Home-sales slump in the GTA continues into June, numbers show
‘Frenzy’ slows, especially in 905, and realtors say they’re not expecting a quick turnaround
Toronto region housing prices are continuing to decline with another monthto-month drop looking likely at the end of June.
The average price of a re-sale home was down in the first part of June to $808,847 — about $57,000 less than May’s average, according to mid-month figures from the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB).
Prices still rose 6.7 per cent year over year, however.
The TREB statistics gathered from June 1 to June 14, showed a 56.2-per-cent drop in the number of sales across the region, with the sharpest declines in detached houses and the 905-area commu- nities around Toronto.
Condo sales saw a slightly less dramatic decline with 39.2 per cent fewer transactions and a 25.5-per-cent year-overyear price appreciation. The average sale price of a condo in the first part of June, $527,749, was $3,910 lower than the May month-end average.
The mid-month figures aren’t considered an “official” release and TREB does not comment on them. They do not include a breakdown by municipality or a benchmark indicator.
But Toronto-area realtors told the Star they’re not expecting a turnaround before TREB’s June month-end report.
The end of June is traditionally slow on sales, but the busiest time for transaction closings, said Royal LePage Your Community realtor Shawn Zigelstein, who specializes in the York Region market.
“Volume is down. We expected that and we did see another increase in listings.” SHAWN ZIGELSTEIN REALTOR
That market has been particularly hard hit by an influx of supply and a drop in sales.
“Volume is down. We expected that and we did see another increase in listings,” he said.
“What we’re going to see is people who are serious and want to sell their house, they’re going to stay on the market and they’re still going to make more money than they would have last year but they’re not going to get into that frenzy that we were seeing earlier in the year,” he said.
Toronto-area home prices grew 33 per cent month over month in March.
But realtors say the market was already cooling when the Ontario government announced its Fair Housing policy, including a foreign buyers tax, in April.
The recent declines are less troubling than the months-long doubledigit increases of earlier in the year, said Enzo Ceniti of TheRedPin.
“There was an absolute critical lack
“There’s less people who are trying to catch that very bananas wave that was going on the last few months.” ENZO CENITI THEREDPIN.COM
of inventory that we would see in the marketplace and that led to wild, alltime-high prices,” he said.
Ceniti expects the Toronto-area market is following Vancouver, which also dropped off its red-hot sales following the introduction of a foreign-buyers tax. But it has rebounded. The same thing happened after the 2008 U.S. housing crisis, he said.
“It provides for a buyer this window because people who are selling now, they probably need to sell. There’s less people who are trying to catch that very bananas wave that was going on the last few months where people were just cashing in,” Ceniti said.
Those people are realizing they might not be able to do that now, so they’re taking their homes off the market or they are lowering their prices accordingly, he said.
But John Pasalis, president of Realosophy, tracks the market weekly. He said his agents are telling consumers to be careful about where they buy.
A balanced real-estate market will have four to six months of inventory where prices won’t move much either way.
Alot of neighbourhoods have one to three months of supply — still a seller’s market. But in the 905 communities, there are neighbourhoods with seven and eight months of inventory.
Places that have seen rapid, steep price rises and higher rates of speculation are at greatest risk.
“The higher you rise the faster you fall,” he said. “There are some neighbourhoods you should definitely not be buying in,” Pasalis said.
“They are likely to see significant declines in house prices.”