Toronto housing prices down slightly in May, 2017 but tight supply keeps prices up

Toronto region home prices dipped slightly from April to May, 2017 — down $55,604 on average — but were still 15 per cent of the members higher than May 2016, as the supplying of resale house and condo listings rose 43 per cent of the members time over year.

The average home cost last-place month was $863,910 — $111,810 more than last May, 2016 when the homes and condos averaged $752,100 — according to month-end statistics from the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB).

That is a 29 -per-cent gain on the board’s benchmark price index.

The benchmark figure takes into account houses of similar characteristics such as size, locating and the age of the property. The real estate industry considers it a more accurate gauge because it isn’t skewed by a specific house category or cost range.

Image 3 Toronto Real Estate Prices, May, 2017 - Screenshot

Consumers may feel spoiled for selection given the increase over the historic low number of listings lately, but prices remain strong because supply are relatively tight, said real estate board President Larry Cerqua.

“Homebuyers definitely benefited from a better-supplied marketplace in May, 2016 both in comparison to the same month in 2016 and to the first four months of 2017 ,” he said.

“Nonetheless, even with the robust increase in active listings, inventory remains low. At the end of May, 2017, we had less than two months of listing inventory. This is why we continued to see very strong annual rates of price growing, albeit lower than the pinnacle growth rates earlier this year,” Cerqua said..

There were 18,477 listings in May, 2017 compared with 12,931 in the comparable month last year. In Toronto alone, there used to be 1,611 more houses on the market than in April, although both months are typically considered among the busiest for listings.

It is the third consecutive month that indices have increased, although May, 2017 showed a significantly higher number of homes hitting the market.

It’s not clear how much of the change reflects the results of the province’s housing policy announcement on April 20, 2017 designed to cool the Toronto area’s overactive home prices, TREB officials said.

In Vancouver, where marketplace cooling measures were introduced last-place summer, house listings returned to near-record levels in May, 2017 after several chilly months. Home sales rose 22.8 per cent of the members in comparison with the previous month and 23.7 per cent above the 10 -year average for May. The benchmark price there was up virtually 9 per cent from May 2016.

“We visualized growth in the first four months( of 2017) that would typically take a full time ,” he said

Historically, sellers would look at springtime as a great opportunity to sell and the province’s April, 2017 announcement was well timed and probably forced some sellers into action, he said.

The province’s cooling plan, including a foreign purchaser taxation and expanded rent controls, started a discussion, Storey said.

“Whether or not something’s actually changing, you end up with people talking about it and things are going to change,” he said.

TREB numbers proved the boost in housing options didn’t increase the number of transactions in the Toronto region in May. Listings of detached houses were down about 26 per cent in the city and across the region. Condo listings likewise dropped 6.4 per cent time over time in May, 2017.

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Source: Toronto Star

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