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Toronto Real Estate Board President Michael Collins announced that Greater Toronto Area REALTORS® reported 8,491 residential sales through TREB’s MLS® System in October 2019. This result represented a 14 per cent increase compared to 7,448 sales reported in October 2018. GTA-wide, sales were up on a year-over-year basis for all major home types.

“A strong regional economy obviously fuels population growth. All of these new households need a place to live and many have the goal of purchasing a home. The problem is that the supply of available listings is actually dropping, resulting in tighter market conditions and accelerating price growth,” said Mr. Collins.

“During the recent federal election, some parties committed to more flexibility on the mortgage lending front, including the reintroduction of a 30-year amortization period for insured mortgages and more flexibility in the application of the OSFI mortgage stress test. These and other housing-related policy options should be brought forth in the new minority parliament,” continued Mr. Collins.

The trend of annual growth in sales versus annual decline in new listings continued in October 2019, with new listings down by 9.6 per cent compared to October 2018. The resulting tighter market conditions compared to a year ago resulted in positive annual rates of price growth across all major market segments, from a GTA-wide perspective.

“All levels of government affecting the GTA plus many international organizations have recognized that we continue to face a supply issue in our region for all types of housing. TREB looks forward to continuing its work with policy makers at all levels to bring more supply online, which will help ensure a sustainable pace of price and rent growth over the longer term,” said TREB CEO John Di Michele.

The MLS® Home Price Index Composite Benchmark was up by 5.8 per cent on a year- over-year basis in October 2019 – the strongest annual rate of growth since December 2017. The average selling price for all home types combined was up by 5.5 per cent to $852,142, compared to $807,538 in October 2018.

“As market conditions in the GTA have steadily tightened throughout 2019, we have seen an acceleration in the annual rate of price growth. While the current pace of price growth remains moderate, we will likely see stronger price growth moving forward if sales growth continues to outpace listings growth, leading to more competition between home buyers,” said Jason Mercer, TREB’s Chief Market Analyst.

Source: TREB