Toronto housing craze cools with dip in sales, prices

The average price of a home sold in the Greater Toronto Area was $793,915 in June, an eight-percent decline from a month earlier, according to data released Thursday by the Toronto Real Estate Board.

Year over year, June average prices were still up 6.3 per cent from a year ago.

“There’s no doubt the market has changed,” said Christopher Alexander, regional director at Re/Max Ontario-Atlantic Canada.

“We are in a period of flux that often follows major government policy announcements pointed at the housing market,” said Tim Syrianos, president of the board, in a statement, referencing the province’s 16-point housing plan to cool the market in the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH).

Among key measures were a 15-per-cent non-resident speculation tax for the GGH and rent controls for the entire province.

TREB said there 7,974 sales through the Multiple Listing Service in June, down 37.3 per cent from a year ago. New listings rose to 19,614, up 15.9 per cent.

“Any time the government intervenes drastically, you see consumers just kind of wait it out and see how it’s going to take effect,” Alexander said.

“But the market fundamentals in Toronto are still really strong. Lot of demand, lot of immigration, low interest rates. It’s a great city to live in. All those things will start to take hold again, probably in midAugust,” he said.

“While this annual rate of growth was sizable, it represented a more moderate annual rate of growth compared to May 2017, when new listings were up by 48.9 per cent year-over-year,” TREB said it its release.

Syrianos said survey results commissioned by the board show many households are very interested in purchasing a home in the near future but some are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see the real impact of the Ontario Fair Housing Plan.

“We have existing homeowners who are listing their home because they feel price growth may have peaked,” he said.

“The end result has been a better supplied market and a moderating annual pace of price growth,” he said.

Financial Post

With files from Alexandra Posadzki and The Canadian Press gmarr@postmedia.com Twitter.com/dustywallet