May 2018 Market Review

The Toronto Real Estate Board reported 7,834 sales in May 2018, 22.2% fewer than May 2017. There were 19,022 new listings posted to the Board, 26.2% fewer than the same month last year. Despite fewer new listings, the total number of available listings increased by 13.2%, to 20,919. Last year there were 18,477 on the market in May, and in May 2016 it was just 12,931. As I’ve pointed out before, in the busy spring and fall markets we used to regularly have over 20,000 listings, but that number fell significantly in recent years. We are at what I’d consider to be a decent level of available homes for sale, and that should not be misinterpretted as anything close to over-supply. If anything, it is closer to balanced (rather than clearly favouring buyers or sellers).

On the price side, the average sale price was $805,320, down 6.6% from last May. By May 2017, the big run-up in prices had peaked, and was on its way back down. I’ve been saying that last year’s anomalous price spike was making it hard to figure out what’s happening this year, and that when we got to the middle of this year and started comparing to the post-spike months of 2017 we’d have a better picture, and I think we are getting there.

That price spike was fairly short-lived – it was a truly wild ride. In December, 2016 the average sale price was $730,472. By April, 2017, it had leapt up to $920,791, a roughly 26% increase – in just four months! Over the next few months it declined, hitting $732,292 in August, erasing the spike almost completely. Since then, the market has been more or less increasing (with a typical December lull), and is currently up about 10% since last August. That’s a solid rate of increase, and would indicate a fairly strong market.

Condo sales in the 416 were down 13.2%, but the average sale price was up by 6.5%, showing that the condo market is chugging along.

Over the next couple of months, the numbers will start to reflect the true state of the Toronto real estate market. Given that the May average price is already above the June 2017 average price (which was $793,915), I think we’ll see our first year-over-year increase when this month’s numbers are reported in a few weeks. Who wants to bet that the headlines are going to be all about Toronto’s “booming” real estate market! 😉