March 2019 Market Review

This is interesting – the market was almost exactly the same in March, 2019 as it was in March, 2018! Check out these numbers:

Number of sales: 7,187 – just ONE fewer than March 2018.

Average sale price: $788,335, up just 0.5% over $784,514 recorded in 2018.

New listings: the biggest change; 13,996, down 5.1% from 14,753 last year.

Active listings: 15,576, down about 2.5% from 15,971 in 2018.

Condo sales: volume was down 14.1% in the 416, but the average sale price was up 2.3%, to $603,969.

One good sign for the market is that the number of active listings is up from 13,284 last month. Also, the average sale price last month was $780,397, so there’s been a bit of movement there, too. I think that those indicators point to a market that’s picking up steam for the spring. The spring usually generates more listings, which gives buyers more choices, thus drawing them into the game. Once that gets going, it usually rolls along until sometime in June, so we’re looking at two or three months of real activity. It’s a great time to buy and sell.

The fact that the market is essentially flat compared to last year contradicts the much-ballyhooed notion that Toronto is rapidly becoming un-affordable. In fact, prices are down significantly from that price spike we had in 2017. In March of that year, the average sale price was $915,126 and still rising. Since the correction that went through to about August of 2017, when the average sale price bottomed out at $732,292, prices haven’t gone up much – just about 7.7%, or a bit above inflation.

Of course, anybody in the market wants to see some price increases, and I expect that we’ll get back to the normal rate of 5-to-7% per year sometime in the near future. That’s both affordable for buyers, and it rewards home-owners for their investment.