Downtown Toronto by Alex Pierre
The year 2014 up to date is being termed a robust year for the real estate market in Toronto. In fact, it's the second largest year in terms of real estate sales to date. This is largely due to very friendly lending rates, which came back down and helped with the decision process of many buyers. Mortgage rates are a big factor because a 1% change in the rate can change affordability of the same property by 10% if the person is purchasing at the maximum that they can qualify for.
Looking at the real estate statistics reported by the Toronto Real Estate Board, we can see that the number of condominium properties sold (1,199) in November 2014 was up by 11.2 per cent year over year, which contrasts with the sales of detached homes (904) which went down slightly by 0.3 per cent year over year. The effect of limited inventory and rising prices is profound here, as is illustrated by the fact that in the same time, the average price of a detached home went up year-over-year by 9.4 per cent to a whooping $935,122, while the condo went up only by 2.0 per cent to $394,225.
Larger increases in the 905 area prices, especially in the condo region are due to the fact that the buyer gets more square footage for the same dollar amount in comparison to e.g. Downtown Toronto, making the sprawl highly desirable, especially for first-time home buyers and families.
December is already expected to perform equally well year over year in terms of property sales and price growth. The low levels of active listings and a shortage in new inventory coming to the market indicates that sellers looking to list their properties in early 2015 will have a very favourable position.
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