Market conditions in the region have steadily tightened during the time frame
Last month, Toronto saw its largest home price growth in almost two years, a development which was spurred by ever-thinning supply.
Updated figures from the Toronto Real Estate Board showed that the benchmark housing price went up by 5.8% year-over-year in October, reaching $810,900. During the same time frame, new listings shrunk by 9.6%, and active listings declined by almost 19%.
The October benchmark ended up at less than $4,300 away from the peak established on the blistering months of mid-2017, and represented the strongest increase since December of that year.
The higher prices have not proven to be much of a deterrent to sales activity, either. Total residential transactions went up by 14% to 8,491 units, with most of the growth coming from the single-detached and townhouse segments.
“As market conditions in the GTA have steadily tightened throughout 2019, we have seen an acceleration in the annual rate of price growth,” TREB chief market analyst Jason Mercer said.
“We will likely see stronger price growth moving forward if sales growth continues to outpace listings growth, leading to more competition between home buyers.”
This accompanied a slight deceleration in the growth of the average surveyed rates for the region’s rental housing. As of Q3 2019, the figure for recently leased units and available units in the GTA was at $2,515 monthly, according to Urbanation.
This was 6.1% higher year-over-year, but “essentially unchanged” from the second quarter. Rent growth slowed down even though the vacancy rate is still hovering at a near-record low of 0.8% during the third quarter.
“The results indicate that rent inflation has begun to moderate after a strong escalation in recent years that brought rents up by about 30% compared to three years ago, suggesting that $2,500 per month may represent a near-term resistance level for GTA rental affordability,” Urbanation reported.
