The results bring good tidings of what’s ahead for the market, observers say
New home sales in the Greater Toronto Area have exhibited a notable annual increase, the Building Industry and Land Development Association announced in its report (supplemented by Altus Group data) released earlier this week.
Overall activity involving the housing type went up by 14% year-over-year in January, up to a total of 1,362 transactions for new homes.
“This year is starting off on a positive note,” Altus Group executive vice president of data solutions Patricia Arsenault said. “The improvement in new home sales over last January is consistent with our outlook for somewhat higher annual sales in the GTA this year, following the drop in 2018.”
“It looks like the market is starting to return to typical levels after a particularly difficult year,” BILD president and CEO David Wilkes noted. “With the spring budget coming up, we are calling on the federal government to take steps to make it easier for first-time home buyers to get into the housing market.”
Read more: Toronto’s condo market sees notable slowdown in January
However, the picture isn’t as rosy when looking at single-family homes, as sales are hovering at 53% lower than the 10-year average for this asset class. New condo apartments fared considerably better, with sales being only 5% lower than the 10-year average.
Remaining inventory – which includes preconstruction projects, units currently under construction, and completed buildings – had a slight shrinkage, down to 15,530 units comprised of 10,364 condo apartment units and 5,166 single-family homes.
The single-family home benchmark price went down by 8.1% year-over-year in January, to settle at $1,130,046. On the other hand, the value of condo apartment units went up by 12.5% during the same period, to reach $803,638.
