The market remains a premier choice for would-be buyers despite pandemic-related disruptions
New home sales in the Greater Toronto Area are off to a strong start in January as low inventory levels persist, according to Altus Group and the Building Industry and Land Development Association.
A total of 2,853 residential transactions were closed in the GTA last month, which were 18% higher on an annual basis and 47% above the region’s 10-year average. This level represented a 19-year high in number of new homes sold in the region in January, Altus said.
Condo activity particularly surged, with 2,274 sales representing a 113% advantage over the 10-year average for the asset class. Meanwhile, single-family home sales clocked in at 579 transactions, down 33% from the 10-year average.
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“January provided further evidence that, despite earlier pandemic-related disruptions, the City of Toronto remains an attractive location for new condo apartment investors and end user buyers,” said Edward Jegg, analytics team leader at Altus Group.
“Strong sales at the large number of recently opened City of Toronto projects boosted overall GTA new condo sales to their highest January ever. New single-family home sales, however, continued to be weak across the GTA, plagued by record low inventory,” Jegg explained.
Remaining inventory for condos stood at 8,333 units, representing only 2.9 months of supply based on average sales for the past 12 months. Remaining inventory for single-family homes ended up at a record low of 550 units, far below the monthly average of 15,000 units for the 2000-2009 period, Altus said.
“One needs to look no further than the strong demand and our weakening inventory numbers to know we have a housing supply crisis in the GTA,” said Justin Sherwood, senior vice president of communications and stakeholder relations at BILD.
The benchmark price for new condo apartments was around $1.151 million in January (up 12.7% annually), while the benchmark new single-family homes was around $1.771 million (up 30%).
