National home sales swoon in June

Toronto area’s 15.1% drop leads plunge

Home sales in June posted their largest monthly drop in seven years, driven by a plunge in the Greater Toronto market, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Monday, the latest evidence that a cooldown in the housing sector is taking hold.

Transactions last month were down 6.7 per cent compared with May on a national basis, the third consecutive monthly decline, with the Greater Toronto Area registering a 15.1-per-cent drop. With GTA figures excluded, national sales dropped five per cent.

Sales were down from the previous month in 70 per cent of all local markets measured by CREA, including the Lower Mainland in B.C., Montreal and Quebec City.

Home sales overall are down 14.1 per cent from the record level set in March.

“Changes to Ontario housing policy made in late April have clearly prompted many homebuyers in the Greater Golden Horseshoe region to take a step back and assess how the housing market absorbs the changes,” CREA chief economist Gregory Klump said in a statement.

The Ontario government moved earlier this year to cool the Toronto real estate market, bringing in more than a dozen measures, including a 15-percent tax on foreign buyers. Since then, sales in Canada’s largest city have slowed.

That has had a dramatic impact on the Toronto area as average prices are down 14.2 per cent since March — the fastest three-month decline in the history of the data back to 1988 — while the ratio of sales to new listings sits at its lowest level since 2009.

Compared with a year ago, national home sales in June were down 11.4 per cent. Sales fell most sharply in Regina, which was down 27.3 per cent.

The national average price for a home sold in June was $504,458, up 0.4 per cent from a year ago.

Excluding Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto, the national average price was $394,660, up 5.8 per cent.