Summer 2018 Market Review

The summer months are usually relatively quiet in the Toronto real estate market. There are some obvious reasons for that – people change gears and shift their attention to fun activities, and lots of folks take every opportunity to get out of the city. That said, there are still plenty of sales happening, but at a less hectic pace. The other thing to keep in mind when looking at Summer 2018 is that, by this time last year, the big spike/correction excitement had settled down. As I mentioned in a previous post, we’ll get a better measure of what the market has been doing this year once we start comparing to the post-spike/correction months last year.

Let’s look at July, first: sales volume was up 18.6%, to 6,961 units. That’s probably a reflection of the state of things last July – which was basically shock about what had just happened: there were just 5,869 sales that month. For reference, July 2016 had 9,989 sales; July 2015 had 9,880 sales; and July 2014 had 9,198 sales. So, having just 5,869 in July of 2017 was quite low; the recovery this year looks sharp, but remains well below the previous few years.

The average sale price was $782,129. That’s a bit below the June average ($807,871), but is a normal, seasonal dip. More interestingly, it was up 4.8% from the July 2017 average price ($745,971). There were 13,868 new listings, a dip of 1.8%, but the total number of available listings was up 5.2%, to 19,725. If we get a few thousand more listings in the coming months (i.e. the ‘fall market’), we should have enough listings to make for a more balanced market.

July condo sales in the 416 were up 5.8%; the average price was $582,547, up 9.2%. In fact, the average sale price for all types (detached, semi-detached, townhouses and condos) went up, year-over-year.

August continued with the usual seasonal slowness, but still showed signs of improvement over last year. There were 6,839 sales, an 8.5% increase over August 2017. August of 2017 was similar to last July – in a bit of post spike/correction shock. There were just 6,306 last August. Again, for reference, August 2016 had 9,813 sales; August 2015 had 7,998; and August 2014 had 7,568 sales. Last year, August was well below the previous few years, so an impressive-seeming increase this year must be seen in the right light.

The average sale price was up 4.7% to $765,270. Again, a bit below the previous month but typical for the time of year. (Also, the mix of types of home matters more when the volume is relatively low.) There were 12,166 new listings, a 6% increase, and the total number of available listings was up 8.8%, to 17,864.

Condo sales volume slipped 5.6% in the 416 last month, but the average sale price actually increase 8.3%, possibly reflecting some extra tightness in that segment. With some luck, September listings will ease that pressure – but, still, condos remain a good buy for downtowners and investors.

Looking ahead to the rest of September, it’s reasonable to expect more new listings and a decent pace of sales. The average sale price in September 2017 was $775,546, which represented a significant bump from $730,969 the month prior. Again, that’s typical of the seasonal nature of the real estate market – things pick up quickly in September. I think that this month will be our first really good measure of what the market has been doing since the price spike/correction of 2017. My bet is that we’ll see strong price appreciation.

By the way, the Bank of Canada left their prime rate unchanged this week, so we might actually have a month or two without any outside interference in the market. That would be nice, as it would allow things to unfold naturally. 😉