Hamilton area house sales remain at record highs

Toronto home sales dip compared to a year ago, but prices still climb

House sales in Hamilton and Burlington set a new high for April with the seventh monthly record in a row, according to the Realtors Association of Hamilton-Burlington.

The association reported 1,770 sales in April — 7.5 per cent higher than the same month last year.

The average residential sale price in Hamilton was $541,720, compared to $424,124 in April of last year. The average number of days these properties spent on the market was 14. In April 2016, it was 23.

In Toronto, home sales dipped in April compared to a year ago, a sign that Canada’s hottest housing market may be cooling down, though prices continued to climb at a dizzying pace.

The Toronto Real Estate Board reported Wednesday that the total number of transactions last month slipped 3.2 per cent from a year ago.

Meanwhile, the average price for all properties in the Greater Toronto Area in April rose by 24.5 per cent year-over-year to $920,791. In March, prices skyrocketed by 33.2 per cent.

The data came two weeks after the Ontario government announced more than a dozen measures aimed at cooling runaway house prices in the Toronto area, none of which have yet taken effect. Among them is a 15 per cent tax on non-resident speculators in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, a fastgrowing region that stretches from the Niagara Region to Peterborough.

Listings shot up 33.6 per cent from a year ago — the greatest yearover-year increase in at least seven years, TREB said.

Jason Mercer, TREB’s director of market analysis, said it is premature to say whether the influx of homeowners putting their properties up for sale is the result of soaring prices, which make it tempting to cash out, or of the province’s new measures.

“It’s too early to say whether it was just homebuyers reacting to the strong price growth that had been reported through the first quarter, or if there was some impact from the policy announcement,” Mercer said.

TREB released fresh data indicating that speculation and foreign ownership make up a small component of the city’s housing market.

Between 2008 and April 2017, the average share of foreign buyers of properties in the Greater Golden Horseshoe region was 2.3 per cent. TREB said its analysis was based on property assessments and land registry data in the province.