Toronto continues to be the main driver of the province's housing market
The COVID-19 pandemic did not seem to get in the way of Ontario’s record pace of home sales growth this year, with the province showing a 23.4% annual increase in transactions last month, according to the Ontario Real Estate Association.
Residential sales activity conducted through the province’s MLS Systems totalled 19,740 transactions in November, a new record for the month. This closely mirrored the national home sales trend, which was up 32.1% from the levels seen a year ago.
Year-to-date, home sales went up by 6.7% to reach 212,977 transactions in the January-November stretch.
Toronto is still the major driver of the province’s housing sales, with 8,766 sales registered in November (up by 24.3% annually) by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board
“Home buyers continued to take advantage of very low borrowing costs in November, especially those looking to buy some form of single-family home,” said Lisa Patel, president of TRREB. “Competition between buyers for ground-oriented homes has been extremely strong in many neighbourhoods throughout the GTA, which has continued to support double-digit annual rates of price growth.”
The average selling price across the province increased by 17.8% annually, reaching $744,036 last month. Nationally, the average selling price grew by 13.8% to end up at $603,344.
The average price in Toronto rose by 13.3% year-over-year in November, hitting $955,615.
“Market conditions tightened in many single-family market segments in November, resulting in double-digit year-over-year increases in average selling prices for detached houses, semi-detached houses and townhouses,” the TRREB reported.
Ontario saw 22,306 new residential listings, up 21.4% from November 2019 readings. Active residential listings totalled 25,106 units, the lowest level on record for the month after falling by and 25.8% year-over-year.
