unsold has been falling since the beginning of last year, and now sits at 29 days. This is particularly true in the red hot downtown condo market, where the average time an unsold unit sits on the market is 23 days.
What does this mean for you and your home?
Clearly, things are doing much better than they were a year ago. And there are more signs of a growing inventory crunch: many of Toronto’s developers put their plans on hold last January, and some of the delayed projects are only now being restarted. The result is that there will not be enough new developments to meet demand.
If you are looking to sell, you might want to wait a while, as pricing will likely increase in the short term. But if you are looking to buy, now is the time: prices will likely continue to rise from here.
Nelson Goulart
Broker of Record with Signature Service GMAC Real Estate
www.ssgmac.ca
