Average cost of detached home rises 27%

Standard properties now priced at $1.24 million, statistics show

The average price of a new detached house in the Toronto region has risen a staggering 27 per cent, or $258,000, in the last year to an average of $1.24 million, according to the latest statistics released by Altus Data Solutions for the Building and Land Development Association (BILD).

The climb in prices that has become a regular feature of the new and re-sale residential real estate scene comes as the supply of new builds hits a 16-year record low, according to Altus executive vice-president Patricia Arsenault.

“Total available inventory in November was the lowest November level we have seen since we first started to track this data in 2000,” she said in a Thursday release. The new home numbers come a day after RBC reported that the Toronto region has surpassed Vancouver as the least affordable home market in the country.

Among all categories of new lowrise homes — these include detached and semi-detached homes and townhouses — the average Toronto area price was approaching $1 million.

The November average of $977,890 is a 20-per-cent increase over the last year.

Only 13 per cent of new homes on the market at the end of November were lowrise homes, and, of the 2,036 homes available, only 789 were detached.

“The low inventory story is not only about lowrise,” Arsenault said.

“Highrise inventories have been on a downward path over the last three years,” she said in the news release.

The size of condos has risen this year to 820 sq. ft. on average from about 775 sq. ft. a year ago.

Sixty per cent of the 43,651 new homes sold in the region this year were highrise condos, according to the research.

The average sales price of those was $493,137.

While the number of highrise sales rose 24 per cent this year to date, lowrise home sales declined 9 per cent over the last 11 months.

BILD continued to attribute the declining supply and climbing prices to continued demand for traditional lowrise homes in the face of government land use policies designed to curb urban sprawl.

“The industry is building to government policy and building far fewer lowrise homes, especially detached single-family homes, but demand has not dropped with the supply, so prices continue to increase,” said BILD vice-president Michelle Noble.

The average Toronto-area lowrise home costs almost $1 million